Aug. 11, 2010 — Board Room, San Mateo Daily Journal
Present: Jon Mays, Kristy Blackburn, Dave Price, Melissa McRobbie, Antonia Ehlers, Darryl Compton. Absent: Micki Carter, Peter Cleaveland, Ed Remitz, Marshall Wilson, Jamie White.
The meeting was called to order at 6:40 p.m.
Minutes of June were approved as read. There was no July meeting.
High School Journalism Boot Camp
The boot camp will take place at the College of San Mateo, but the date hasn’t been decided. It will either be Oct. 1 or Oct. 15. Darryl said he was told by Ed Remitz that we can use four rooms in Building 18, the college’s theater, or both.
Bob Porterfield and Sarah Yokubaitis from Patch.com, a start-up chain of hyper-local websites backed by AOL, addressed the board. They said they would like to participate in the Press Club’s annual high school journalism boot camp.
The Patch representatives said they would like to lead one of the half-hour discussions at the boot camp. The board accepted their offer of assistance.
Porterfield also said Patch would like to recruit high school journalists at the event.
Price told the Patch representatives that he would like their journalists to participate in the Press Club’s annual contest. The contest’s online categories could use more entries. The awards will provide more legitimacy to the start-up newsgathering organization.
Finance and Membership Reports
Darryl said the club is spending more than it is taking in, but is still in good shape financially. His report showed income at $17,364.52 and expenses at $25,432.93. Current assets: $29,244.64.
Finances are off a bit because the plaques that were presented at the banquet cost more than last year due to rising wood prices. They went from $3,500 to $5,600.
Darryl said that at a future meeting he will bring up the idea of changing the entry fees for the contest.
Another factor was that the scholarship line item was $8,500 this year (compared to $3,000 last year). That was because we paid a scholarship that was granted a couple of years ago, but not used until now, and because we funded four scholarships this year instead of two last year.
Annual awards banquet discussion
Everyone agreed that this year’s event went well. No problems were mentioned.
November membership workshop/salon
The board agreed that November would be the right time for this Press Club event. Marshall had previously indicated that there would be a room in a county government building that the club could use. Jon said that Matt Richtel, the New York Times reporter in San Francisco who won a Pulitzer earlier this year, would be willing to speak at a workshop.
Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis
The board received an e-mail from the St. Louis club asking to become an affiliate with our club. Jon will look into the matter further and report back to the board.
Guest speakers
Kristy, who teaches journalism at Palo Alto’s Gunn High School, said she is looking for guest speakers. Once a month a professional journalist addresses her class.
Judging
Press Club board members signed up to judge entries from a contest in Florida.
The meeting wrapped up at 7:45 p.m. Minutes recorded by vice president Dave Price.