OLD PAGE - WILL BE REVISED

For more information, contact: Andrea Reynolds, (814) 774-5070 or info@CrisisBrainstorm.com
 
News release: December 23, 2004


Is Civility an Antidote to Bullying, Intimidation, Aggression, Hostility, Violence?


[ Girard, PA ] She was disappointed with personal attacks on opponents heard in recent political messages. And she's disturbed that the gossiping, intimidation, bullying, vandalism, aggression and violence she has seen on the news and in communities are not only prevalent, but tolerated. So Andrea Reynolds is about to launch her one-woman Kindness Campaign across North America. She will promote very simple, but seemingly forgotten concepts: respect, empathy and compassion (kindness) in an effort to counteract the mean-spiritedness she has both seen and experienced.
Reynolds' response to the skeptical: "I know. It sounds so simplistic and idealistic, but I believe civility is the first step toward reducing and eliminating violence. Think about this: why do people pick on others, intimidate, bully, cheat, steal, become violent, hurt others and destroy property? Because they feel inadequate, unloved, unwanted, unworthy, unheard, hurt, ripped off, etc., and they haven't developed the critical thinking skills to be able to identify other, more constructive behavior choices."
She then asks: "What if we treated those individuals (everyone) with kindness, understanding, patience. Yes, that sounds New Age-y, but there are specific, practical things we can do and I'm happy to share some of the offbeat things I've done that have worked. I offer specific creative ideas for change that anyone can use; and I can talk about my own experiences challenging swindlers, bullies, and stalkers."
She adds: "In the time I have left on the planet I want to speak, write, teach, and do what I can to reduce domestic and stranger violence, senseless murders of pregnant wives, school shootings, and suicides resulting from bullying, by diminishing all the thousands of hurts that bring a person to act out his frustration and feelings of low self-worth. "
Bio
Andrea has been interviewed as an expert on manners, morals, and civility by such media hosts as British journalist David Frost, the late Peter Gzowski on CBC radio and by USA Today, National Post, Financial Post, and Canadian Business. She has conducted seminars on Business and Executive Civility for such companies as Northern Telecom (NorTel) and privately groomed corporate CEOs on the finer points of civility in business. At one time she operated Author's Bed & Breakfast in downtown Toronto which incorporated many elements of civility to guests of many nations.
She used to be a Family Studies teacher in the most dangerous school in Toronto and was well liked and respected because she too came from a violent home and understood the students' predicaments. ("I turned out all right because I chose to find healthy behaviors.") Later she was a media guest expert on bad relationships (abuse, violence in relationships, etc.) on a number of Canadian programs on CBC radio and 4 programs on the Life Network.
She worked with Toronto police as a community volunteer and helped put a serial burglar in jail. Then because of her outspokenness and visibility on national TV she became the target of a
stalker who had savagely beaten and raped two women and (police think) may have killed two other women in her neighborhood. She escaped... but had to leave everything behind after 25 years in Canada to start her life over here in the US.

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Criss-crossing North America by van for a year, with her cats, she is seeking public support.
Twelve things she is asking you to do to support her Kindness/Civility Campaign:
1. Enter her a contest to give away her furnished home in Pennsylvania to someone who needs one. Her plan is to raise enough money on her own by speaking to support herself on the road for a year.
2. Enter her second contest to award a month of her personal marketing services to one expert, and ongoing advice for a year to the 299 Second Place winners. She needs to collect 300 entries (a list of the experts' obstacles to success and $20 entry fee).
3. Invite her to brainstorm multiple solutions, one-on-one, with people facing poverty, homelessness, cruel treatment by others and feelings of hopelessness. (Many problems stem from a lack of money or fear about not having enough money. So she plans to live simply while teaching critical thinking skills to resolve crises, stress and tension.)
4. Subscribe to her weekly email Civility Tip. It's free.
5. Join her Intentional Acts of Kindness Group to offer kind help to each other. It's free.
6. Sponsor her weekly civility column in your local newspaper... if you're a business who cares about making our society more civil.
7. Invite her to speak to your association conference, business, school, college, university, prison, juvenile detention center, shelter, church, temple, etc. about how to incorporate civility and specifically how it can actually work in your neighborhood, workplace, community.
8. Invite her to appear on your local radio program to discuss critical thinking skills and how we can conquer many of society's ills by practicing specific acts of civility.
9. Interview her for your newspaper column or send her "news release" to your local newspaper.
10. Read her web based contest journal and later, words and photos of her encounters and experiences while on the road for a year.
11. Invite her to be a guest in your home... or manage your small B & B for you while you're on vacation for a week or two... so she can have a hot shower and bed to sleep in from time to time when traveling from town to town. (B & B-sitting was how she came to own her own B & B that she had to leave behind.)
She welcomes invitations to speak on:

  • Civility as an Antidote to Violence in Your Community and Society
  • Business Civility: Civility as a Marketing Tool in Your Professional Practice of Service
  • Smart Thinking: Triumph Over Life's Crises and Challenges With Your 10 Creative Solutions
  • Stop the Chatter: How you can find creative solutions by getting quiet
  • Hate: Anatomy of a Hate Campaign: How Hate Starts and How to Eliminate it from Your Family, Neighborhood and Community (True Story)
  • Homelessness: 25 Brilliant Ways to Keep a Roof Over Your Head When Homelessness Seems to be Inevitable
  • Empathy: Is Someone You Know (or You) Missing the Empathy Gene?
  • Poverty: You're Smart... Why Aren't You Earning Enough? Steps to Take You from Chronic, Financial Chaos to Financial Comfort
  • Poverty: Charity Begins Next Door: 100 Much Needed Gifts You Can Give Someone Who's Facing Financial Crisis
To support Andrea Reynolds' Civility Campaign, please visit CrisisBrainstorm.com or contact Andrea Reynolds: (814) 774-5070. Her permanent mailing address is: Andrea Reynolds, PO Box 49, Lake City, Pennsylvania 16423 USA.

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Note to Editor or Producer: Andrea can teach your readers and listeners how to arrive at 10 unconventional solutions to serious problems. For an information-packed interview call Andrea Reynolds directly: 814-774-5070, or email her: info@CrisisBrainstorm.com


Contact Andrea Reynolds directly: (905) 280-0223; Cell: (905) 708-3081 or info@CrisisBrainstorm.com



 



 



News Release: October 15, 2006

Home Economist to launch 1,000 Good Deeds Tour across North America
[ St. Catharines Ontario ] If someone offered to do a good deed for you what would you want it to be?
That's what Andrea Reynolds, a 57 year old American living in Canada, wants you to tell her. Send her an email or write her a letter: tell her what you need and where you are and she may show up in your town or city. Send to: Andrea Reynolds, PO Box 1106, Lewiston, New York, 14092 USA
Reynolds, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Family and Consumer Studies from Kent State University in 1973, wants to teach the world by example how to be more kind and compassionate of others by doing good deeds herself - one thousand of them - across the United States and Canada, for people in need of a helping hand or in crisis.
"I'm on a mission to find a kind, friendly community, and I'll continue to do good deeds as I stop in each community to have a look around. I've decided to sell everything, and become 'homeless' until I find the right place. It could take a year or two."
Her plan is to slowly traverse the continent with her 2 cats, Casper and Jasper, in her "poor man's RV" a used cargo van. Equipped with camping equipment she won in a hospital lottery, her home-office-on-wheels will take her wherever she is booked to speak on the subject of empathy in business, school, family, community; and preventing and handling crises.
Starting off penniless Reynolds must work to cover expenses for her 1,000 Good Deeds Tour.) In whichever community she is invited to present a keynote address, she will perform good deeds for individuals who have made a prior request. She urges people to send their request in regardless of whether she has been booked to speak.
To become debt-free and cover her living expenses she is selling: (see Andrea's wish list)
1. Her 3 bedroom condo; accepting $100 for tours for curiosity seekers and prospective buyers who want to stay in the condo for 24 hours.
2. A newspaper column of her weekly experiences, a series about her observations doing 1000 good deeds and the fascinating people she meets.
3. Her books from her web site, including her booklet of 365 questions to ask before marriage which was featured on the sitcom, What I Like About You.
4. Very affordable "personal concierge" franchises (Handy Ande) she created, to families who need a second source of income.
5. Her keynote addresses:
a. Good Deeds: The Best Revenge
b. Overcoming Self-Sabotage: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy
c. How to Brainstorm a Dozen Solutions to Any Crisis
e. Empathy as a Marketing Tool in Your Private Practice or Service Business
f. How to Write Tough Letters Brilliantly to Get the Results You Desire
6. Small group, one day seminars:
a. "You're Smart... Why Aren't You Earning Enough?" How to Start Generating $40,000 to $400,000 a Year.
b. OutSmarting Sweetheart Swindlers: How to Protect Your Assets from Romantic Con Artists
c. Toxic Friends & Lovers: Recognize and avoid "emotional vampires" and "psychological terrorists."
d. No More Empty Relationships A workshop for single adults who want to break the pattern of going-nowhere relationships.
e. Questions about money you need to ask each other before you marry.
 
As she travels Reynolds will depend on the kindness of strangers. "I can't afford motel or B & B stays, so I'd love to find house-sitting assignments where I can have access to electricity, the Internet, and a hot shower. I can housesit in, stage and show empty homes to prospective buyers that are for sale and slow to sell; but I'd settle for parking in someone's driveway and having my extension cord plugged in to their home for a few hours."
Already, Andrea has received offers of places to stay in or visit:

  • Alexandria, Virginia
  • Jamestown, Virginia
  • Dallas, Texas
  • Omaha, Nebraska
  • Montague, Michigan
  • Olympia, Washington
  • Tampa, Florida
  • Greenville, South Carolina
  • Pincher Creek, Alberta
  • Schenectedy, New York
  • Des Moines, Iowa
  • Clarkston, Washington
  • Southhaven, Mississippi
  • Lorain, Ohio
  • Hagerstown, Maryland
As she travels she will visit newspapers to promote her column and appear on local TV and radio talk shows to promote her message of doing good deeds for people in need.
Any corporation, association, school, university, nonprofit group, or government agency who desires to have Andrea Reynolds perform good deeds for individuals in their community should contact her with a request to speak, possible subject, location, and date required. Please contact her directly: (905) 708-3081 (cell) or (905) 280-0223.

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For press and media interviews, contact her directly: (905) 280-0223 or (905) 708-3081 or info@CrisisBrainstorm.com

 


Some interview questions to ask Andrea:
1. If someone offered to do a good deed for you what would you want it to be?
2. What's a good deed?
3. What's the difference between a good deed and common courtesy?
4. What's the best good deed you've done for someone else?
5. What the best good deed for which you've been the recipient?
6. In your experience, is there any truth to the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished"?
7. Do you really believe that good deeds are the best revenge?
 
SIDEBAR:What are good deeds?
Good deeds are unpaid actions that a recipient requests, not necessarily what the doer wants to do. Reynolds will, as an example:
1. Write a letter of complaint to get results for an elderly person who is too intimidated.
2. Write a resume for an out-of-work husband.
3. Resolve a marital dispute. (She holds a degree in Family Studies and wrote 3 relationship books.)
4. Grocery shop for someone who just had surgery.
5. Cook a healthy, nutritious, economical meal for a low income family. (She used to teach home ec.)
6. Help a student rehearse a speech.
7. Create a basic web page for a single mom who wants to start a business.
8. Write a Victim Impact Statement for a victim of crime.
9. Give away 100 Handy Ande Personal Concierge Franchises to help underearning individuals and families generate more income.