Regional partnerships work.

It's a crusade. How can we improve on an organization already dedicated to helping editorial writers improve their craft?

Try to do it closer to home, wherever that is.

That's the goal of the Regional Conferences Committee, which I have chaired for the past year. We're trying to offer regional conferences and critique sessions in as many places as we can. This year, the strategy is to partner with the Society of Professional Journalists -- to add an editorial writing component to the regional conferences SPJ holds every spring.

For example, in the SPJ district that covers the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the NCEW component of the SPJ regional conference will consist of one panel discussion and an all-day critique session.

That kind of approach allows for NCEW to raise its flag during the conference, and to offer any editorial writers an opportunity to participate in critiques.

Actually, the model we're following is one that was put forth by Kay Semion, when she headed the Regional Conferences Committee. Kay put together a four-page guide to organizing a regional conference. It included ideas for puffing on your own event, partnering with another organization that already does conferences -- and there were different options depending on how much money and resources you had.

I have copies of this and can mail you one if you want. Write to me in care of the La Crosse Tribune, 401 N. Third Street, La Crosse, WI 54601, or e-mail me at [e-mail]

Last fall, I made some appeals on our listserv, looking for people who wanted to work with the SPJ region in their area to put on NCEW-sanctioned critique sessions and conferences. Here are some examples of regional activity forwarded to me by NCEW president Fred Fiske:

* SPJ regional director Julie Asher, from SPJ's mid-Atlantic region, invited NCEW to participate in a regional meeting hosted by SPJ's student chapter in Blacksburg, Va., next March.

* Penny Byrne, an SPJ conference organizer in Logan, Utah, said she would try to recruit NCEW members to participate in a panel on growth in the West.

* NCEW Region 8 membership director J.R. Labbe recruited NCEW members to help judge SPJ's regional writing contest and made the same offer for another SPJ region.

* SPJ president Ray Marcano of the Dayton Daily News said he welcomes NCEW's participation in regional meetings and is interested in joint programming. We are working with Tammi Hughes, SPJ's director of education, on adding an opinion writing component to a National Writers Workshop planned by SPJ for Portland, Maine, in June.

* NCEW at-large regional captain Gale Hammons recruited NCEW members to participate in the SPJ regional meeting in Anaheim on March 31.

* Jay Evenson, who is both an NCEW member and SPJ's Region 9 director, has been judging and critiquing student editorial writing for years and puffing on programs at SPJ's meetings in Utah.

There's lots of regional activity -- and there could be more. But it isn't always easy One effort at regional collaboration with SPJ failed after only one editorial writer expressed interest in a critique.

Still, the fact that we are making more such programs available to our members and other editorial writers is cause for some celebration.

Anyone who is interested in helping with this effort may contact me.

NCEW member Dick Mial is opinion page editor of the La Crosse Tribune in Wisconsin. He is chair of the Regional Conferences Committee. His e-mail address is [e-mail]