Tom & the tornado

In all my years as a reporter covering weather-related breaking news, I've never actually witnessed a tornado. I did this day! I used Storify to chronicle the experience.

https://storify.com/CSIA/a-tornado-just-north-of-the-csia-tech-center

Outreach to America's chimney sweeps

In my time as communications and marketing director of the Chimney Safety Institute of America, the marketing department (in concert with our education director and executive director) really looked forward to strengthening the quality and quantity of communications with the people who have invested time and energy into obtaining the various credentials that our educational institute offers to sweeps.

In winter 2014, we started beefing up our monthly 4-page insert in the edition of Sweeping magazine, a publication put out by the National Chimney Sweep Guild.



Some editions to view: 
May 2014: Highlight - New CSIA President Mark A. Stoner establishes ambitious goal to raise CCS totals.
June 2014: Highlight -CSIA board OKs new memorandum of understanding with NADCA on C-DET certification.
July 2014: Highlight -A new class on the chimney fire whitepaper, plus health and safety.
August 2014: Highlight - Our gas hearth appliance training class.

In June 2014, we started a new monthly e-mail to our C-DET and CCS credential holders, using an old name I found for print e-newsletters: CSIAccess. This was followed up by a July 2014 email. Open rates for these were 39.8 percent, three times the industry average.

I believe nothing is new, but what is old can be new again.