Walking for Awareness
Laurie Van Kuren along with Mom (Helen) volunteered to help support the fight against Crohn's Disease at the First Annual Walk held on June 18th. Spearheaded by Mary Beth Walsh, whose son Zack was diagnosed with the disease at age 13, the event helped raise money and create awareness about this little-known disease that effects thousands every year.

Supporting Pocono Families and Childrens Society
Rob Stiene, Laurie Van Kuren along with Diane Reimer and several others from ESSA Bank & Trust were on hand to help Pocono Services for Families and Children raise money for needy families. The annual golf tournament and fundraiser was kicked off with a golf ball-drop at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort and raised thousands of dollars for underprivileged families.

Which networking tool suits you?
Riger’s Jamie Jacobs recently participated in a panel discussion exploring the wide and deep topic of Online Social Networking. (That’s Jamie, second from far end. Other panelists l.to r.: Cheryl Fabrizi, Binghamton University; to Jamie’s left: Kathryn Fletcher, BiziLife Ventures; Lisa DiVirgilio, Fox40 TV; Gary Steadman, Steadmantech; Jim Willis, The A-Team Group, nearest to camera.) The event, presented by Southern Tier Opportunity Coalition, was a recent installment of the organization’s “Networking Café” (the original, in-the-flesh, elbow-rubbing kind of networking, just to be clear).

A truly broad set of tools, all involving the desire of human beings and organizations to connect and share, ONSW, if we can coin an acronym for the topic, must be taken seriously by businesspeople, the panelists readily agreed. But beyond that initial meeting of the minds, the panel members — and the audience of 50 or so attendees, too — expressed diverging views on matters like time management, privacy, credibility of content, the challenges of “listening” and tool selection for the particular application and audience.

Visit the RigerJabber Blog for a series of “take-aways” from the STOC panel discussion that will appear in the weeks to come.

Get Creative, Be Effective: How Sweet It Is!
Associate Account Executive Heather Preston and Managing Partner Peter Cronk, getting creative and being effective, doing "Riger booth duty" at the 2011 Greater Pocono Chamber Expo at East Stroudsburg University. We met lots of nice people, made some new contacts, handed out a bunch of chocolate bars introducing our Stroudsburg office, and drew business cards for two raffle winners: Michelle Rogan of ESSA Bank & Trust (Patty Cake Bakery gift certificate), and Mindy Barno of Cramer's Home Building Centers (Sweet Creams Cafe gift certificate). We also sponsored a Business Card Exchange this spring at The Log Cabin Grill, at The Crossings in Tannersville, in cooperation with the Chamber. The event was a big hit, with more than a hundred business people from all over the Poconos coming out to mix, mingle and make new contacts.

Great - important event attended by folks from ESSA, sanofi, and local businesses.
Laurie Van Kuren and Rob Stiene attended the first annual Salvation Army Fundraiser in East Stroudsburg on Thursday, March 10th. Spearheaded by Suzie Farley and Kim Diddio, Special Events Committee Co-Chairs, the evening was a huge success. Chef and owner of Momento's Restaurant, Nicola Mersini prepared a five-course meal for approximately 200 guests. The event raised over $10,000 to help feed needy families in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Congratulations on a fantastic event and many more to come!

Riger opens a new location in Northeast PA!
The agency's first "branch" office is located in downtown Stroudsburg, on the third floor of ESSA Bank & Trust's 744 Main Street location. In making this move, we expect to provide continued, enhanced service to our Poconos-area clients, and also take advantage of that presence to further our business in this growing area. Download the announcement press release here.

Way to go, Sandra!
GHS Federal Credit Union's plastics design, developed by Riger Advertising, won an honorable mention in the CSCU 2010 Cameo Awards. CSCU is the nation's largest credit and debit card processing association exclusively for credit unions.

All aboard!
Riger people have routinely served on the boards and committees of local non-profit and community groups. Among the latest of note: …Mark Bandurchin is on the Board of Directors of the Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally ....Steve Johnson is a Director on the Broome Community College Foundation Board and Council Member of Christ the King Lutheran Church…Karen Frobel is serving her tenth term as Secretary for the Communications Association of the Southern Tier …Sandra Ceplo Johnson will be President for the second year of the Greater Binghamton Chapter of New York State Women, Inc., 2010-2011 year, and also serves on the committee for the Garden of Hope for Wyoming Children's Home for the second year …Barbara Butler is now serving her 16th year as a Council member of All Saints National Catholic Church ...Laurie Van Kuren is on the Northeast Pennsylvania Ad Club board, and also on the UHS Foundation Annual Appeal Committee ...Peter Cronk serves as president on the board of directors of the Binghamton City School District Foundation ...Jamie Jacobs serves as Sunday School Superintendent for her third year and as a Deacon for a three-year term at the Conklin Presbyterian Church.

Awesome summer interns!
We were delighted to have Cornell student Courtney Starzer and RIT student Zach Gilyard as our Riger interns this summer. Zach was able to contribute great ideas and designs to various art department projects, while Courtney was hard at work writing scripts, monitoring media, and updating the Riger blog. Zach and Courtney, we wish you both all the best in the future!

ESSA expands into the Lehigh Valley
Riger client ESSA Bank & Trust opened three new full-service offices inside Weis Markets locations in Allentown, Hanover Township, and Schnecksville. The bank also opened a 3,100-square foot full-service branch on Route 390 in Mountainhome, Pennsylvania in April (pictured).

Advertising in tough times
Should firms increase advertising during a recession (especially to women)? That was the topic of a recent presentation by Riger's Mark Bandurchin to the "Women in Business" meeting of the Greater Pocono Chamber of Commerce. Bandurchin reviewed recent studies that show advertising has long-tern benefits that exceed its cost and that recessions are particularly opportune
times to increase expenditures. Because of the huge influence they have on the purchase of all goods and services, advertisers also need to make reaching women a budget priority.

A special birthday for GHS Federal Credit Union
GHS celebrated their 70th Diamond Anniversary on Saturday, May 1st at their Front Street Branch with prize giveaways, special offers and more. Founded in 1940, GHS Federal Credit Union has assets totaling over $125 million and can serve anyone who lives, works, attends school or worships in Broome, Chenango, or Tioga Counties, New York.

Riger folks have been jabbering away on our new blog “Riger Jabber,” a place that offers tips, articles, and stories about the marketing communications industry in general, as well as our slice of it right here in Greater Binghamton, NY, and Northeast Pennsylvania.

To practice what we preach in social media advice to our clients, we’re using our blog to both inform and interact with our site-viewers on topics that interest them.

We’d love to hear your feedback on our posts, so feel free to comment and subscribe to our RSS feed for instant and automatic updates on new blog posts! Click here to visit our blog!

Back to the campus
Riger’s Jamie Knudsen (standing) joins Riger interns Evan Stark and Jennifer Good on the last day of their summer internships at the agency. Evan is a senior at Rochester Institute of Technology, while Jennifer is a senior at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Thanks for your involvement with us, Evan and Jennifer! And best of luck in your futures!

Jamie supervises the Riger internship program and can be reached at jknudsen@riger.com.

sanofi pasteur announces $1.5 million gift to TCMC
Riger provided PR services to support client sanofi pasteur in its announcement of a $1.5 million gift to The Commonwealth Medical College. A press conference and check presentation were held at Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg.

Agency founder recognized for special achievement
We all felt a surge of pride when we learned that Fred Riger, founder of our organization, was recognized posthumously for Special Achievement by the Southern Tier Broadcasters Association. A plaque in his memory resides in the Binghamton Media Hall of Fame, located at the Bundy Arts & Victorian Museum, 129 Main St., Binghamton. Enjoy this profile of Fred, and see why we all feel gratified to work alongside one another under the Riger “banner.”

Media Day Panelists
Mark Bandurchin and Patty Farro chaired the BLI (Broome Leadership Institute) Media Day at the new Press & Sun-Bulletin facility in Johnson City. The day included a review of media basics such as the strengths and weaknesses of local media, the importance of ratings, and the differences between PR and advertising as marketing communications tools. This was followed by a panel discussion, with the BLI class asking questions of Calvin Stovall, executive editor of the Press & Sun-Bulletin and Greg Catlin, news director of WBNG-TV. Patty handled media basics, while Mark moderated the panel and wrapped up the session. The BLI program is offered through the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce with the intent of developing future community leaders.