I hope that everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day, whether it was spent with a special friend, a loved one or all by your special self.

We here at ONA USFSP certainly feel the love.

Our own Cristian Saldivar and Tommy Hilliard took on the creation of a Valentine’s Day podcast for Connect.

You can see that here.

Professor Casey Frechette and Poynter’s Ren LaForme worked with interested students on the ins and outs of capturing audio.

We had special guests visiting from the University of Tampa and their nascent ONA chapter.

Our vice president, Amanda Drapiewski, is collaborating with the Student Environmental Awareness Society (SEAS).

SEAS is looking for volunteers to help with shooting and editing a recycling project for fall orientation. As of right now, they are shooting every Monday at 4 p.m. in the Student Life Center. For more info, please contact Amanda at adrapiewski@mail.usf.edu.

Student leaders Emily Bowers and Tommy Hilliard are lining up guest speakers to help students to meet working communications professionals, to learn more about the communications professions and to gain valuable skills.

We’re gearing up to represent at the American Copy Editor Society annual conference in Chicago where we will be running the digital newsroom.

(Wish us luck, and plan on following our coverage from home. It should be at least as interesting as curling, and you know that you watched too much of that recently.)

We appreciate your engagement with our newsletter, and we love seeing you at meetings. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or pure praise, you can share the love by replying to this newsletter, emailing us at ONAUSFSP@gmail.com or through social media on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Warmest regards,
Lorien Mattiacci
President, ONA USFSP
ONAUSFSP@gmail.com

I hope that you have had another great week filled with joy, love and learning.

Speaking of love and learning, our own Cristian Saldivar is tackling his love for storytelling and learning by creating a Valentine’s Day audio story about love for Connect.

You can participate with your own love story by submitting either a clean audio recording or a written version that can be read and recorded by someone else on your behalf. Email your story (audio or written) to Cristian: csaldivar@mail.usf.edu.

Not sure how to get a clean audio recording? Come to this week’s meeting and learn.

This week’s meeting (Wednesday, 1/31, 5-5:45 p.m., lobby off of PRW 107) will be all about audio. Our esteemed adviser, Dr. Casey Frechette, will make sure that attendees leave with practical, audio storytelling knowledge. (I’m not sure if he’s leading the meeting himself or bringing in a special guest. It’s a surprise.)

Last week’s guest speaker Kenny Owen, the digital content producer for WWSB (the suncoast ABC affiliate), taught us that we need to be jacks-of-all-trades. Videographers and podcasters (and even broadcasters) need strong audio knowledge, and audio knowledge also helps photographers and writers to expand their marketable skill sets. The more we can offer, the more jobs that become available to us. You can see Kenny’s work here.

This week, we would also like to share work by Amanda Drapiewski, a faithful member and our vice president.

If you ever have anything that you would like for us to share, it can be any form of media that you created, just send us the link, and we’ll put it in here. It can be professional work, academic or even personal projects. We want to see what you’re doing and to help you to get it out there.

We hope to see you on Wednesday, but if not, you can keep up with us by following us on Twitter or FB, signing up for this newsletter, joining our Slack general channel or emailing us at ONAUSFSP@gmail.com.

Yours in joy, love and learning,
Lorien Mattiacci
President, ONA USFSP

In 2017,  we accomplished, learned, grew and had great fun in the process, and much has already happened for ONA USFSP this year. We’re all so glad that you’re on this journey with us!

Leadership

Skyla Luckey graduated with her master’s degree this past December (congratulations!), so we’ve had some board changes. Amanda Drapiewski will succeed Skyla as our vice president. Graham Colton is staying on as treasurer, and Martha Rhine has accepted a position as our secretary. I’m staying on as president for one final semester. I finally took my comps…so expect to hear too much about my research project.

Tommy Hilliard continues to host the video storytelling group, and Emily Bowers has stepped up to help out with the photography group. In fact, Emily and some board members will be meeting with Connect staff soon in hopes of connecting. (See what I did there?)

Meetings

We’re consolidating all of our meetings into one day and time: Wednesdays from 5-5:45 p.m. in the lobby outside PRW 107. We’ll still bring in professionals to speak and have seminars on topics related to storytelling, videography, photography, podcasting, etc. We also want to bring you opportunities from school and other media outlets to improve your skills, get your work out there and build your portfolio.

This Wednesday, Kenneth Owen will be joining us for a conversation about his amazing communications job: what he gets to do, how much he loves it, how he got it and what we can do to be like him when we grow up.

Contact

With the help and leadership of Amanda, we got this newsletter up and running. Martha will be taking that over. It will be coming from ONAUSFSP@gmail.com from now on, no matter who heads it up, so please set your spam filters accordingly.

Skyla headed up our social media efforts, and various board members will be working together to grow our presence on Facebook and Twitter. Please love us! We’ll love you back and share your work.

Bragging

Our success in the digital newsroom for the American Copy Editors Society (ACES) in 2017 has opened the door for us to go to Chicago in April to do it again (only better because that’s how we roll). Students and recent graduates will get to show off their mad skillz and learn more about 360 video, video storytelling, podcasting, broadcasting, livestreaming, social media and writing for digital in a fun, fast-paced and professional environment. It’s going to be AWESOME!

And speaking of awesome…

We are including samples of our work below. Please support our ONA USFSP community (and learn and find opportunities) by looking at what we’ve done. If you have work to show off, all you have to do is email us the link at ONAUSFSP@gmail.com. It does not have to have been published; it can be from school or a personal project as well.

Journalism and Digital Communications major celebration video

Papa and his Puppies (a personal piece to help my dad to stay in his apartment)

With warmest regards,

Lorien Mattiacci

President, ONA USFSP

P.S. Need more ONA USFSP? Contact us, and we’ll invite you into our Slack general channel. Many newsrooms use Slack, so that’s good experience. More importantly, really funny stuff happens on that channel on a fairly regular basis. And you’re missing out.