Tuesday, November 27, 2007

39 Meetup Members and Counting!

Yay! I am so excited that so many wonderful mommies are interested in being a part of our "Other Mothers" meetup and San Diego Holistic Moms Network Chapter. Today Andrea J. wrote to the San Diego Natural Families yahoo group to let them know we are just starting up and get some feedback to help create our chapter. I can't wait to have our kickoff meeting in January!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Publicity plan ideas

Targeted marketing letter to every holistic practitioner in our area. Chiropractors, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, nutritionists, yoga teachers and studios, naturopaths, acupuncturists, health food stores, cloth diaper services, etc. Sources: phonebook, online yellow pages, various associations of holistic practitioners. The letter will ask them to form a partnership with us – as a sponsor, resource alliance member and/or member. In the letter, part of the partnership includes them talking us up to their clients, putting our literature in their office, etc.

We'll also ask for raffle donations for the Open House launch of our chapter in the letter-

All Leaders & Members: Post flyers as many places as possible. Starbucks, local coffee houses, and Jamba Juice all have free community boards. Other ideas: rock climbing gym, Music Together locations, Whole Foods, local health food stores, and everywhere else we can think of.

Place Community/Bulletin Board ads (free of charge) in the local papers-

Attend farmers markets-

Press releases-

Post announcements on all the local Yahoo groups we are a part of (vaccination discussion group, the local homeschool group, LLL breastfeeding group, AP groups, local MOMS club, local organic food co-ops) plus Mothering.com

Make announcements at local LLL meetings-

Table at the local Babies R Us Healthy Baby fair-

Monday, November 12, 2007

Today's happenings

My co-Leaders are back, YAY! I asked for their input and help with the Meetup group. I'm trying to make the distinction between the meetup group and the HMN Chapter as clear as possible. I'm making them both organizers so that they will have the ability to edit and add to the decriptions and stuff. So far it's been pretty successful as advertising! I'm hoping it will allow potential members to get excited about what we're trying to create and that way they can get involved in the creation of the chapter. I got so excited about the prospect of creating polls to instantly see what was important to everyone, I hope they use them! I'm sure we'll get some Chapter members from this inital group.Today I went to the Henry's between North Park & Hillcrest on Park St talked to the manager about posting a flyer. He said they just got bought out by Smart N Final and would have to get approval for any postings, so I left a flyer for them to fax to the corporate office. I also left a flyer and brochure at the Best Start Birth center to see if I could approve them to leave there in the waiting room.We are up to 20 meetup members, and 3 polls. Whew, I'm bushed! =)

Sunday, November 11, 2007

WoW! We're rolling!

Well, I'm really happy I finished creating the Meetup Group for Holistic Moms Network. What a way to find othere moms who are interested in the same stuff I am! We have 15 members that I have approved membership for and are growing hourly. I haven't even posted the meetup yet on the relevant message boards I belong to, and my co-Leaders are still on vacation so they haven't even joined yet! We can "officially" become a chapter once we have 5 paid members.

Yesterday I went and scouted some possible meeting sites. Today I walked to the closest organic market (about 7 blocks away) and left a flyer and some brochures for thier info rack. I also found a new magazine to submit a press release to. =)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Five hours and 3 feedings later...

oooh, my neck! But, i'm really happy to say the Meetup group is coming along, AND I sent 27 personal invitations to other mommies in the san diego area who were interested in attachment parenting. I posted a lot of interesting files and inputted info that will hopefully help moms learn a bit about HMN. Itried going to sleep every time my little nursling woke up to feed, but my mind whirred and I just couldn't do it. I'll try again soon, but now back to work! =)

Friday, November 9, 2007

Meetup

Yay! I created a Meetup to help create our group! I hope people find it useful and it helps us get organized and off the ground! Or is it hit the ground running? LOL =)

Babies-r-us? Planned Parenthood?

Today I went to the closest Babies-R-Us to me and left a flyer, brochure and card with my contact info to see if they could be okayed by corporate to be left out with the other resources for moms. I also found some websites to submit press releases to. As we drove on the 8 west I saw a large Planned Parenthood sign and wondered if that would be a good place to post a flyer. Went to Pacific Beach and ate at Soupplantation, they had a flyer on raising money for your non-profit group by eating there as a group, and they had organic green tea which made me smile.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Tasks completed today!

Today I put my bumper sticker on my car, posted flyers in my building on the community bulletin board, talked with one mommy in person about HMN and posted an ad on craigslist in the groups and volunteer sections. I also downloaded the Chapter website setup form to work on. =)

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

First Meeting

Yesterday the Andreas met in person for the first time, along with babies Celia and Soussan. We had a nice lunch at Fred's and went walking through Old Town. We chatted a bit about ourselves and mommy stuff, and our goals and ideas for the San Diego HMN group we are putting together.
  • We decided to find a meeting place that is nearby (we are in Downtown and Clairemont), a church perhaps, that has room for 25-30 people minimum.
  • We also decided to choose the topics for our first 3-6 months of meetings to get people excited about joining HMN.
  • We decided to meet once a week to brainstorm and work on the chapter at Andrea J's house

Andrea T. just got her leadership manual from HMN and is soooo terribly excited to start reading it! I also got a bumper sticker, business cards, flyers and brochures. Yippppeee!

Monday, November 5, 2007

HMN Testimonials - Andrea J.

This is re-posted from Andrea J.'s introduction on the San Diego Holistic Moms Network Yahoo group.... Andrea is one of the co-Leaders forming the group!

"Hi everyone! I moved to San Diego 3 months ago from Newton, NJ where
I was a part of the Warren County HMN Chapter (I think it's the
biggest). I had every intent of finding out about starting my own
chapter here (because I couldn't believe it didn't exist already!)
but wanted to get out and meet people and make some holistic
connections first. I saw a post on the national loop from Andrea
Tannouri who mentioned she lived in San Diego. I replied to her
offline and she mentioned that she was beginning the process of
starting a HMN chapter here. I told her I would be thrilled to help
her and she said she would love to have my help as well. The Chapter
I belonged to had THREE awesome co-leaders and I saw how the division
of labor as well as the different personalities helped the chapter to
thrive.

"I love HMN so much and even told a friend of mine about it in Los
Angeles and she is now very active on the National Loop as well as in
her chapter. I joined HMN because I had recently moved to Sussex
County, NJ, knew no one and was in my first trimester with my first
baby. I was so scared to attend a meeting because I was barely
showing and just didn't feel like a legitimate mother yet! The Warren
Chapter became such a source of strength, inspiration, and social
outlet for me. I didn't mind making the 40 minute drive to the
meetings with a crying newborn in the backseat because I really
needed them.

"I think that my favorite thing about HMN is that it truly is non
judgemental and all the moms that belonged to our chapter ran the
whole spectrum of "holistic." We had the true granloas, and we also
had moms who were very much mainstream but interested in learning
about the different topics that were discussed each month, etc. I'm
not the most holistic person in the world, but I am constantly
evolving into the person and the mother that I want to be. And it
takes the knowledge and support of other people on the same quest to
each other along. That's my hope for our chapter."

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Number of Members...

According to our Director, we have more than 2,500 members across North America, 115+ Chapters, and we have 750 members on our National Email Loop and several hundred on the HMN Forum as well. I love the National E-mail Loop, it's so informative and fun!