Meeting Minutes

Meeting minutes: Jan. 29, 2008

In attendance: Sue Stock, Meiling Arounnarath, Peggy Lim, and Renee Chou

Website: Needs to be updated Right now only Pailin has the knowledge and access to make changes Meiling says she and Pailin are working on a "cheat sheet" for other board members so that we can make minor changes/updates as needed

Renee has updated the AAJA Database which is accessible via our Yahoo groups site--38 members

Student Workshop--Sunday, February 17th, from noon to 3:30 p.m. at Peace College

Discussion on timeline-- fewer/shorter breaks, shorter sessions: NEW timeframe, noon to 2:30 p.m.-- figured it would be an easier time commitment for students and still be able to have relevant discussion and opportunities for feedback

Main speaker? Dan Barkin for print side NBC-17 News director--NBC recently hired "web reporters" straight out of college to enterprise stories for the web that may have also appearæin the regular newscasts

Sue suggested maybe have the main speaker go AFTER the small group discussion. Peggy and Renee expressed concerns about the topic for the main speaker being too specific. They were hoping for a broader focus to encompass breaking into the business. Meiling says she and Pailin chose that topic to establish a theme and have speakers address journalism as it has changed. New topic for the speakers: What qualities do they look for in a reporter? What advice do they have for job-seekers? How has the job description of journalist changed over the years?

First choice: Carole Tanzer Miller with the N & O /Dan Barkin/(2nd choice)--Sue will invite

NBC-17 News Director (don't know the name off the top of my head)--Renee will invite, via Shirley Min

Moderator? Meiling/Pailin?

New timeline: noon to 12:15: Welcome and pizza (the idea being students can grab a drink and something to eat, sit down and listen to the main speakers) 12:15 to 12:45: main speakers including Q and A 12:45 to 12:50: break 12:50: break into sessions: print, broadcast, multimedia 12:50 to 1:50: group sessions-- two leaders each 1:50 to 2:00.: wrap-up q and a/thank you

One-on-one-critiques to follow

Meiling/Pailin working on student packet: Schedule; contacts of local news organizations--recruiters; tipsheet

Made revisions to poster

Meiling asked whether we should provide examples of good and bad resumes-- group decided only good resumes were necessary

Sue: provide print reporter resumes Renee: ask for broadcast reporter resumes from news director

Group will find small group leaders--tap into AAJA members to get them involved

Looking into a way for people to RSVP through our website-- that way, we can gauge how many print/broadcast/online students we have

Title: "Breaking Into Journalism" workshop

Renee: Draft e-mail to ask for Helpers/volunteers Sue: Draft letter to professors Meiling: Refining the generic e-mail to students Peggy: Working on list of recruiters

Meiling goes to Camp AAJA January 31st-February 3rd

Meiling passed along Ellen's request for two to three volunteers to help her with "non-taxing" tasks for UNITY access workshop. Does not have to be going to UNITY to do the tasks. Sue has volunteered NC chapter and Sacramento chapter organizing the UNITY workshop

Meiling suggested an event in Charlotte down the road?

Sue hopes to add a student representative to the board--says students typically very enthusiastic; great way to recruit more student members. We'll try to identify some eager students through the workshop.

Peggy: since we're not doing a MAW this year, she suggested updating the MAW contacts, and sending an e-mail to community groups about the media experiences of 3-4 AA organizations and lessons learned in 2007. This would be a way to stay in contact with the AA/Middle Eastern groups in the Triangle. She might send out the e-mails March/April.

JCamp--Preconvention/high school students: Nidhi Singh Sue will get list of high school journalism contacts from Chuck Small

Possible speaker for our next general membership meeting: Philip Meyer, Knight Chair of Journalism at UNC, Author of "Letters from the Editor: Lessons, Journalism and Life" which is a posthumous colleciton of writings by William Woo. He e-mailed Renee about his interest ofæspeaking toæour members.

Sue says we'll try to have general membership meetings three to four times a year.