The year is getting off to a great start for everyone at Dooley Communications with new clients coming on stream (stay tuned for more info) and old clients coming back with new projects.

It’s exciting to see the firm continue to grow. As we do, we’ll maintain our focus on being a service-oriented PR firm for the Canadian Prairies. Our focus remains on the Winnipeg and Manitoba markets for public relations and corporate communications services, but we also routinely reach into both Northwestern Ontario and Saskatchewan for our clients.

We use a variety of tools and tactics for our clients from traditional media relations to corporate communications, newsletters, magazines, social networks and blogs. We also develop and execute advertising campaigns, stage special events, and host photo ops and public speaking engagements.

As we get started on our third full calendar year in business, I’d like to personally thank all our suppliers for their highly professional and excellent help. They include:

• Twist Design and Communications
• Nova Design
• Prairie Research Associates
• GRP Media Services
• Mirek Photography
• Tony Nardella Photography
• Tint Marketing
• Contemporary Printing
• Marketwire LP
• Cision
• The Great Promotional Products Company

All the best in 2010!

Adam Dooley,
President

This is the third year in a row where September is our time to get busy with UNICEF’s annual Trick-or-Treat campaign.

Every October since 1955, UNICEF Canada has been raising money for children in underdeveloped nations around the world. This year, the campaign might surpass the $100 million milestone. I hope that our PR services here in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will help put them over the top.

Dooley Communications oversees all the media relations for the campaign across the Prairies region. We also do some event management for the campaign and this year will be hosting the second annual Celebrity Pumpkin Carving contest at Kildonan Place on October 27.

Please give generously and support UNICEF’s efforts to raise money to build and outfit schools in Rwanda and Malawi.

www.TrickorTreatforUnicef.ca

Dooley Communications is pleased to be celebrating its second full year in business this summer, offering senior level public relations and corporate communications services. From our base in Winnipeg, Manitoba, our firm now serves clients from across Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

We have organized small and large media events for clients and created entire public relations strategies for others. We regularly conduct media training seminars, and counsel organizations through the minefields of issues management and crisis communications. We’ve helped write and produce annual reports, newsletters, brochures and websites, and we’ve written countless blogs and advised on the best use of social media.

It continues to be a fun, exciting challenge as we build a service-oriented public relations firm here in the Canadian Prairies.

So thank you to all our clients. We look forward to serving and growing with you in the future.

Dooley Communications was very pleased to work with Global Wind Group Inc. to help the local company unveil a major installation of vertical-axis wind turbines today in Rosenort, Manitoba.

We helped coordinate the media relations and social media efforts for the company and were happy to get coverage on CTV Winnipeg (watch it tonight), CBC Television (last night), CJOB, CBC Radio Noon, BobFM, CFAM and the Golden West Media network, Altona Echo and the Emerson Southeast Journal.

 Here are some photos from the event.

Here’s our news release:

The RM of Morris first to feel the winds of change

RM of Morris will unveil the first ever vertical-axis wind turbines installed on a Manitoba public service garage

Rosenort, Manitoba, June 24, 2009 – The RM of Morris has become the front line in the battle against greenhouse gases and airborne pollution from fossil fuels thanks to an innovative Manitoba company specializing in renewable energy.

This morning Global Wind Group, Inc. unveiled an installation of three new roof-mounted, vertical-axis wind turbines on the Morris Municipal Public Service Garage. The installation is the first of its kind in the province and will generate enough energy to power the building’s geothermal heat exchange pumps, effectively giving the building a carbon footprint of almost zero.

“Global Wind Group is a North American leader in wind energy technology. We specialize in easily transportable designs that help urban, rural and remote communities realize green alternatives to fossil fuels,” said Alex Stuart, President of Global Wind Group. “The cost of non-renewable energy is only going to rise in the future. These turbines will play an important role in helping Manitoba meet its Kyoto targets.”

Dignitaries from around the province were on hand to help celebrate the occasion, including MLA Rob Altemeyer who brought greetings from Hon. Stan Struthers, Minister of Conservation; Herm Martens, Reeve of the RM of Morris; Alex Stuart, President of Global Wind Group, Inc. and Ernest Buhler, Chief Administrative Officer for the RM of Morris; and MLA Mavis Taillieu.

The Rosenort installation has three 1.2kW vertical-axis wind turbines delivering a total of 3.6kW of clean, renewable energy. That is enough to power a typical energy efficient 1,000 square foot bungalow. Global Wind Group turbines are well suited for mounting on roof tops and can exceed green building standards. The turbines’ vertical-axis design offers many advantages over traditional propeller style wind turbines, including silent operation, very little vibration, and no bird-kill. The wind turbine installation in Rosenort is an important step towards reducing Manitoba’s carbon footprint and is a symbol of our innovation in developing new sources of renewable energy. The new turbines now give many other locations around the province a new alternative for renewable energy.

The installation was partly funded by a grant from Conservation Manitoba Sustainable Development Innovations Fund. The fund supports and encourages processes, practices, materials, products, substances or energy that avoid or minimize the creation of pollutants and waste, and reduce the overall risk to the environment and human health.
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Adam Dooley
For Global Wind Group
Phone: 204-291-4092
adooley@dooleycommunications.ca

About Global Wind Group (www.globalwindgroup.com)
Global Wind Group (GWG) is a Manitoba-based company that sells and installs durable, quiet and versatile vertical-axis wind turbines in Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario and Nunavut. In addition to providing wind testing services, the company helps its clients identify, and apply for, available rebates, to achieve cost-effective solutions for their energy needs. GWG is a leader in vertical axis wind turbine technology and wind-energy generation. The company is member of a the Manitoba Chapter of the Canadian Green Building Council, Manitoba Environmental Industries Association (MEIA) and the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

Dooley Communications is pleased to announce the hiring of Dustin Plett as Communications Specialist. Dustin is a recent graduate of Red River College’s Creative Communications program.

Dustin will be working on a wide variety of projects for Dooley Communications as the company continues to grow as a service-oriented public relations firm serving Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario. He has been working with Dooley for a number of months, blogging for client ICUC Moderation Services on its user-generated content daily news blog snoo.ws. He is also working on other accounts including Keystone Processors, UALocal 628 of Thunder Bay and UNICEF Canada.

In addition to the skills he brings from Red River College, Dustin also has a great deal of other varied experience. Growing up in rural Manitoba just outside of Portage la Prairie, he began working at the family welding shop and learned his father’s trade through watching him. Dustin became a Journeyman welder and spent time in both Manitoba and Alberta working on a number of large and small scale projects and owning and operating his own company while doing so.

Dustin shifted his focus to communications after years in the welding trade. He brings a unique point of view and skill set to the field of communications where his creativity, intelligence and client-centred focus is put to good work.

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA–(Marketwire - March 5, 2009) - The Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society has named Heather Plett Manitoba’s Communicator of the Year for her work directing a national campaign to raise money and grain donations for distribution to developing countries, and to educate and engage people in hunger-related advocacy.

Plett is the director of resources and communication with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB), a Winnipeg-based, national non-profit organization.

Award sponsor Marketwire - one of North America’s leading newswire and media distribution companies - will present the honour at a gala luncheon on March 18 at the Fort Garry Hotel.

Plett was chosen by a panel of senior CPRS Manitoba members for her success in targeting diverse audiences across the country with a multi-platform campaign and a limited budget. With a clearly articulated strategy, Plett and her team rebuilt CFGB’s website, added a microsite for a special campaign (www.endhungerfast.com), developed videos, ran their first direct mail campaign and employed social media tools to reach her organization’s goals. These tactics resulted in widespread media coverage in both rural and urban outlets, a nationwide campaign in which thousands of people “fasted for change,” and a record year in donations totalling more than $11 million.

“This year’s winner demonstrates that small shops with small budgets can get big results,” says Adam Dooley, past president of the Manitoba CPRS chapter, and chair of CPRS Manitoba’s Communicator of the Year committee. “Heather Plett and her team launched a national campaign with results that resonated on a global scale.”

Plett was among a distinguished field of nominees for the second annual award, which CPRS Manitoba established to honour those who have demonstrated excellence in public communications.

This year’s gala will offer a special morning program of professional workshops on government relations, which is sponsored by CNW Group.

For ticket information, go to www.cprs.mb.ca and click on the Communicator of the Year icon.

Calling all Winnipeg Twitterers! The time has come for a face to face tweet-up. Dooley Communications together with ICUC Moderation Services will host an informal gathering of Twitter.com users in the Winnipeg area on Tuesday, March 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Confusion Corner Bar and Grill.

Come out and enjoy a Twitterini and some live chatting with your virtual friends.

Follow us at www.twitter.com/adamdooley or www.twitter.com/k3ith. Follow news on the Tweet-up at #wpgtweetup.

For the past couple of months, Dooley Communications has been working to help Manitoba’s newest beef plant get up and running with some branded materials including a new website (www.KeystoneProcessors.com). Keystone Processors Ltd. is in the process of renovating and upgrading the former Maple Leaf pork plant at 663 Marion St. By 2011, the company plans to become federally-inspected, which will give it access to growing export markets as well as to national grocery chains.

It will target the vast and promising Asian markets where rapid economic development in recent years has led to the creation of more affluent middle classes. That economic growth has spurred a surge in demand for more nutritious diets which include more meat.

At the same time, Keystone Processors will also work to process beef for kosher and halal markets in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

I’m very pleased to be working with Keystone Processors. It’s always exciting to develop public relations and marketing strategies for a start-up because the potential of a great idea extends in front of us with nearly limitless possibilities. The Manitoba cattle industry has been hurt badly in recent years. The U.S. border closed after BSE was discovered in Alberta; transportation and feed costs skyrocketed; and last year rains washed away farmers’ fields.

With a new beef plant closer to home, Manitoba cattle producers will have an option in the event out-of-province plants close to them again. More importantly, the new plant makes long term business sense because it will save both producers and Keystone Processors money on transportation. That will also leave a lasting environmental benefit as the carbon footprint of the industry will decrease.

But best of all… Manitobans will have a new source of quality, locally-raised beef to buy. I can’t wait to throw a steak on the barbeque this spring!

 CPRS Manitoba joins Marketwire in hosting second annual award

WINNIPEG, January 19, 2009 - The Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) is inviting nominations for its second annual Manitoba Communicator of the Year Award.

The organization established the award to honour individuals or organizations that have demonstrated excellence in public communications in business, politics, entertainment, non-profits, or the community at large.

Gail Asper and Kim Jasper were presented with last year’s award for their work promoting The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Their efforts included using a wide variety of tactics - from public presentations to advertising, media and government relations - to secure public, corporate and government support for the museum.

“Last year’s pool of nominees was very impressive and we expect this year’s competition to be just as spirited,” says Adam Dooley, past president of the Manitoba CPRS chapter.

“Nominees, or self-nominees, can be communications professionals, CEOs, community leaders or grassroots activists,” says Dooley. The nominees will be evaluated on the overall strategy, scope, and results of a campaign.

“Creativity is vital for communicators to get messages across credibly and honestly, but equally important is when the message results in significant contributions to the community,” said John Hamilton, president of CPRS Manitoba. “We’re very proud to be able to recognize the best in our profession.”

The Communicator of the Year will be selected by a panel of senior CPRS Manitoba members. The winner will be introduced at a gala luncheon on March 18, 2009 at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg. This year the gala will also offer a program of professional workshops during the morning. The event is made possible through the generosity of principal sponsor, Marketwire. Nomination, workshop, and luncheon ticket information are online at www.cprs.mb.ca. Deadline for nominations is February 13, 2009.

Government Relations Workshops

Kicking off the Communicator of the Year celebrations is a special morning of professional development with a workshop on government relations: “Influencing Government, Regulating Influence”; an educational opportunity for anyone who wants to engage governments constructively and proactively to influence policy or raise awareness about a program, product or service. CPRS Manitoba has assembled high powered experts who will explain Canada’s new Lobbying Act and how to effectively work with governments and strengthen advocacy efforts.

CPRS Manitoba

As the leading professional association for communicators in the province, CPRS Manitoba includes members from corporations, public relations agencies, government departments and non-profits. Members represent a wide variety of fields, ranging from agriculture and health care, to financial services and manufacturing.

For more information on the award, see the Web site www.cprs.mb.ca or contact Adam Dooley, past president of CPRS Manitoba, at (204) 291-4092, or e-mail: adooley@dooleycommunications.ca.

With the new year already moving at a fast pace, I’m pleased to welcome aboard Dustin Plett, a student intern from Red River College’s Creative Communications program. Dustin will be working on a variety of projects for a number of Dooley Communications clients over the next three weeks.

Among other things, he’s helping craft stories for ICUC Moderation Services’ daily news blog on user-generated content, http://snoo.ws, and writing copy for a new website client who recently engaged us.

Dustin’s focus at Red River is on advertising, so he’ll also be putting his youthful creativity to work on the upcoming launch of the Keystone Processors premium brand of beef.

Welcome Dustin.