Mike Pinto to Speak to SIWG January 17 at JALC

Because our lives are more full than usual right now, I am simply going to post the news release I sent out about tomorrow night's Guild meeting:
Mike Pinto, national motivational speaker and manager of the Southern Illinois Miners Baseball Team, will present one of his challenging multimedia programs at the Southern Illinois Writers Guild on Thursday, January 17, at 7 p.m. in Room F-119 in the Ray Hancock Conference Center at John A. College in Carterville. The public is welcome.

A specialist is personal branding, Pinto uses a visually focused high energy presentation to help his listeners to develop long-lasting personal identities. For the writers and their guests, Pinto will be combining his motivational emphasis with how writers can brand and sell themselves. His goal will be to help those in attendance to achieve more, do more, and get more business for themselves.

His book In a League of Your Own: Positioning Yourself as the Only One to Call will be released in early 2008. Pinto is president of BrandChampions International in Chicago, Illinois, a consulting company specializing in teaching financial advisors strategies to stand out in their marketplace. He is known for his passion, enthusiasm, integrity, and humor.

Pinto has acted as a branding consultant to hundreds of clients including Bank of America, Chase, Countrywide, John Hancock Funds, John Hancock Annuities, MFS, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Pulte, Smith Barney, Stifel Nicolaus, Solomon Brothers, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo, according to his website www.brandchampions.net .

Pinto has given over 500 speeches to over 250,000 people in his 17-year speaking career, which he conducts during the off season of the Miners. He will be in Marion for an awards event for the Miners the day after his presentation to SIWG.

SIWG is a student organization at JALC with author Harry Spiller as sponsor. In addition to student members, writers in the area are encouraged to join. Some members are journal/letter writers, others want to be published someday, many are part-time writers, and some are full-time professional writers. Present membership is 63, and some 30 have authored one or more books.

Jim Lambert of Carbondale is the new SIWG president for 2008. Other officers are Sue Glasco, vice president; Patricia Evans, secretary; and Erika Hookham, treasurer. Yavonne Field-Bagwell is the Guild liaison with the JALC website, and Pamela Braswell is the new editor of The Writer’s Voice, the SIWG newsletter.

The Ray Hancock Conference Center is on the north end of the main building. There is parking in Parking Lot D outside the Center--although visitors can park in other lots and go into the bottom floor and walk past the Terrace Dining Room Annex, where the Guild usually meets and go up the hall to north part of the building to find Room F-119.