Minutes from May 16, 2013
MEETING MINUTES
SPJ South Florida Board Meeting
May 16, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Panera Bread | Boca Raton
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BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Jason Parsley – President, Gideon Grudo – Exec. VP, Brandon Ballenger – Treasure, Cassie Morien – Secretary, Dori Zinn – VP of Membership, Lynn Walsh – VP of Programs (by phone), Caity Kauffman – Director, Christopher Persaud – Director, Michele Boyet – Past President, Michael Koretzky – Region 3 Director, Gabriel Tyner – Director, Jen Stone – Director, Sergy Odiduro – Director , Ryan Cortes – Student Director
BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: Sergio Candido – Social Media Director
NEW BUSINESS:
WWFF13: Koretzky explained that SPJ South Florida received a $3,000 grant from the national SPJ organization. Looking to help pay for students to travel, who wouldn’t normally be able to attend, mostly by air. Koretzky stated people who spend their own money, pay more attention.
ACTION: Michele motioned to provided $885 for Will Write For Food. Gideon seconded. All approved by show of hands.
TREASURER’S REPORT: Brandon updated the board on the SPJ accounts, including $1,185 in Bank of America (checking), $10,446.91 in Bank of America (savings), and $35,667.46 in PayPal. The savings account has remained unchanged, we have received new money from contest payments in PayPal. The PayPal money needs to be moved into a checking account but Tim has been too busy.
Spending has all been approved up to date, including travel and event reimbursements, MailChimp, shirts, and dues. The Ethics Hold’em event was under budget. $200 was budgeted for the Diversity Mixer.
MEMBERSHIP: Dori reported that we currently have 131 active members. We have only received five new members since the beginning of the year.
VOTES: Between meetings the board approved two $200 allotments for mixers and approved minutes by e-mail.
SERGY: Sergy is moving to New Orleans, Louisiana and will leave the board at the end of June.
CASSIE: Cassie is moving to Austin, Texas and will be resigning from the board.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE: Lynn, Gideon, Brandon and Dori have expressed interest in attending the SPJ National Conference in California. Jason will e-mail all interested parties about the finances involved and plans. Dylan was also interested in attending.
ETHICS HOLD’EM: Caity reported that the event was well attended and thanked Koretzky for the poker tables and Gideon for shelping and his nobel dealing. The event came in under budget and both poker winners are not currently members of SPJ.
NAHJ-SPJ: Koretzky stated the board needs to finalize the awards and programs.
AWARDS AND CEREMONY: Caity will help with the reception. The awards will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. People have inquired about attending just the award ceremony but the price will be the same as if they attended the entire day (with food and programming). A fourth projector is also needed.
ELECTIONS: SPJ South Florida elections will be held on July 13. Board members need to e-mail Michele if they are interested in running. Michele will put together a slate by June 1 to announce the candidates. On the website, there will be a separate page for awards, the election will be immediately after the awards at the conference.
ONE WILD WEEKEND: Dylan announced the environmental journalism event has been pushed back to December, due to the schedules of the participating advisers. An environmental journalist from Rolling Stone may be involved. The SPJ FAU chapter is interested in the event, Dylan plans to reach out to more environmental groups in the area.
CLERY ACT: The $500 originally budgeted does not need to be allocated. Since being promoted to EIC of FAU’s newspaper, Dylan is using that budget to pay for records via electronic transfer.
Q&As: The journalist Q&As are running on the SPJ South Florida website through June. There will be no interviews posted in July. They will resume back in August.
SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE: Only two journalists applied for the training grant of $500. Alex M. Sanchez has been nominated as this year’s recipient. One of the applications is “strange,” according to Gideon. The other candidate is the same applicant/winner from last year. Neither applicant stated how they will use the scholarship money.
Lynn proposed using the money to send both applicants to the convention in July. The scholarship is awarded for professional training, which will be present at the conference.
FOI: Lynn spoke by phone about showcasing First Amendment “Champions” and “Offenders.” She offered to speak with Barbara.
GOOGLE HANGOUTS: Gideon stressed that Google Hangouts are not working, only the board members are appearing and it was created for SPJ members. We have a handful of followers on Google+ but no members show up for the Hangout. Dori suggested hosting a Twitter Chat, but the question was raised, “Does the platform matter?” Maybe Google Hangouts will be used for the board to reconnect between meetings.
SFMJ: People are e-mailing Brandon directly about job postings. He hasn’t received any feedback about once a job is filled.
DIVERSITY MIXER: The Diversity Mixer in May will be held at Hollywood Vine. $200 has been budged for the event. $170 will pay for cheese, salami and peanuts. $30 will be for tipping. SFBJA will pay for wine.
There is no mixer planned for June. Board members should e-mail Caity with ideas.
HORROR MOVIES: Gabriel provided an update on the Death Race video. He proposed a meet-up to teach people about making horror films, but needs a location. Using FAU as a venue was proposed. The event would include multiple days of shooting on set, capturing B-roll, and editing at a lab. This event will be scheduled later in the year due to planning.
MEDIATLANTA: More than 150 people attended the regional conference at Georgia State University. There were glitches during the event and we will not be returning to GSU for an event. However, Koretzky proposed going back to Georgia to cover the Furrie Convention and creating a newspaper for them: Will Write For Fur?
STATE DEPARTMENT: Gideon and Jason met with three journalists from India through the state department. Gideon said the meeting was weird and awkward, but the point of the arrangement is to show other journalists America. The men all discussed journalism differences in each country.
SUNSHINE SUMMIT: Jason did not attend MediAtlanta so he could be present at the Sunshine Summit in St. Petersburg. The event showcased the First Amendment Foundation, open government and public meetings and legislature. Jason enjoyed the event, attended by roughly 50 public officials and journalists.
Jason made a motion to end the meeting, Dori seconded.
OTHER BUSINESS: Koretzky motioned to use new grant funds to pay for Cassie to return to Florida to speak at the Miami conference. There was a unanimous vote but Cassie was unable to record who seconded the motion because she was crying very hard.
Minutes approved at August 7, 2013 board meeting.