Minutes – March 12, 2010 – Online News Association

1 p.m. ET

In attendance:

Not in attendance:

Minutes

Nominating committee

Christine talked about new board members being considered for the open seat and that nominations were being circulated. She suggested a week’s time for this conversation and that the board can work from basecamp to move forward. Liz talked about how the membership committee is reaching out to other portals for board members. Jon talked about the diversity of people and candidates for the board.
On board elections, Jim mentioned the membership committee recommends to separate this from the annual conference and proposes voting for the board be done immediately following the conference.

Membership

Jim talked more about the proposed categories and how his committee had done more work on them. There are to be ten professional members and to up 5 non-professional members though this is still being discussed.
Dick: We need to plan to approve the membership definitions and then on a separate call we need take up the issue of “up to 5 members.”
Jane: Definitions for the membership categories will be online and available to our membership.

Advisory Board

Amy talked about the two tiers of candidates for the advisory board and that there are 11 people currently on the list. She would like to move forward with these candidates. There was conversation about how the final candidate list was derived and then about the next steps which are to produce print collateral and have a systematic approach in reaching out to the candidates. She says this will happen in April.

Finances

Jane reports that things are looking good with many prospective funders and that ONA should know by the end of March and she update the board. She is also working on many new proposals, some that she has been asked to reapply for. She confirmed that the parachute training grant from Gannett has been renewed.
Jim said the 2010 projected budget had been circulated and then he went through some of the numbers. Board members discussed a few of the items. He said there is a projected YOY gain by potentially making money from the 2010 conference. Jane mentioned that at the May board meeting the staff will put together some charts that visualize the financials and the auditor will also be in attendance to talk through the numbers.
Jane talked about the idea of a biz/dev staff member for ONA and if ONA were to receive a grant to support this then there would be a separate committee for a business plan around this. There was agreement that this would be a good idea.

Conference

Jane reported that sponsorships are ahead of last years pace and that she has already had many commitments. Also, the “session selector” has been successful and that 125 sessions were submitted for the 2010 conference and voting is in progress. Programming is to be in place by May.
She confirmed that ONA11 will be in Boston and that the contract has been signed and the conference dates will be in September.

Membership

Jane reported ONA has signed on for four more NewsU webinars and that they are still free for ONA members. She said ONA is looking for sponsorship of these. The first webinar will be with Marshall Kilpatrick from ReadWriteWeb on location-based services and their uses in news. It will take place April 1 at 2p ET.

Events

Ken reported on the upcoming event in Nashville on April 9th around mobile. He also talked about the Florida parachute training and said survey results are coming in, and that the feedback was good. He talked about how the events committee and the organizers for the training were better prepared than the Ann Arbor session.
Ken also mentioned a series for four training sessions to be organized and produced by the DC meetup group in DC. He said the topics have not been formed but ideas are on the table.
Sherry reported a meetup in Chicago has been started.
Cory talked about the possibility of an event in Atlanta with CCN in early June. She also mentioned the next parachute training in Birmingham and then Denver.

Awards

Sherry talked for Anthony, who was not on the call, and said he circulated a document on some changes to the awards and then board discussed many of these points.

The call was adjourned at 2:07 p.m. ET