Getting Off Of Mailing Lists

She's what's cooking at Johnson & Wales

Bernice Parenti didn’t find her dream job in Charlotte. It came to Charlotte and found her.

Parenti is a native of Rhode Island, the home base of Johnson & Wales University. And she has played such a role in establishing the school’s Charlotte campus that she’s practically the school mascot, from starting the popular Chef’s Choice classes to lining up spots for students at nonprofits all over town.

But here’s the surprise: Those two things are a coincidence. Parenti didn’t come here with Johnson & Wales. She was already here, a Northeasterner living in a strange Southern city and not sure if it was the place for her.

“I will admit,” she says, “it wasn’t until Johnson & Wales that I committed to stay.”

Parenti is married to an Italian-American, Frank Parenti. With her big brown eyes and spot-on fashion sense, she looks Italian. But she’s actually from a big, close-knit Portuguese family in Bristol, R.I. Her grandparents immigrated from the Azores to escape the volcanoes and settled in the Northeast.

She grew up with family all around her, with aunts and cousins and grandparents all within a few blocks.

“Food was everything, family was everything. Everything centered around food. You can’t have enough food at a Portuguese family party.”

Parenti married at 19 and raised three kids – two daughters and a son. Frank was in banking and they had settled in Boston, where he worked for Fleet Financial Group (which later merged with Bank of America). In the late 1990s, he got downsized the day before Bernice was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It was a tough day,” she says now. “He’s so calm. He said, ‘First, we get you well. Then, I’ll find a new job.’ And that’s what we did.”

A lot of bankers from New England had come to Charlotte, so he was able to find a job here. He packed his clothes in the car and drove down, leaving Bernice to sell the house.

“I had no idea where Charlotte even was. I said, ‘Is it near the ocean?’”

Parenti had always bounced around from job to job. She did all kinds of things, even managed a box office. Her degree was in education, and she specialized in adult education, retraining people who had lost manufacturing jobs in the Northeast. Her mother had worked in a factory, so she understood the culture and really loved helping people.

Thanet Waves: HOW TO GET BACK ON TDC'S PRESS MAILING LIST

I've come up with a solution as to how bloggers can get back onto TDC's press mailing list. Are you ready? Well, basically... we've got to become journalists. Now come on, hear me out, because I do have a point. If Thanet District Council has removed bloggers from their press release mailing list and refused to take press queries from them on the basis that they will only deal with 'accredited media' in the future , then the only way we're going to get out of this mess is by becoming This could probably be an expensive undertaking, but the University of Kent does offer a couple of accredited National Council for the Training of Journalists qualifications such as a BA (Hons) in Journalism and the News Industry and even an MA in Multimedia Journalism . If a blogger had one of those degrees under their belt, could the council justify leaving them off their mailing list of 'accredited' media even if they didn't happen to work for a newspaper? I shouldn't have thought so. It does lead me to wonder exactly how 'accredited' one has to be to make the council's press mailing list. For example, what if you're a qualified freelance journalist who currently doesn't work in the media but still submits the occasional news article to local newspapers on spec. Would they be entitled to be added to the council's mailing list, on account of their NCTJ qualifications? I imagine so... because they're accredited . It seems like this could be a loophole bloggers could potentially exploit, should they have the gumption to do so. So that's the best solution I can come up with. Come on, bloggers, go and get yourselves some NCTJ qualifications. Problem solved. But I am joking, of course. Can you imagine what the local blogosphere would be like if Michael Child or Tony Flaig had an NCTJ accolade to their names? It's an interesting thought. But personally, the fact that Thanet Council has removed bloggers from their press mailing lists doesn't bother me in that I have never been on the list anyway. Besides, my blogging style isn't really geared towards investigatism in the same way as Michael Child's or Tony Flaig's is. I may express a view here and there, but I'm certainly no Daniel Ellsberg. Since I've only ever used the council's RSS feeds, removing bloggers from the press mailing list is not something which adversely affects me.

Essential guide to the Internet for health professionals

Data smog, surviving the information glut

Using the Internet

The Internet For Dummies

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time