March 16, 2010 — Board Room, San Mateo Daily Journal. The meeting was called to order at 6:40 p.m.
Present: Jon Mays, Micki Carter, Dave Price, Melissa McRobbie, Darryl Compton, Kristy Blackburn, Antonia Ehlers, Peter Cleaveland, Ed Remitz. Absent: Jamie Casini, Marshall Wilson
Minutes of February were approved as read.
Treasurer’s Report: Darryl noted that $9,040 has been collected so far from the Professional Journalism Contest entries. A total of 398 entries were received.
Evening of Excellence: June 19 is the only Saturday in June that we can get the Crowne Plaza. Darryl offered several other possible venues but the Crowne Plaza on June 19 is our first choice.
A discussion on possible speakers followed. Jon will contact Dave Eggers of Panorama. Antonia suggested New York Times managing editor Bill Keller who is a Serra alum; she will email him.
High School Journalism Contest: Micki said the early date for the High School Contest Awards Reception (Wednesday, April 21, 4-6 p.m., Ralston Hall) will create a judging crunch. She will get the entries from Darryl on April 1 and deliver them to judges that day. She would like the results back within five days but April 10 is the drop-dead date to place the order for plaques with Alpine Awards.
Judges: Editorial — Jon: Columns — Ed; Photo categories — Erik Oeverndiek; Sports stories — Jon (for Nate); Layout — Micki; Features — Melissa; News — Jack Russell; Web site design and content — Jennifer Aquino.
Micki also announced that Hillsdale Shopping Center will again sponsor the awards, paying for plaques and catering. NDNU will donate the use of Ralston Hall.
High School Journalism Project: Nothing further since the last meeting. Jon suggested polling advisers at the Awards Reception April 21 about their interest in group ad purchases. Kristy will also post the idea on an advisers’ listserv to gauge interest.
CSM newspaper situation: Considerable discussion followed on how to help Ed Remitz preserve the San Matean at College of San Mateo. Jon suggested the idea that we all enroll in Ed’s class to boost figures. Micki suggested the possibility of creating a community advisory group that might bridge the gap between Ed and the administration. She will send an email to Susan Estes at CSM after running it by Jon and Ed.
Professional development workshop: It was decided to table discussion on the next workshop until this summer. The topic is slated to be finding public records at the courthouse. There might be further discussion of revisiting Bench Bar Media in the fall with questions for court officials.
Web site: Dave gave a rundown on the Web site, its revenue and traffic. Revenue is around $200, and visitors are slowly climbing. It went from 209,153 page loads in 2008 to 247,922 page loads in 2009. Dave also discussed his efforts in eliminating spam and inappropriate comments. Overall, the board expressed happiness with the site and Dave’s efforts to post items and maintain it.
The meeting was adjourned at 8 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,Micki Carter, Secretary