Re: [Media-advisors] Press release for SF ACW proposal (attached)

MickaCoo has 256 birds in foster care. Not all are in ASM, I'm sorry to say but the majority should be. The large intake of 216 Persian High Flyers should now be showing at about 176 remaining in foster care (and I believe the count is correct) because of adoptions to date. Per your request for feedback, I think the press release is exceptionally well written and adroitly tackles a complicated subject with which the Commission itself has many unresolved questions and contradictions (i.e. birds aren't being euthanized, SF stores don't sell dogs but shelters full of them, etc.) Because I think this topic is very fraught, I would recommend a couple of changes. I'd suggest changing the detailed explanation of what exactly the Commission is going to recommend to the Board. There were lots of amendments and ideas flying around and they themselves are not yet sure what their specific recommendations would be and I think spelling them out opens us to unwelcome parsing. It's not our recommendation to define (nor defend). Instead of being too exacting in detailing what their recommendation will be, I'd recommend identifying only the concept in broad terms (humane pet acquisition with an emphasis on adoption instead of pet sales) and go from there into the following. The second thing I'd suggest changing is that the small SF pet stores pride themselves on their careful education and placement of pets into only the best of hands and will trot out customers to back this up. Rather than address what they may or may not be doing, I'd shift the focus to an irrefutable fact- no matter what they are doing, rescues are overwhelmed with high numbers of pets needing homes, so many in fact Mickaboo & 'Coo are having to turn birds away and maintain waiting lists. So- even if they are doing an absolutely perfect job- the homeless pet crisis exists and adoption of existing homeless pets rather than continuously adding to the population is, as Kim puts it, the right and responsible thing to do. The pet stores don't have to be wrong for this to be right. Thank you for doing this and for inviting our feedback, Vinny. e On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Vincent J. Hrovat <1217@vhrovat.org> wrote:

Thanks Michelle. The plural “adoptions” in the description of item 1 was taken verbatim from AWC’s minutes, but I removed the ‘s’ because it is an apparent typo. I made a few other minor changes to clarify or provide better word variety. See attached R2 document.

Elizabeth’s 250 should be included in the 400 count, assuming that they are entered into ASM with proper animal counts. However, I see that we again have a few dozen animals with zero counts, dating from 04/18 to a few days ago. Nowhere near 200 though. I would prefer to wait to hear Elizabeth’s and/or Matt’s thoughts about the count before changing it to 600.

Thanks.

--VH

*From:* media-advisors-bounces@mickaboo.org [mailto: media-advisors-bounces@mickaboo.org] *On Behalf Of *Michelle Yesney *Sent:* Friday, June 10, 2011 8:19 PM *To:* Vincent J. Hrovat *Cc:* Mickaboo media advisor team; Lee,Pamela A *Subject:* Re: [Media-advisors] Press release for SF ACW proposal (attached)

Vinny,

I'm not very experienced with press releases, but this seems to me to do a good job of communicating the whole picture without being unnecessarily long. (The "s" on adoptions in item #1 is probably not needed.)

Since I think Elizabeth said that Coo had about 250 birds, that might be where the numbers are coming from. I'll see if I can run down the sources.

Michelle

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 6:34 PM, Vincent J. Hrovat wrote:

This is my first press release so fire away. I am not sure if the next to the last paragraph should stay in it. Also, I have seen people saying that we have over 600 birds in our system. A query showed me more like 400, so I used that. If someone can verify the 600 figure for me I will use it. Other than that I think that this is solid.

I do not have Kim’s words from last night so was unable to include them. I am thinking that the press release is long enough and that Kim’s words might be better on our blog and/or Facebook page. But if someone sends them to me and if we want to use them in this press release I will take a stab at it.

I would like to get this out by morning if possible. Once approved, it will take me a couple of minutes to post this in our public wiki and, subsequently, in our Reading Room. From there, Matt’s team can tweet and wall post on Twitter and Facebook and we can announce to discuss list, etc. And, of course, mail it to whichever media contacts we have like Gary Bogue and Eileen Mitchell.

Please let me know what you think; I will especially appreciate hearing from Tammy, Michelle and Pam. Thanks.

Vincent J. Hrovat

-- Elizabeth * * *PLEASE HELP MICKACOO WIN $25K BY VOTING EVERYDAY IN JUNE AT* *http://www.refresheverything.com/mickacoopigeonanddoverescue AND TEXTING 106711 TO 73774!* * * Until they all have homes, don't buy, don't breed- adopt. www.RescueReport.org www.MickaCoo.org http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGjyooh3Yo0