Inspired by the Maryland Court Reporters Association idea for using yard signs to promote the NCRA DiscoverSteno® website, members from the Oregon Court Reporters Association came up with promoting the program via bumper stickers.
“As the new chair of the Oregon Court Reporters Association’s Prospective Student Outreach Committee, I directed the team to find a new and unique way to get the word out to recruit new students to this fabulous career,” said Robin Nodland, FAPR, RDR, CRR, a freelance court reporter and agency owner from Portland, Ore.
“We loved what the Maryland association had done with their yard signs that included a QR code. Brilliant! But in Oregon, we are spread out and don’t have the foot traffic in our neighborhoods that bigger cities have. The light bulb went off,” she said.
Nodland passed along the idea to NCRA’s Professional Development Team, which collaborated with the Communications Team to develop images that can be downloaded and printed as bumper stickers to promote the NCRA DiscoverSteno website and the NCRA A to Z® Intro to Steno Machine Shorthand program as well as the stenographic court reporting and captioning professions. The images have also been simplified with QR codes that can be printed and placed in a car window.
Nodland said she and other committee members talked through the idea of a bumper sticker that would also include the same elements that Maryland used, like a QR code. They also determined that they would need a strong magnet for it to be printed on to remain securely on a vehicle.
“We handed them out at our fall convention. Our members enthusiastically embraced the magnets and are helping to spread the word statewide,” she added.
Nodland noted that about a year ago she saw a post on a court reporter’s social media site that featured a picture of a license plate on a car while it was driving in heavy traffic on a highway in the Portland area. “The plate read KROERT, which is a steno brief for ‘court reporter.’ I recognized that license plate and car as belonging to my dear friend Terri Mundt, a retired court reporter, firm owner, and tireless state association leader and volunteer.”
The downloadable images for magnetic bumper stickers, yard signs, and QR codes promoting NCRA DiscoverSteno and the NCRA A to Z Intro to Steno Machine Shorthand program are available at the NCRA Information and Resource Center.
For more information, contact Lisa Dennison, NCRA A to Z Program Coordinator, at ldennison@ncra.org.
