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Dia daoibh, y’all,
A small group of us in the Mid-South have founded a Conradh na Gaeilge craobh, Cumann Gaelach Tír Chikasha (Chickasaw-Region Gaelic Club). So far we’ve just gotten a bunrang going (ní an t-oide mé), but the number of students went from four down to one. We’re struggling to get the Irish language and cultural community lifted off in an area that’s economically depressed and showing little initial interest. Do any of ye have any recommendations for us?
Go raibh maith agaibh as an tír na ghormacha deilt.
Thank ye from the land of the delta blues.A few suggestions to get you started:
1. Pick a “reboot” date a month or more from now when you hope to have a reinvigorated class start. You’ll need to give yourselves enough time to get the word out.
2. Get flyers up in any libraries in your community and all of the libraries in contiguous communities. Venture as far afield in your flyer-posting as you think a prospective student might reasonably travel. While you’re out & about posting flyers at libraries, stop in at book shops, grocery stores & cafés, and if they have a bulletin board, ask if you can put a flyer there. (If you want help with the flyer design, contact me privately).
3. Get a free ad up at http://memphis.craigslist.org/cls/ — you’ll have to register first, but it’s free & easy.
4. Get a calendar listing up at each of the newspapers in your area. In most cases you can now just fill out a form online with your class details. In the bad ol’ days we used to have to mail a letter to each paper! The calendar listing you create online will eventually end up in the print edition.
5. If your community has a local access channel on cable, they may have an event scroll that they use as filler between the homegrown programmes. Do some homework & find out.
6. If there’s a local radio programme that has a variety of guests in, contact them to see if they’ll do a quick segment with you, in which they can ask questions about the language and you can plug the class.
7. You’re not yet listed on daltai.com! http://www.daltai.com/classes/tennessee/
8. Send a note about your class details to the Gaeilge-B list: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/liosta/gaeilge-b/
That’s enough for now. Feel free to contact me by e-mail with questions or if you’d like me to add to your “to do” list.
🙂
I recently came across this organization, The Irish Gift, based near Nashville in Franklin, TN that says it’s goal is “to promote, revive, preserve and celebrate the traditional Irish culture in Tennessee.” They have classes for Sean Nós singing & dancing, fiddle & flute and most importantly for me, Gaeilge.
Here’s their website: http://theirishgift.org/
I’m planning to move down to that area in the next year or so and I can’t tell you how happy I am to know I can continue my studies down there. I know you’re about 3 hours away but seeing as you’re both based in TN, they might be a great resource for expanding your organization’s reach and ultimately building a greater Irish language community in Tennesse. Hope this helps!
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