Committee Chair: Kathleen Brackeen (494-0551)
Newsletter Editors: Chris Freeland (771-8936) and Kathleen Brackeen (494-0551)
Send Newsletter Submissions to: TGENEWSLETTER@yahoo.com
Meetings: As needed.

The Marketing Committee is charged with promoting our neighborhood as the great place to live, work, and play that it is. After all, when you've found a place to live with so much to offer, you want to spread the word, right? We do this through outreach efforts such as informational tables at festivals in the park, through press releases letting a wider audience know about happenings here, and through the publication of a quarterly newsletter. We also work hand in hand with city agencies and neighboring community groups looking for positive ways to build and promote the community connections that make living here so satisfying.

In late winter 2002 the Tower Grove East News got an overhaul. We returned to a longer newsletter format after a trial year of a single page format. There is so much happening in Tower Grove East that one page just couldn't hold it all! The response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Some of the changes we have implemented include a feature story on neighborhood pets on page one of each issue. From Petey the pug to the dwarf rabbits, Latte and Kona, Tower Grove East has some of the most adorable and interesting pets around! (And we like their families, too!) We also invite residents and business people to write articles of interest to our readers in Tower Grove East and beyond.

While some long-time residents may remember the days when a twenty-page newsletter went out every single month, we now publish a quarterly newsletter. The main reason we went with publishing quarterly is the cost of mailing. The Board of TGENA is committed to communicating regularly with every single household in this neighborhood. That means we mail every issue of the newsletter to all 3000 households in Tower Grove East. That's a lot of postage. In order to accomplish this Herculean feat of mail handling, we have contracted the services of AllMail USA, whose owners live in the Shaw neighborhood, just across the street. With their help we have been able to achieve another goal of ours- that the news we publish be fresh and timely.

Of course we couldn't do any of this without the help of numerous volunteer writers and photographers. Nor could we do it without our advertisers. Make sure you mention their ads in the Tower Grove East News when you stop by the shops or use the services advertised with us.

A less frequent, but essential, function of the Marketing Committee is the design and production of our collateral materials. The committee has been responsible for making sure our image in print reflects the high quality of life that Tower Grove East offers. Some of the materials we have created in the last few years include redesigned stationery with our logo embossed on the letterhead, informational brochures distributed through RCGA (Regional Commerce and Growth Association) and elsewhere, and a redesign of the membership envelope for clarity and ease of return mailing (bar coding).

While the web site technically falls under the aegis of the Marketing Committee, once our web master got going with it, she didn't need much help. Melisa McLean handles all the updating and informational links. Many thanks to Melisa for her untiring efforts.

We do, however, need help with organization for the newsletter. As our list of advertisers grows, so does the stack of paper work to go with it. We are looking for someone with a strong organizational mind to help with setting up and maintaining a database of advertisers. This will include a schedule of who gets an ad, when, and payment records. Are you stellar with Excel? If so, please call Patty at 865-2969 or 973-9371 to set up a time when we could work on this together.

For more information e-mail TGE.