B O A R D M I N U T E S
Chicago Headline Club
Board of Directors Meeting
March 14, 2005
President Ben Bradley called the meeting to order at 12:10 p.m.
Present: Ben, Michelle Stevens, Steve Rynkiewicz, Paula Brien, Howard Schlossberg, Abdon Pallasch, Kristen McQueary, Meg Tebo, Bonnie McGrath and Susan S. Stevens
Minutes of the last meeting were approved after Ben noted SPJ national has developed a track record of saying they tried to talk with him about the 2006 convention, but that they really haven’t. A conference call will settle things. Youth Communications gave no response to our financial aid offer, so we won’t pursue it. Howard said he was asked for help in providing Youth Communications with interns.
President’s report: For a nominating committee for the coming year’s officers and board members, Ben appointed Amy Morris of Channel 7, Sylvia Ewing of WBEZ and current board member Kristen of the Daily Southtown. Meg, as president-elect, will chair of the committee. She will ask Russ Tournabene, long-time CHC member who is now a consultant, to be the fifth member.
Bylaws: Meg said she will get the final draft to committee members in a week or so. Board will have it by the end of March. It probably should be presented at the Membership Night meeting in May, with a special meeting at least 30 days later for a vote.
Membership: Jason reports a solid 450 members. He is sending letters to SPJ members in this area who are not CHC members to ask them to join CHC. His next mailing will include a directory addendum with 80 new members.
Ethics: nominees for the Ethics Award have been sent to Casey Bukro’s committee. Abdon is giving Casey two nominations.
Ben gives Casey a tip of the hat for becoming a “media darling,” with NPR and the Chicago Reader reporting on the Ethics AdviceLine.
FOIA: Meg and Phil Kadner met with McCormick Tribune Foundation people. She said their reason for becoming involved in FOIA is interesting. While working with foreign countries’ news media which had looked up to the United States as a standard for freedom of information, the foundation realized some other countries have freer media than we do. The foundation wants to do a fall conference, with CHC offering its logo and credibility. We are very interested. The foundation also is looking at the possibility of pushing for changes in the Illinois FOIA law. Meg will keep us up to date.
Programs: Ben said Andy Dunning and Rob Olmsted had a successful program on Arab coverage, with about 25 people attending the meeting at the Daily Herald. We got an SPJ chapter grant for promotions, but didn’t use much if any of it. We will return to SPJ the leftover money.
Region 5 Conference in Chicago will begin the evening of Fri. April 14, with Joe Cappo speaking. Saturday will be professional workshops. We’ll send postcards to promote it. Motion passed to spend $500 on the postcards if SPJ won’t pay for them.
Lisagor: Abdon gets a star-and-a-half from Ben for recruiting Matt Cooper to speak after Judith Miller had a conflict. Having Cooper here in Patrick Fitzgerald’s home territory will send a message. Steve notes that Cooper is a comedian as well as a journalist, so should be extra interesting.
Steve said all the entries are judged. A list of finalists probably will be on the web site and on PR Newswire tomorrow (March 15). We need judges for our paybacks to chapters which judged for us. Dinner will be priced the same as last year.
New Business:
Internship-scholarships: Paula said the selection process is gearing up, with a May 23 deadline. Students have to have already accepted unpaid internships to be selected. She would like to improve the timing.
PRN media education series: Howard said dates have been finalized. 4-19: writing a press release; 5-17 being a good source for print; 6-21 being a good source for broadcast; 8-16 ethics; 9-20 grammar and spelling; 10-18 blogging and technology. Last year the series raised $3,000 for the scholarship-internship fund. Send Howard your ideas for panelists.
Meeting adjourned at 12:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan S. Stevens
Secretary