Meeting was brought to order at 6:40 p.m. by Vice President Dave Price with President Jamie Casini presiding later.
Board members present: Peter Cleaveland, Jon Mays, Jennifer Aquino, Ed Remitz, Dave Price, Aimee Lewis Strain, President Jamie Casini, Diana Diamond and past president Micki Carter. Executive Director Darryl Compton was also in attendance.
Absent: Jack Russell
Minutes: Minutes of December meeting were not approved.
Treasurer’s Report: It was reported that the Christmas party cost the club $547.26. Income and expenses are flat, Compton said. Treasurer’s report was approved unanimously.
Old business
Newsletter: Deadline for new items is Jan. 21.
Roster: The roster will be updated once the membership renewals come in with the contest.
New business
Meeting schedule: It was agreed the club will continue to regularly meet on the second Wednesday of every month.
Bench Bar Media. Carter said she will help organize the meeting with a suggestion by Aquino that the subject be public access to government records.
High school journalism. The board discussed what it could do to help high school journalism programs. It was agreed to hold a focus group with five to six journalism advisors sometime near the Ides of March to determine how best the club can assist high school journalism on the Peninsula. There was some discussion on the high school journalism contest to see if we need to change the criteria.
PPC Awards Dinner. There was some discussion on adding categories including those on the Web and in print. It was decided to add breaking news, blogs, multimedia and overall to the Web site category and ad design to the print category. There was some discussion on adding a general excellence category, but it did not move forward.
It was decided to explore the possibility of having the awards on a Saturday (like june 2) instead of weekday.
Price asked if someone could encourage East Bay papers to enter the contest and Aquino said she would.
Strain asked board members to think about speakers the club may want to have at the awards dinner this year.
Photo scholarship. Remitz suggested adding a scholarship in memory of Susan Caldwell.
Additions to the scholarship rules and language will be made by e-mail soon.
Price and Aquino agreed to serve on a committee for the student scholarships.
Meeting adjourned at 8:04 p.m.
Next meeting is Feb. 21 (note that it is not on the usual second Wednesday of the month [Feb. 14] as not to upset our better halves) at 6:15 p.m. at the San Mateo Daily News.
Minutes submitted by Secretary Jon Mays.