Sept 12 2011 board meeting minutes

September 12, 2011 board meeting minutes

Attendance: Tom Borgerding, Dan Caterinicchia, Meredith Heagney, Julanne Hohbach, Barbara James, Kevin Kemper, Eric Lyttle, Sarah Mills Bacha, Phil Rudell, Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Approved minutes from June meeting

Finances
>Very light summer, little activity
>We approved $1,300 in expenses for the SPJ national conference
>The balance is down a bit because the OSU golf club check cleared
>We transferred $100 to PayPal, trying to keep a balance in there
>Vanguard statements due first week of October; Phil will have them at next meeting
>Andrew will get a receipt for the Ringside event
>Financial report approved

Membership
>Eric has talked to Kevin Shook of Frost Brown Todd about being our liaison for First Amendment questions, perhaps with a column in our monthly newsletter
>Our LinkedIn account is set up as a person; we need it set up as a group (so we can start discussions). Beth can investigate
>We need to make some people admins on our Facebook page

Programming
>PRSA wants to do a joint writing workshop with us; we’re going to stay in touch with someone named Amy Peach
>Meredith shared details about OSU coverage panel discussion event in Fredericktown; about 30 people came
>Oct. 14 is the annual Law and Media Conference of the Ohio State Bar Association. We are writing a check for breakfast and counting it as a joint effort between us, the OSBA and the Columbus Bar Association
>We voted to allot up to $200 for breakfast
>Tom plans on going and Andrew is a panelist
>We collected volunteers for the Franklin County Consortium for Good Government’s voter information issues panels on Oct. 6 and 24. Meredith and Eric are on for Oct. 6 and Andrew and Kevin are on for Oct. 24, with Juanne and Sarah as needed
>Tom says Joe Cornely at Farm Bureau is looking to do a joint program, a “backgrounder” on agriculture issues that would be unbiased; still, we have concerns that it might be unbalanced or too focused on propaganda. Andrew and Tom to get a list of potential panelists from Cornley
>OSU offered to hold a date for Founder Day; we decided to hold off for now because we don’t know the speaker’s schedule and it was hot (but they donated a nice silent auction gift)
>Dan tell us about the OSU student chapter’s 100th anniversary celebration; Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Schafer of the Detroit Free Press will speak at 4 p.m. on Oct. 28, which is Homecoming weekend, at the Ohio Union. Austin Kiplinger, oldest living member, may speak. Dan is looking for a venue where we could maybe sponsor a happy hour (alcohol issues at the union?) or we could just do appetizers. Barb points out the recruiting opportunity.
>Andrew reminds us that we promised ourselves we would follow Kasich and his policies on openness, asked us to send him any examples of stonewalling by any public officials

Miscellaneous
>We’re supposed to read the bylaws by the October meeting
>Laura stepped down, Chuck Nelson stepped in (term expires in 2014)
>Ohio SPJ awards: There were 665 entries, up from 581 last year, and the Plain Dealer is back. Awards ceremony is Oct. 22 in Cleveland
>Phil asked for our thoughts on candidates and Helen Thomas Award for national convention voting purposes. We said Phil could vote his conscience.
>We discussed freelance/job listings on site
>Barb will ask Chuck to be our unofficial web poster
>At October meeting, we will discuss custody of permanent records