Journal

Journal #1 Yesterday, Nikki and I met with Mrs. Ward for the first time. She mentioned the training day on April 29 (Jenny’s birthday!), which is pretty far away, so I’m not going to worry about that yet. We talked about slogans, sign ups, and advertisements for the blood drive. Nikki is covering re-designing the sign-up card, and I’ve been trying to think of some advertisement idea to publicize the event. Nikki came up with a pretty good slogan: “Give blood, give a life.” I like it, so now we just need a good graphic to go with it. I don’t know whether we want to try to guilt our volunteer population, with a picture of a sick child or something like that, or make I more positive advertisement using just a basic picture of someone smiling, like is already on the Red Cross sign up card. I just talked to Mr. Meder about creating a commercial, and he said I was about three days too late, as everyone has scripted their film for the next project. He says he’ll probably have students with free time after the film festival, on March 25, and to check back in then. He also had the idea of giving the blood drive to commercial to his independent-study students, and he suggested that I just make it myself. I like that idea, if I have time, because I would be able to make the commercial with the information and themes that I want, instead of leaving it in the hands of a third party. I also probably have more experience than his TV production class, and, even more important, if I make a commercial, I might be able to use it as part of my final project, which would be very helpful. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Ward about that possibility.

Journal #2- March 27, 2011 I spent much of today examining videos involving blood donations/ blood drives on Youtube, in hopes that we can use one to promote Springfield’s blood drive. I found a really cute one at [] ,but it is irrelevant for several reasons. One, obviously, it is not Christmas time, and two, it is too long to be used on the morning announcements. I just liked the comparison of buying materialistic items with saving lives. The second video I watched was []. I liked it, but I don’t think it would be a good choice for the morning announcements. It’s just not flashy enough to catch the attention of the student body. However, if I created a video for the blood drive, I might try to incorporate some of the same ideas. There were a lot of varieties on that type of people talking over a white screen, but the only one that seemed meaningful enough was: [], which really brings home the importance of a blood drive. The video that I would recommend for us is probably this: [], because it showed the personal excuses that I’ve already heard as to why people are not donating. However, I am concerned that if we played it in homeroom, people would just mock the video (may homeroom very well might), but I think that could be alleviated when we talked to homeroom individually. Of all the videos above, I tried to pick ones supported/ created by the Red Cross or another blood drive organization to assure that the information is correct.

Journal #3- May 2, 2011 Because the blood drive is being planned as an event, things are gradually picking up as we approach May 24. The lady who came in provided some very useful information, including a packet with all the information we need. Some of it I may use in my project, especially about how the blood is used, as I have a gap for that in my presentation. The approx. 5th page in is “50 Quick Facts,” and much of it discusses the need for blood in the U.S. Obviously, this fits perfectly with my argument whose purpose is to prove the existence of a blood need/ crisis. Some facts I might include, for example, include “every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood,” “More than 1 million new people are diagnosed with cancer each year. Many of them will need blood, sometimes daily, during their chemotherapy treatment,” and “A single car accident victim can require as many as 100 pints of blood”. This will put the need for blood into perspective for my audience. Nikki and I were also challenged to create a flyer to post around school in the weeks leading up to the blood drive. I have created a first draft, and included the time, place, location, the eligibility, and the American Red Cross Logo, “Give blood, give life”. I choose red as my primary color because it evidently goes with the idea of blood supporting life versus death. I’ll have to show it to a few other people, including Mrs. Ward, to see what ideas they have.