Piggyback on your existing contacts in your school visit database to help generate invitations for the coming year.

 If you followed my advice in a previous post, you’ve entered the names and addresses of your past school visit hosts into a database. 

 The next step is to print labels for all the schools you visited last year.  Send a note (preferably handwritten as these are more impressive!) to your hosts, thanking them again for inviting you to visit their schools.  Ask if they would be willing to pass along your name to a colleague at another school or organization in their district or another district.  You might consider enclosing a stamped postcard so that all they have to do is address it, write a quick note and pop it in the mail.  Time this to arrive after school reconvenes in the fall– and after the big crush of post-summer mail is delivered – so that your notes don’t get lost in the shuffle.

 You can write these notes at the beach, pool or park throughout the summer.  You’ll be amazed at how painless this task is when its spread out over time.  They’ll be all ready to pop in the mail in September.