Facilitators
About 30 professional SND volunteers are selected each year to assist with the annual Best of Newspaper Design™ Creative Competition judging in February at Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y
Facilitators assist in teams helping judges do their work. They place and remove entries on tables, sort voting chips, place and remove voting cups, take winning entries to the input area, input data, proof-read data and generally help facilitate the process.
SND provides meals, but facilitators pay for their travel and lodging, estimated at $107 per night plus tax. Many publications cover this cost for employees because the facilitating experience yields valuable information, insights and ideas.
Anyone interested in serving as a facilitator should send an e-mail beginning at 12.a.m. East Coast Time July 1, 2008, to Competition Director Marshall Matlock. Slots for the following February are filled first come, first served. Normally, by the end of the day July 1, more than enough volunteers have sent e-mails. Please indicate whether you read or speak a language in addition to English.
For the upcoming judging, facilitators must arrive in Syracuse no later than 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, 2009. They are free to leave any time Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009. Facilitators must commit to remaining at the judging for the full time. It's imperative that anyone who indicates he or she wishes to help at the judging have that time off from work.
Please provide the following information in the e-mail you send: name, work title, publication or affiliate, preferred e-mail address, city, state or country, languages that you read or speak other than English, and number of times, if any, you have assisted with past judgings.
Facilitators must be SND members in good standing when they volunteer and at the time of the judging.
Everyone who plans to assist at the judging, with the exception of judges, must send Marshall Matlock an e-mail as early as possibly July 1.
(Photos by Mark Dolan)