Committee Chairs Meeting

Today, January 28th, the MitoAction committee chairs met by conference call to discuss the exciting ideas and projects ahead for 2008. Attending were: Lisa Parker, PR and Awarness Committee; Jean Shepherd and Wendy Helmka, Adult Advocacy Coalition; Kathy Graff and Kim Costello, Web Comittee; Anne Reckling, Publication Committee; Kirsten Casale, School Advocacy Committee; Christy Balcells, Executive Director; and Kim Lorimier, President, Board of Directors.

The top three goals for each committee were discussed. The following were discussed:

Adult Advocacy Coalition: addressing adults’ need for legal/medical advocacy when too sick to speak for themselves; increasing awareness that ‘adults get mito too’!; increasing physician/specialist focus on adults with mito.

PR and Awareness Committee: designing a PR kit available to all; expanding PR focus to a variety of venues (radio, sports teams, restaurant benefit nights, etc.).

Web Committee: expanding the web use to include Forums and Blogs to allow more content and more interaction.

School Advocacy Committee: Kirsten is currently fielding 20+ calls a day regarding school advocacy and mito; goals include creating a Forum or Blog for Kirsten to provide info on school advocacy; create a CD-Rom; and pdf files to include forms for IEPs and 504.

Publication Committee: grant for adolescent support project received; major goal is completion of this project - includes interviewing teenagers with mito, transcribing interviews into written form as well as coordination with web committee so interviews by MP3 can be audioacessible, coordinate press releases regarding project with ultimate goal of bringing teenagers to Boston for a celebration and a chance to get them networking among themselves (big PR boost).

Submitted by:
Anne Reckling
28 January 2008

Full recording (MP3 file, 4.4 MB)