All Entries Tagged With: "rhode island"
United Way Presents Awards, Honoring Local Champions for Efforts on Behalf of Rhode Island Children and Helping to Improve our Communities
Providence, R.I. (October 27, 2016) Guided by the principle that addressing the issues that impact our communities and creating positive, lasting change in the lives of others is best accomplished by working together, United Way of Rhode Island (UWRI) recently presented awards to four local champions, honoring their selfless contributions to make Rhode Island a better place to live.
The awards were presented during UWRI’s 90th Annual Celebration, and this year’s honorees are:
- 2016 Corporate Partner Award: Hasbro, Inc.
- Young Leader Spark! Award: Meghan Grady, COO, YWCA of Rhode Island
- Dante Mollo Labor Award: Valerie Staples, Children’s Fund Coordinator, NEARI
- John H. Chafee Lifetime Service Award: Todd Flaherty, (retired) President & CEO, College Crusade
“Nothing that United Way has been able to accomplish would be possible without the help and support of so many Rhode Islanders, from all walks of life, working together with the shared goal of strengthening our communities,” said Anthony Maione, President and CEO, United Way of Rhode Island. “Supporting the development and growth of children—our leaders of tomorrow—remains a primary focus and each of this year’s honorees have committed themselves to this work, setting an example we all can follow.”
In honor of their longstanding contributions to UWRI and deep commitment to children, Anthony Maione presented the 2016 Corporate Partnership Award to Hasbro, Inc. The award was accepted on the company’s behalf by EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer, Dolph Johnson.
A dedicated partner of UWRI’s work and the signature Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative, which replaces summer learning loss with skills gains in math and reading for students by engaging them in active learning opportunities during the summer months, Hasbro, Inc.’s commitment to improving the lives of others knows no bounds. Hasbro, Inc. employees are active volunteers in a variety of UWRI initiatives, contribute thoughts and ideas to advance programs, and lend their knowledge of children’s needs in our state. The company also coordinates a highly-successful workplace giving campaign each year.
The second award, the Young Leader Spark! Award, was given to a member of UWRI’s Young Leaders Circle (YLC) in recognition of their efforts to spark change in Rhode Island. Receiving the award was Meghan Grady, Chief Operating Officer of YWCA Rhode Island. It was presented by Jocelyn Kelly, Vice Chair of the Young Leaders Circle. Meghan is a founding member of the YLC and has been instrumental in its growth to become the largest network of service-minded young leaders in the state. At YWCA, Meghan oversees a multitude of programs that encourage young Rhode Island women further their education and pursue their dreams, stressing that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to.
The Dante Mollo Labor Award recognizes the strong partnership between the Labor community and UWRI. Presented by Valarie Lawson of the East Providence Education Association, this year’s recipient is Valerie Staples, Children’s Fund Coordinator for the National Education Association of RI. For more than 25-years, Valerie has worked with local teachers and schools to help some of Rhode Island’s neediest students and their families on a day-to-day basis. She also oversees the Gingerbread Express, which spreads the joy of the holidays to more than 2,000 at-risk children each year by granting their clothing and gift wishes.
The John H. Chafee Lifetime Service Award, presented by Zechariah Chafee, son of late Rhode Island Senator John H. Chafee, was awarded to Todd Flaherty, who retired in June as President and CEO of the College Crusade of Rhode Island and a distinguished career of educational leadership at state, local and national levels. Having dedicated his life to educating youth, Todd’s career touched the lives of tens of thousands of students. He is a former high school principal in Narragansett and North Carolina, previous Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Coventry, and served as Senior Policy Advisor for the National High School Center in Washington, D.C. After joining College Crusade in 2009, Todd oversaw the growth of offered programs to more than 60 available today in 30 local high schools, and helped improve the high school graduation rate of College Crusade participants to 81 percent, which exceeds the state’s overall graduation rate across all Rhode Island districts.
About United Way of Rhode Island
United Way of Rhode Island (UWRI) has been working to improve the quality of life in Rhode Island for nearly 90 years. Together with its partners, UWRI is changing lives and strengthening our communities by investing in proven programs that work over the short-term, and are scalable over the long-term. For more information, visit www.LIVEUNITEDri.org.
CRAFTING THE PERFECT PIN
If you have a brand that targets women (and in many cases, even men) you’ve probably heard of Pinterest. The bookmark-style brand has skyrocketed to over 100 million users who log on daily to save some of their favorite products, wedding DIY, dream home decor and fashion styles. Touting a nearly 75% purchase rate (that’s right, 75% of Pinterest users have purchased something they found on the site) it’s a digital platform that can’t be ignored.
Thinking about getting into Pinterest or have tried in the past and haven’t seen success? Well, like anything, there’s an art to pinning that can make or break your Pinterest page. Below we’re breaking down some of our favorite tips to help ensure that your pins will get seen, clicked on, and converted to sales.
1. Create a “Buyable Pin” if you can. “Buyable Pins” are something that are still growing in popularity and are still very limited to only certain commerce platforms. However, if you are one of those lucky ducks who hosts their online store on a compatible one, you can easily activate “Buyable Pins”. These allow the end user to purchase your product DIRECTLY from Pinterest, making it even easier to get that sale. Plus, word around town is Pinterest is promoting buyable pins more in users feeds than a normal pin. If you have an Etsy store, it’s not compatible with Buyable Pins yet, but you can create a “Rich Pin”. Pin directly from your store listing to feature the product price and description more prominently than a regular pin.
2. Create an eye catching image. This one may seem obvious but you’ll be shocked by how many people pin cut off or poor looking images on the site. A great idea is to create almost a cover photo by combining a great picture with some brief text of what you pin is about or where it links to. Now, you can’t add call to action text like “click here” to your pin, but a general title helps give pinners and idea of what they can expect for your pin without having to read it so the chances of them pinning to read later go up dramatically. Research has shown that vertical images with a 2:3 ratio (the recommended Pinterest size is 735 x 1102 pixels) tend to be the most eye catching and get repinned the most. Need help crafting the perfect pin image? Check out Canva where you can utilize pre-sized templates and get some ideas.
3. Keywords, keywords, keywords. You knew it was coming… You HAVE to add keywords to the description of your pins if you want to see any traction. People are not only searching for pins within the actual site, but they show up on Google as well. Take a few minutes to ensure your pin descriptions include not only keywords about what your specific pin, but about your business as well.
4. Timing is everything. This one is the big one. Research has shown that pins are the most effective about 20-40 minutes after they are pinned. Because they are shown in users’ feeds based on the time they are pinned, they have an EXTREMELY short shelf life. When you sign up for a business account, you’ll get access to your analytics. This will help you see when people are responding to your pins the most and what is getting repinned. Take some time to research and test when your users will be online and save your most important pins to go live during that time (although a good rule of thumb is about 2-4pm or 8pm-1am as popular times). However, be careful because….
5. There’s nothing worse than going overboard. It may be tempting to pin all your products to your page over the span of a few hours. We get it – You’re on a roll, you have a plan and you just want to knock it out. However, because the shelf life of pins is short, it’s recommended to spread out your pinning over days, weeks and months, to ensure there’s always something fresh in your viewer’s feeds. Also, bombarding your followers with 60-70 pins at a time is super overwhelming and may turn them off from your feed. The best rule of thumb is to plan on about 15-30 pins per day, spread out over the course of 24 hours (with your most important ones going live during your optimum engagement time). Now, it’s not always ideal to check in to Pinterest at 1am, so check out some scheduling options like Buffer to help make it easier on you.
Tags pinterest, creating pins, social media, social media marketing,digital marketing, online marketing, rhode island, online consultant, digital consultant, digital marketing expert
The Weekly BUZZ…
The Hive RI’s Thursday Lunch & Learn:
Join us this Thursday, noon-1:00, to learn ‘Six Steps To Getting Over The Revenue Rollercoaster with Dawn Quesnel’.
If you are a business development professional, a creative entrepreneur, small business owner, or solo-preneur and you feel like you rarely have much of a balance in your work/life, this lunch and learn is for you. Some months your revenue is up, and some months it’s down. You want more consistency from your business and you are tired of riding the revenue roller coaster. In this workshop you will learn exactly what you need to do AND how much time you need to be spending on it each week.
- This method is proven to help you fill the pipeline 50% faster
- Learn strategies to help you work on your highest dollar per hour value task.
- Key insights for developing systems to keep your sales pipeline going while you sleep.
Food Trucks
Food Truck Thursdays are still in the works but a little bumpy for the next couple of weeks! Elwood’s Dog House will be back again this week & I heard the cheeseburgers with bacon were AWESOME. We have to wait until September 15th but we’re excited to announce Open Season Food Truck will be starting then! Stop by the Mill at Lafayette for lunch! *They’ll be parked around back!
Blog
Have you checked out our blogs? We have thewww.millatlafayette.com website chock full of information (including our blogs) in case you’re in the mood to peruse!
Exercise at the Mill?
Check out our Fb page for Pause at the Mill and please feel free to share. We have classes listed as ‘events’ – take a 1/2 hour or more to just ‘pause’ and recharge your battery…*New Schedule here!
Community
Join our Mill at Lafayette community…we are offering a really great special – sign a lease by 9/1 and get your first month’s rent FREE! Reach out to: tuni@trsstrategies.com or call Mike at 401-255-7413. Here’s a list of available spaces open within the mill. There’s a video on this page that shows the 3rd floor that is now ready!
Flex Office
Calling professionals (who only need an office one or two days per week)…we have one furnished flex office available starting 9/1 for $175 per month for 1-2 days per week. If you’re interested please let us know soon. We’re going to cap this shared office at 3 – email: tuni@trsstrategies.com.
Coworking Deal
And…don’t forget we continue to offer our awesome deal at The Hive RI – $100 monthly memberships for our coworking space – total access Monday thru Friday 9:00-5:00 & so much more!
Social Media
Don’t forget to ‘like’ us on Fb – we share information there on a daily basis!
Art
Did you know we’re an Art Gallery? Stop by to see Cindy Wilson Photography (our photographer in residence here at the Mill) a permanent rotating show here at The Hive RI. She is such a busy lady with shows throughout the region on a regular basis, teaching photography to individuals and classes, and traveling the world with her Profundo Journeysgroups but somehow she manages to keep our walls filled with beautiful works of art.
We recommend self guided tours anytime during regular coworking hours (Monday-Friday 9:00-5:00) and if you are interested in purchasing any artwork within our gallery – please email tuni@trsstrategies.com.
Rhode Island – Dog Bites
Every year, many Americans are bitten by a dog. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, over 4.5 million people are bitten by a dog each year in the U.S. If you have found yourself in this predicament, you are not alone. If you have been bitten by a dog, the first thing you should do is seek medical attention. Untreated dog bites can lead to such severe injury, infections and can even be fatal. If you want to pursue legal action against the owner of the dog that bit you, then you will want to hire an expert dog to bite attorney as soon as possible. Dog bite victims in Rhode Island have three years to file a claim before the statute of limitations runs out.
Dog Owner Liability:
Under Rhode Island Statutes 4-13-16, dog bites are viewed under “strict liability.” The statute means that “the defendant is held liable if a particular event occurs, regardless of whether the defendant could have done anything to prevent the event.” To be more specific, if a dog assaults, bites or injures a person or an animal belonging to another person the owner of the biting dog will be held liable. The person or injured animal cannot be on the property of the dog’s owner when the bite occurs because it can be seen as an intruder, another law pertains to this instance. This statute applies to any and all injuries that a dog causes to people or other animals.
This statute applies to dog bites but also other injuries a dog has caused, such as a dog knocking someone over and injuring them. The other person can file a claim against the dog’s owner if they are injured. If someone is injured by another person’s dog while on the other person’s property, the injuries will ball under the “one bite” rule.
RI “One Bite” Rule
The “one bite” rule takes effect when someone steps on to another person’s property or home and is bitten or injured by their dog. In this particular situation, the “one bite” rule takes effect if the dog hasn’t bitten anyone before now so the owner couldn’t have known they would act aggressively in this manner. The injured person will have to prove that the owner had knowledge that the dog was dangerous or hostile towards other people for the owner to be liable. This is where an experienced Rhode Island attorney like Rob Levine will be able to research and fight for your justice!
