Nov 14 2011 board meeting minutes

November 14, 2011 board member minutes

Attendance: Sarah Bacha, Dan Caterinicchia, Beth Gianforcaro, Meredith Heagney, Kevin Kemper, Eric Lyttle, Jennifer Monnin, Chuck Nelson, Phil Rudell, Sharon West

October minutes were approved

Financials
>Not much activity in the past three months, Phil reports
>Phil didn’t spend his convention budget of $1,300, so he will pay us back $124 and some cents (to be given to Julanne next meeting)
>Deposit of $332.50 in chapter dues refund from national
>Ohio State Bar Association cashed check for breakfast foods ($97.68)
>Vanguard 500 Index Fund dropped about $3,000 (Phil says it might be up by now; September was a bad month)
>Phil filed our IRS nonprofit form, can give guidance to next person who has to do it
>We decided it’s OK to keep about $5K in our checking account because the investments aren’t making any money
>Phil wrote Dan a check for OSU SPJ 100th anniversary event; only cost $330 (we budgeted $500)

Programming
>Dan reports the OSU event went great; expected 50 for the campus event and got 80; the students really appreciated the networking event, too
>Franklin County Consortium for Good Government voters’ forum on Oct. 26: board members who volunteered reported it was a small turnout, but pointed out it’s a valuable thing for us to participate in

Diversity event planning
>We really like this immigration idea: how do you cover different immigrant populations AND how do we maneuver language issues such at “illegal” vs. “undocumented.”
>Started to brainstorm the speakers we could have: people from minority media (Fronteras, for one) and immigrant populations (Latino, Somali, what els?) as well as a journalist who covers these groups for a general population (like Andrew?) and perhaps some ethics voices
>This needs to happen in early part of next year.

Ethics
>Tossed around two ideas, which could conceivably be combined: something having to do with politics, in light of the presidential race, and something to do with convergence in light of the Dispatch’s recent purchases
>Everyone is asked to come to December meeting with more ideas, or more refined versions of these ideas

Other programming
>Eric said he’d check with the former BOMA/First Baptist Church about having an event there
>Sarah said she’s had events at the Columbus Metropolitan Library before and it’s free
>Beth asked us to start thinking about Founders Day: We have two local media personalities retiring who could be potential speakers (Andrea Cambern and Bob Connors); she’d like us to start collecting silent-auction items

Miscellaneous
>Beth will change the LinkedIn status from individual to group
>Chuck is going through the bylaws to determine if anything needs to change (which is cumbersome, but we could put change ballots in Founders Day mailings)
>We talked about the possibility of having votes online (requires bylaws change as well)

SPJ’s high school essay contest
>It’s a national project we’ve agreed to promote
>Kevin is going to get a listing of principals so we can contact them and get info to schools
>We discussed awarding something to the local winner at Founders day

Scholarships
>Chuck suggested we have a discussion about scholarships: how we fund them, how many we have; talked about doing something with Columbus Foundation, the way the Faulkner is set up
>Cane we have an overall scholarship fund for all the scholarships?
>Something to talk about in the future

— Compiled by Meredith Heagney