Society of Professional Journalists Rio Grande Chapter
March 1, 2015
Board members present:Joey Peters, Marisa Demarco, Jeff Proctor, Mike Marcotte, Megan Kamerick, Rachel Sams, Andy Lyman, Matt Grubs
Treasurer’s report from Mike – The budget is the same. There hasn’t been any money coming in or going out.
He will contact Peter to find out about the status of closing the old bank account in Santa Fe and what needs to be done to file taxes this year.
Our bank that hold the new account changed names – nothing else has changed.
Old name was New Mexico Educators Federal Credit Union, new name is Nusenda.
Mike and Andy will work together to complete the annual report required from SPJ- Mike on financials, Andy on the rest.
Membership report from Rachel – Four people have joined or renewed and two people have left or let their memberships lapse.
Rachel urged the other board members to personally encourage others to join.
Joey, Marisa, Jeff and Andy all have at least one person to work on.
Website update from Marisa and Megan – Marisa has been helping Megan with some website updates.
Megan said she is trying to figure out ways to get more people to participate on the chapter email listserv.
Rachel said she heard some frustrations from members regarding excessive back and forth conversations.
Megan is also looking into an apparent problem with the Top of the Rockies entry website.
Update on Regional –
Andy gave an update on Regional via Colorado president’s email.
- more information on the regional conference from the Colorado chapter should be out later in the week
- The Top of the Rockies deadline was extended to March 4.
- They said they need more entries from TV and radio.
- We’ll send out more information – registration fees, website registration, etc. – this week.
Sunshine week – Rachel volunteered to draft some content to use for Twitter during Sunshine Week. She will be out of town at that time, so cannot personally post the tweets.
Marisa said she would volunteer to help with scheduling the tweets.
Andy asked what the chapter did last year regarding Op-Eds. Rachel said last year Laura wrote an article and the Santa Fe New Mexican published it.
Andy suggested Gwyneth Doland as this year’s author.
Jeff agreed since Gwyneth is a former NMFOG director and is also on the FOIA Committee. Jeff said he would reach out to Gwyneth and ask if she would write an op-ed article this year. He offered to work with her on the content
Possible Programs – Andy spoke with Julie Ann Grimm from the Santa Fe Reporter and Nigel Jaquiss might be willing to come to NM to talk to journalists. It would be an opportunity to raise money and provide a program to members.
Andy said Tom Johnson was willing to contribute $250 from the regional office.
Matt said it sounded like a good idea and it could be encouraging to other journalists and educationally valuable.
Jeff said a couple hundred dollars sounds like a fair contribution from the chapter.
The board agreed on $250 to match the money from regional.
There was some talk about possible venues.
Andy will get in touch with Julie Ann to get more details and let her know the board approved the money.
The Thornburg foundation contacted Andy about a proposed project related to money in politics.
The board is receptive to working with Thornburg, but would like more information.
Andy said he would get more information from the board.
Marisa has been working on putting together one day of the month when journalists meet to draft public records requests. She looked into having it at the Press Club, but they require a member present for all functions.
Megan said she would look into getting a membership for herself.
Marisa said she would also look into other possible locations.
Joey said Gwyneth Doland is using records request logs, gathered from various agencies by the FOIA committee, for a special project
Andy said he would get in touch with Ilia from UNM to double check on the day and time of the upcoming IRE workshop.