Awake In America is helping others around the country launch community education and support groups — focused on topics of importance to the local coordinators — not the topics and issues we specify. Coordinators may choose if the group has a focus on obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea, complex sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome, insomnia, shift work sleep disorder, sleep eating, sleep walking, excessive sleepiness, sleep and emergency medical technicians, sleep and law enforcement officers, sleep and fire fighters, sleep and airline pilots, sleep and commercial drivers, or any other focus related to sleep.

Because launching a community education group or a support group isn’t something you do without planning and preparation, Awake In America has assembled everything you will need in one package. From learning how support groups operate to understanding group dynamics, from having all the forms you need, to having information to hand out to people who may have sleep disorders, Awake In America has assembled everything you will need to quickly and successfully launching your group.

While no one can guarantee another’s success at anything in life, there are certain constants: if you follow a successful plan, work the plan, and continue to press on, never losing focus on the goal, things often duplicate themselves. Remember, success breeds success. Just because you follow a successful plan, do not be fooled into believing that everything will work happen by itself. In order to be successful at anything in life, you must apply yourself wholeheartedly.

While launching and running a support group isn’t extremely difficult, it does take time, and initially, patience. You don’t launch a group one day, and the next day have 100 members. You will need to grow, to mature, and to develop, as a coordinator, as group individuals and participants, but also as a group.

To help each Awake In America group become as successful as possible, we’ve created a “Quick Launch Kit” to help new coordinators get started. The initial year’s cost for getting started is $65, which includes the complete Quick Launch Kit, group membership, and all the other tools provided by Awake In America. After the first year, renewing the group’s membership drops to $45.

Yes, $65 to get started does sound like a lot, but when you look at what’s included, it is very inexpensive.

Each group coordinator will get a three-ring loose leaf binder of information about running a support group, as well as helpful information from Awake In America about running and successfully launching groups.

Groups are allocated up to five megabytes of space on the Awake In America Web site for the group to use for official activities and notices. Awake In America will perform all coding, maintenance, site design, and other technical issues on the server and the site, ensuring the look of the entire site remains uniform and functional. The group coordinators are be responsible, if they wish to use the free Web space, for content on their group’s site.

Each group will be listed, by state, on the “Groups” section of the Awake In America Web site, located at http://www.AwakeInAmerica.info/groups/. The Web site, overall, will contain a collection of information, documents, resources, and other tools, as well as a password-protect area for group coordinators.

The secure area will be used to give a heads up on product information, tools, and other resources prior to public launch.

Because there will be documents available for coordinators on the Web site, as well as other correspondence, file format compatibility is a key issue. Because not everyone uses Microsoft Word, for example, and because not everyone is willing to spend more than $150 to purchase a copy of Microsoft Word, Awake In America is including a copy of the latest version of OpenOffice, a free productivity suite compatible with major office suites, on the CD. OpenOffice includes:

• Writer: a powerful tool for creating professional documents, reports, newsletters, and brochures. You can easily integrate images and charts in documents, create everything from business letters to complete books with professional layouts, as well as create and publish Web content.
• Calc: a feature-packed spreadsheet which can turn boring numbers into eye-catching information. Calculate, analyze, and visually communicate your data quickly and easily. Use advanced spreadsheet functions and decision-making tools to perform sophisticated data analysis. Use built-in charting tools to generate impressive 2D and 3D charts.
• Impress: the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations. Your presentations will truly stand out with special effects, animation and high-impact drawing tools.
• Draw: will produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3-D illustrations and special effects.
• Math: is used as an equation editor for text documents, but it can also be used with other types of documents or stand-alone. When used inside Writer, the equation is treated as an object inside the text document. Similarly, one can also insert these into other OpenOffice.org programs like Calc and Impress.
• Base: is new to OpenOffice.org 2. Base enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within OpenOffice.org, allowing you to create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using your own database or Base’s own built-in HSQL database engine. Base offers a choice of using Wizards, Design Views, or SQL views for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users.
• OpenDocument XML format: OpenOffice.org uses the open standard OASIS OpenDocument XML format as the default file format. The OASIS OpenDocument format is a vendor and implementation independent file format, and thus guarantees freedom and independence. OpenOffice.org can also save to a variety of other file formats, including Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect Office Suite, Sun’s StarOffice, and others.
• PDF functionality: all applications in OpenOffice print to PDF format without you having to purchase additional software or program add-ins.
• And More! Check out OpenOffice.org 2 features page at http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/index.html

In addition to all that, each group will receive an official email Awake In America email address, such as GroupName@AwakeInAmerica. Coordinators will also receive two CDs of information and tools.

Awake In America’s role will be to help others around the United States successfully and quickly launch community education and support groups that are focused on sleep or sleep disorders. Each group coordinator independently determines the focus and topics of the group. Awake In America will also be working with various manufacturers and others on providing the most up-to-date information to group coordinators as possible.

Now for the complete breakdown of all that’s included in the first year’s group membership fee:

• Five megabytes of Web space per group for group-related activities and information, with free HTML coding by Awake In America to maintain a consistent and professional look across the Web site
• Three-ring binder with over 300 pages of information, resources, forms, and tools, with supplements, as necessary
• 200 Awake In America tri-fold brochures on sleep disorders
• Group wall membership certificate
• Coordinator CD, which contains:
  • OpenOffice 2
  • Firefox
  • MyBase (trialware)
  • Adobe Reader (PC, Mac, Unix)
  • Now That You Are Diagnosed info (PDF)
  • Templates designed to help you quickly and successfully launch a group, including:
    • Press release samples
    • Proclamation request sample
    • Proclamation samples
    • Speaker Request Sample
    • Sign-In Sample (customize)
    • Minutes template (customize)
    • Postcard Sample
    • Letterhead (customize and save to PDF)
    • Letterhead (word processor file with indents and dropped down for the letterhead)
    • And more!

The final steps to launching your group

Now that you’ve learned how easy Awake In America has made it for you to launch a community education and support group in your area, there’s only one thing left to do, and that is launching your group now.

To get your group launched, you need to submit the $65 payment and you will be well on your way. To help make things easy on you, Awake In America has several methods available to potential sponsors to make the payment.

You can mail a check, money order, or cashier’s check to Awake In America, or you can pay online, via our PayPal interface. Once the funds have cleared, your starter kit will be mailed, and your group will be listed.

To pay by check, money order, or cashier’s check, make it payable to: Awake In America, Inc. Make a notation in the memo field: Group Launch Fee, and then mail it to:

Awake In America, Inc.
Attn: Group Launch
P.O. Box 51601
Philadelphia, PA 19115-6601

 

Information to include when paying by check

When mailing a payment to launch a group, be sure to send the proposed name of the group, such as Awake In My Town or My Region Awake, or whatever name you opt to choose. We also need to know:

•  
  • the coordinator’s name
  • the coordinator’s email address
  • proposed name of the group (i.e., Awake In Your Town)
  • email address for the group coordinator
  • mailing address for the group (including city, state, and zip code)
  • phone number(s) for the group coordinator.

Also send a note along to let us know if the group will be open to the public, meaning it will be open to everyone, or if the group will be closed to the public, such as if the group is being run by a sleep lab and only the lab’s patients will be invited.

We also need to know if you wish for Awake In America to provide contact information for the group when people contact us.

Pay online and get started faster!

To pay online, via Awake In America’s PayPal interface, simply click the icon below to get started.

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