JEANC Annual Meeting Minutes
Saturday, January 21, 2012
CNPA Office • 2000 O Street, Suite 120 • Sacramento, CA 95811
Present: Ellen Austin, Michelle Balmeo, Don Bott. Ed Galdrikian, Karl Grubaugh, Randy Hamm, Sarah Nichols, Tracy Sena, Greg Stobbe, Rachel West, Joe Wirt (CNPA)
I. Call to Order (10:04)
II. Approval of Minutes (10:04)
a. Ed moved to approve. Don seconded. Motion passed.
III. Communications (10:05)
a. Tracy is resigning from JEANC board, effective at end of meeting today.
IV. Reports of Officers (10:05)
a. Treasurer — Randy Hamm
i. Categorical details were sent via email and included in separate documents.
ii. Cleared $12k this year
iii. We have increased from last year at this time $9,522 to $21,577.
iv. Things have significantly improved and we are in very good shape.
v. Ed said that this was one of the best fiscal conventions that JEANC has ever had.
vi. Ellen noticed that the annual contest has increased in revenue.
vii. A major duty of the treasurer this year was to complete an Attorney General’s report. This needs to be completed every year and hadn’t been done since 2002. Randy worked hard to do that.
viii. Last year there were W9 forms because of RENOvation, and this year there were not.
ix. Big kudos to Randy Hamm for all of his communication and professionalism in finding out about and taking care of these major details.
b. Membership — Michelle Balmeo (10:13)
i. Membership report: we have 60 current members. There are 23 memberships that just expired and are looking for their renewals. We have added an expiration month to all memberships now, so that all memberships have an exact expiration.
ii. 23 members did not renew their membership last year. Sarah wanted to know if there has been any tracking on why certain members have lapsed. Michelle said that there is currently not a system, but that she knows some of the advisers are no longer advising at their school sites since new advisers are in place.
iii. We need to a policy on how to contact and connect with members whose memberships expire and get them to renew.
iv. Membership projection for 2012: 85. We gain a lot of members for conventions, so this year we will have a harder time gaining more. However, we do have RENOvation, so hopefully there will be gains because of that.
v. There are not a lot of member benefits in non-convention years, beside the contest. We need to work to try to bring in new members because of the benefits, not market benefits to current members.
vi. JEA used to charge $50 for memberships and reimburse us $5 for each one we sent them. Now they charge $55 for memberships and we send them $50 and keep $5.
vii. We need to decide if we want to send a letter to expiring members for renewals. Sarah suggests that someone do it 2-3 times a year; it’s not fair to ask someone to take care of renewals every month. Randy asked Joe if CNPA would be able to help. If we share the GoogleDoc with Joe, someone from CNPA can access the spreadsheet and send the letter. Michelle suggested targeting only in January and August and send a renewal letter every six months. Discussion about effectiveness since many people wait for a deadline or need.
viii. Randy proposes that there be a monthly letter emailed to members for memberships that are going to lapse in the next month. Rachel proposes that this communication seems like a secretarial duty to do once a month. Everyone is in agreement.
ix. Rachel will send a letter to the 23 members whose memberships have lapsed during 2011 and encourage them to renew.
x. Part of this connects to paid-for services (contests, convention registration, trainings), because it’s important to make sure that the renewals are paid for BEFORE the service is rendered. This will need to be done for all paid-for services. Michelle thinks she can figure out a way to do on the website. Sarah suggested paying someone to train us to start this project and keep Michelle from spending a lot of time on trying to figure it out.
xi. Sarah moves that JEANC explore a workshop or specific tutorials to be done in-person, from a web consultant to make better use of our website for member services, not to exceed $1000 in the current calendar year. Don seconded. Motion passed.
c. President — Tracy Sena (10:45)
i. OMG Convention in October was well-done. There is an online document for suggestions for next time that has a lot of recap. Huge thank you to everyone for helping and making the convention so great. Several advisers approached Tracy after the event saying that it was “better than national” and that the students were very excited. We need to remember that teachers make a lot of these decisions at the last minute. Sarah reminded us that attendance was up, even though we were worried even 10 days before that we had enough registrations.
ii. Sarah asked if we should have a convention every year. JEA is talking about changing their model to only have conventions in specific locations – San Francisco, DC, major cities, not regions. Michelle asked if we should send a letter on behalf of JEANC sharing our feelings on this. This decision is deferred to new business. (Did not follow up in new business due to time.)
V. Old Business (11:21)
a. Convention Wrap-up — Comments, questions, suggestions
i. Tracy said “thank you to all” to everyone who worked on the convention.
ii. A big difference was making fiscal decisions that were smart, cutting Sunday, and really being thoughtful about
iii. Still some “free” registrations not paid for. Scholarships should not matter; there needs to be someone to follow through on payment. Despite this, 47 registrations brought in through Steve O’Donoghue were paid for. Sarah thinks we need to thank Steve formally for continually bringing new people to our organization. Randy moves we send Steve a letter of appreciation for all of the recruiting he does for us. Karl seconded. Motion passed.
iv. Ed said we should all give ourselves a round of applause.
b. Induction of New President
i. Tracy Sena passes the gavel to Michelle Balmeo.
VI. New Business (12:10)
a. Possible positions for election/renewal:
i. President-elect (2-yr term)
1. Randy moves to nominate Rachel West for president-elect. Karl seconds. Motion carries.
ii. Treasury (appointment w/consent)
1. Randy Hamm accepts appointment. Unanimous consent.
iii. Recording secretary (appointment w/consent)
1. Karl Grubaugh accepts appointment. Unanimous consent.
iv. Membership Coordinator (appointment w/consent)
1. Rachel West accepts appointment. Unanimous consent.
b. State Director
i. California now has one state director in JEA instead of two. Randy graciously deferred the position to Mitch Ziegler in Southern California. This is the first time we are being represented by a non-Northern California adviser. This took effect on Jan. 1. This will impact our Arnetta Garcin scholarship because we need to choose a Northern California winner.
ii. Google hangout with Mitch Ziegler to decide. For this year, we’ll continue judging North and South separately and then choosing a state winner.
c. Journalist of the Year (Name chair and form committee)
i. Sarah volunteered to continue as chair. Rachel volunteers. Don volunteers. We’ll also ask Steve O’D. Judging will take place at the judge’s convenience.
d. Recruitment of new board members
i. Distance should not be a factor, as we can do a lot of online meetings.
ii. There are people who attended the convention who would be good additions that we can ask.
iii. There are some new people helping with the SF convention committee who we can ask after the convention is over.
iv. New board members can be brought on at any time and appointed by the president.
VII. Workshop(s) (1:22)
a. Digital RENOvation
i. UPDATE: Zanny Marsh at UNR has been in contact with Michelle. Students are coming on Monday (Jan. 23) to unpack boxes in the new building. A new Dean will start in April. The new Dean is willing and able to host. However, the journalism school wants an as yet undecided financial contribution; last time we did not pay anything. Ad deadline for C:JET is next week; without knowing financial expectation, we don’t know if advertising now is a good idea. There is a lot of uncertainty.
ii. In the interest of wanting to do SOMETHING this summer, Michelle will explore options and email the board soon. If it seems like we can get something together and promote it, we will go forward.
b. Adviser one-day workshops?
i. Think about increasing the pay for the advisers for that – $100 doesn’t seem significant enough. Tracy moves to pay the instructors $200 of the $250 fee. Retroactively pay the two instructors an additional $100. Ellen seconds. Motion passed. The goal is outreach, not moneymaking.
VIII. Plans and projections for 2012
a. Annual contest:
i. Continuation as it has been run.
ii. Michelle is too overwhelmed doing the entire online task, especially the post-task. In addition to Rachel, Greg and Don will help with this task.
b. Convention plans:
i. Current calendar would be Fall 2013. San Francisco national convention is in Spring of 2013. Should we have one? Yes – we don’t want people to forget us and we can promote in SF.
c. What can we do in Fall 2012 so people don’t forget us?
i. One-day J-Day co-sponsored with CNPA
ii. Cheap, lunch included
iii. Critiques should also be on the agenda somehow
d. We do have money, and we do have momentum. Let’s think about bringing more people in and using that money to help them.
IX. Good of the Order (2:07)
a. Tracy is going to receive a Key from Columbia Scholastic Press Association. She is also one of nine Sacred Convent employees in the country selected to go to Uganda this summer for 2.5 weeks to help with outreach.
b. Greg’s going to Europe. Karl’s going to Europe. Ellen might be going to England. (Rachel’s jealous of all of them.)
c. Karl’s finally going to take the plaque to Lynne McDaniel to thank her for her years of service.
d. Joe hopes we like the new CNPA location. Look after California, not nationally.
e. We all extend a huge thank you to Joe and CNPA for their continued support and services.
X. Adjournment (2:12)