B O A R D M I N U T E S
Chicago Headline Club
Board of Directors Meeting
November 12, 2002
President Molly McDonough called the meeting to order shortly after 8 a.m.
Present: Molly, Jennifer Leopoldt of Northwestern, Diane Monk, Paula Brien, Mary Myers, Phil Potempa, Lucio Guerrero, Rob Hess, Ed Cooper, John Camden, Steve Rynkiewicz, Christine Tatum, Bob Roberts and Carlos Hernandez Gomez.
President’s report:
Molly said Christine was elected to an at-large seat on the SPJ board at the national convention. Christine and Howard Dubin were presented presidential awards. Chicago won diversity and communications awards.
The Headline Club and Medill will host the Region 5 meeting Feb. 28. We will do an ethics track and IRE will do programming. We might use the new Medill building or the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
We have been asked to host the national convention in 2005. Molly will appoint a committee to explore fundraising for it. John Camden will check hotel availability and pricing.
The PR News monthly series will begin in February. Five or six sessions are planned, starting with Casey Bukro teaching an ethics session. Mary Myers said she would help, using her experience on both sides. Our income will go to scholarships.
Illinois Press Association is giving us FOIA CDroms that Molly wants to send members by the holidays.
Carmel Carrillo is quitting as Journalist editor after the next issue and Billy O’Keefe withdrawing as webmaster because he is going to graduate school. A new editor and webmaster were being sought. (See Molly’s update filling positions.)
Treasurer’s report:
Rob said we made about $10,000 on the Brownlee series. Not all the income and expenses are in yet.
The main business account had a balance of $3,826; the investment account $78,893. Chad Rubel agreed to become assistant treasurer.
Membership:
John reported 393 members by SPJ count, plus 23 just sent in and maybe 24 in the pipeline. The student count of 15 is probably very low. He wants to more centralize records with national and will meet with Howard Dubin regarding the downsizing of duplicate systems.
When calls for reservations come in, they come too fast for one person so he wants to have the office service do it.
A membership directory is targeted for January.
Molly noted Howard is working hard with national on membership and finances.
She also noted national dues went up $2 because of a 4-year-old decision and said it’s a good time to increase local dues for associate members. Christine moved and Bob Roberts seconded a $10 increase for associates.
Lisagor:
Steve passed out nomination forms which PRN was to get that afternoon to mail. A second mailing to others was to be done in a couple of weeks.
He recommended the Intercontinental for the April 25 awards banquet, with a $5 increase in tickets. The Marrriott is unavailable and the Chicago Athletic Association has been outgrown.
John will try to negotiate a better rate at the Intercontinental.
Discussion of commercialization of Lisagors followed. Was sent to committee.
Molly said Robert Morris College will try to put together a Lisagor database back to its conception.
FOI:
Phil Kadner reported to Molly that he was writing Attorney General-elect Lisa Madigan to make sure we can count on her support for FOIA. AP is developing a nationwide credentialing task force. Molly asked that we be kept advised.
Programs:
Chris presented a detailed preliminary report that included numbers at each Brownlee Series event. She estimated we reached 740 Chicago area journalists and tremendously raised our profile. It generated interested in next year, when sponsorships will increase. We need more volunteer support. The profits could be as high as $15,000 to $17,000 when everything is counted. Profits will be used for the next Brownlee series.
A holiday party will be Dec. 6 at Billy Goat’s. We’ll buy burgers for all members. No Brown bag in December because of the holidays.
Dec. 11 is tentatively an officers-only meeting.
Jan 8 will be the next board meeting, at 8 a.m.
September minutes were approved.
Meeting adjourned at 9:20 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan S. Stevens
Secretary