CHICAGO HEADLINE CLUB
Board of Directors meeting
Fri. Feb. 4, 2022
President Amanda Vinicky called the Zoom meeting to order at 9 a.m. Also present: Greg Karp, Howard Dubin, Blair Chavez, Nader Issa, Maya Duksamova, Jason Martin, Alejandra Cancino, Matt Kiefer, Molly McDonough, Christine Wolf, Nona Tepper, Mike Ewing, Olivia Obineme, Rob Elder, Catherine Larkin, Michael Limon and Susan S. Stevens.
Minutes from January meeting were approved as sent by Susan.
President’s report: Amanda said the SPJ Region 5 Conference will be April 8-9, either virtually or in Kentucky. One-quarter of the board as filled out Olivia’s forms to introduce ourselves on headlineclub.org. Please do so.
Treasurer’s report: Greg said $22,500 in Lisagor entry fees have come in, lagging a bit behind last year. We spent $250 on website repair, and expenditure passed by email vote Feb. 1. He will pay the second installment for an in-person Lisagor Awards banquet (May 6) to the Union League Club today.
CHC had $97,156 in the bank Jan. 31, 2002. CHC Foundation had $77,277 on same date.
Membership VP and webmaster report: Mike thinks the website will be more sustainable and safer now that the fixes have been made. (More later in minutes.) Membership renewal problems continue. (More later.)
FOIAFest: PROMOTE.Nona is trying to organize an in-person kick-off at the Liar’s Club the evening of Feb. 24.
Matt said 60 tickets have been sold, good at this point but a bit behind. Further promotions upcoming. Ticket sales will close Feb. 15 but probably reopen. We pay $7 per person for tech hookups. City Bureau will again distribute free tickets. BGA, thanks to Olivia, has been a lot of help as has Loevy & Loevy, the law firm we use. We budgeted for 150 free tickets. McCormick Foundation contributed $15,000; Dreihaus Foundation $5,000.
Bootcamp: Maya said 21 applied to be mentees, some unqualified. We may have 14 mentors and mentees. Still deciding on an in-person breakfast. If not, stipends will be sent for at-home working lunches.
Lisagor: PROMOTE. Cathy said Feb.14 is the new deadline. So far, 762 entries have come in, down a bit.
Emerging Journalists Award: tabled for this year
Committed Journalists Award: tabled
Watchdog: Jason said the grant deadline is March 31. He has a meeting with Driehaus Feb. 11
Website: Amanda said that we are no longer in crisis mode, thanks to Mike, Matt and Brett Widmann who we are paying $250 for emergency services. Matt said it was a random attack. He suggests we retain him for work on a regular basis. He will ask for a quote. Amanda, Mike and Matt will work on this.
Howard will be meeting with the SPJ executive director and will bring up the membership problems. Adding to the problems, he noted, SPJ sold HQs for $1 million, having paid half that amount a couple of decades ago. HQs will be moving a few people into rented space.
Meeting adjourned at 10:15 a.m. Next meeting: 9 a.m. Fri, March 4. Note: at next meeting we need to appoint a nominating committee for 2022-23 officers and board members.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan S. Stevens, secretary