B O A R D M I N U T E S
Chicago Headline Club
Board of Directors Meeting
May 19, 1999
The meeting was called to order at 8:00 A.M.
Corrections: Howard Dubin’s name was omitted from the attendance list for the April meeting. The name of Maria Traska’s company is Traska and Katz.
Attended: Rob Hess, Molly McDonough, John McClelland, Susan Stevens, Ilyce Glink, Maria R. Traska, Edward J. Cooper, Paula Brien, Christine Tatum, Mary Myers, Stephen Rynkiewicz, Bob Roberts (by phone), Casey Bukro (by phone), Tom LaPorte
President’s Report:
Internship Program: Committee now includes Bob Roberts, Diane Monk, Rob Hess, Paula Brien (Columbia College) and John McClelland (Roosevelt). I’m open to having more people join.
Annual Report: Major events of the year include: Future of Journalism,
Brown Bag, FOI Panel (October) organized by Ed Rooney, Peter Lisagor Awards, Scholarships, City News Bureau evening. Anything else? If you have any additional information for the report, please e-mail it to me. Also I’ll need a year’s worth of Chicago Journalists. Ilyce will try to complete the annual report, due to National on June 15th, in time for the June 16th meeting. If not, everyone will get one by e-mail.
Membership Crisis: Ilyce informed us that there will, in the near future, be a crisis with the National SPJ because we have 200 members who are paying local dues but not national dues, in violation of SPJ rules. Unless National can figure out a way to make itself relevant, meaningful, and give the impression that it creates value for the $70 in dues, more of our members will drop out of national. Within 5 years, the board will have to decide what to do about this situation. One possibility is to drop out of national altogether and go back to being a local club. (Anyone who wanted to stay a member of national, of course, could.)
President-Elect’s Report. Rob Hess suggested the Board needs to focus on the media and membership committees. We should see whether newsrooms around the city would be amenable to conducting tours This would afford students more opportunity to visit newsrooms. The Board is also attempting to persuade Illinois courts to admit cameras.
Internship Report: Les Brownlee’s wife was inquiring why her father’s name was omitted when the scholarship awards were announced at the Lisagor dinner. Les’ mother-in-law donated $4000 over a few years to the club in return for naming the scholarship after her late husband, Mr. McDougal, a respected Chicago journalist. Ilyce said that in the time she has been a member of the Headline Club, there has been $20,000 awarded in scholarships. There apparently was never any written agreement to retain McDougal’s name on the scholarships. Ilyce agreed to look into the McDougal Scholarship situation in time to make a report at the next board meeting. FOI: Bob Roberts reported by telephone that HR 1432, transferring access to police records to a different state agency, has passed and will be signed.
President’s Report: Ilyce informed us that there will, in the near future, be a crisis with the national SPJ, because we have 200 members who are paying local dues, but not national dues, in violation of SPJ rules. The Board will one day have to decide what to do about this situation.
FOI: HB 1432, transferring access to police records to a different state agency has passed, and will be signed. Indiana has passed an open records law inspired by the state-wide newspaper investigation earlier this year. Treasurer’s Report: The Club has spent about $2000.00 more than it took in for the year. The money best spent this year was the Future of Journalism, followed by the Brown Bag lunches. The Club currently has $71,000 in the account.
Lisagor: The dinner cost the Club $9853.04, which means we broke even this year. There were 354 attending. Everyone felt that while it seemed impossible to pull off, having several different people presenting the different awards went extremely smoothly and made the whole thing much more fun and interesting. The board agreed to pursue other ways to enliven the Lisagor night.
Programs: The Brown Bag committee announced that the upcoming speakers include Blair Kamin, the Pulitzer and Lisagor-Award winning architecture critic on Friday May 28. Recently fired AMA editor George Lundberg joins the Brown Bag series on Friday June 28.
Website: Steve reported that Medill would host our own domain name on their server. This means they’re going to pay for our web hosting. Steve also reported that a variety of names are available that would suit our purposes, including www.Chicagoheadlineclub.com., .org and .net. plus a variety of similar names. He will choose one and begin working with Medill on getting it up and running. Steve also pointed out that you could see interviews with the Lisagor winners, a la Oscar night, on the web site.
The next board meeting will be June 16 at 5:30 P.M.
Ed Cooper, secretary