AAJA Board Meeting

May 20, 2006

I.           Introductions

Rebecca Karamehmedovic, and Nadia, three months old

Cindy del Rosario Tapan

Charles Choi

Jennifer Phillips, a new graduate from Columbia

Journalism School

Jennifer Abbasi

Lan Nguyen

Gay Chang, Verizon

Anne Marie Cruz

Alex Peng

Prashant Gopal

II.          Recap of previous events

a)           Layout 101 workshop

Jen Abbasi noted the workshop turned out well, with an

intimate group of 10 people to learn Quark for free.

Cindy noted the next one should be in June for

scriptwriting for broadcast, and then in September for

copyediting.

b)           The 2006 East Coast miniconference

Cindy noted the miniconference went pretty well,

although attendance was significantly lower at about

50, compared to 100 at last year's. Speculation was

that attendance may have been low because there were a

lot of Web heavy sessions or not as many marquee

names. We are hoping the D.C. chapter will host the

miniconference in 2007, and will get back with D.C.

chapter president Tan Ly. Hopefully planning for the

miniconference will take place toward the end of 2006

instead of the beginning of 2007.

c)           The Muslim panel.

Jen Abbasi noted it felt like a roundtable, with

journalists wanting to represent the Muslim community

for their news organization.

d)           Heritage festival.

Rebecca noted AAJA-NY had a great location for its

table this year, right in front of the stage, with

everyone walking past and a lot of people stopping

past, including quite a few AAJA members from other

cities who had relocated to New York. Roger Chang and

Rebecca talked about putting together factsheet flyers

specifically about the chapter for people outside the

journalism industry. Rebecca noted they had current

issues of People and Us Weekly present that really

brought people in, and suggested we might want some

other giveaways for the next time, such as tchockes.

e)           Fixation for fiction panel

Cindy noted the panel was one the chapter cosponsored

with A3. AAJA didn't have to do much leg work. We had

to pay for part of the drinks and security. We

attracted many different people. While attendance

could have been better, May was a month with many

community events to compete with.

f)           Convention stipends

Charles noted we gave $2,500 in stipends for four

members to attend the AAJA national convention in

Hawaii. They all greatly appreciated the stipends, and

several noted they likely could not have attended the

convention otherwise.

g)           Convention silent auction

Cindy filled in for Eric, who could not attend. She

noted Eric did an outstanding job, especially for

someone who had never done it before, and fulfilled

the quote of high-price items for auction this year,

and all the items are now in Hawaii.

Jennifer Philips noted she works for a company that

would likely be willing to give stuff away for an

auction.

III.         Upcoming events

Cindy noted we are dedicating ourselves toward quality

and not necessarily quantity.

a)           June pre-convention mixer

Cindy noted this should take place the week before

convention to give a chance for people going to the

convention to meet. It does not to be an event where

the chapter needs to make a reservation at a

restaurant. We should just pick a place, and people

will pay their own way. Jen Abbasi suggested a pub

with beer, while Charles suggested something more well

lit, and Jen suggested an outdoor locale as a good mix

between the two. Jen will look into places and give

three choices. It will be set for Thurs. June 15.

b)           National convention

Cindy noted we are in charge of the National

Journalism Awards Luncheon on Thurs. June 22. Lisa

Ling will speak. Will Chang will be the floor manager,

Cindy will attend to Lisa, and Charles will work with

volunteers, with two or so volunteers taking tickets,

and others helping with Lisa. Prashant also

volunteered to help.

c)           Next skills workshop

Cindy noted Barbara Chen and Roger Chang will

coordinate a broadcast scriptwriting workshop.

d)           SAJA panel

Cindy noted there will be a panel on Sat. July 15 @ 2

p.m. on breaking into journalism, with 1 moderator and

three panelists geared toward students, with tips on

how to get your first job, break into the newsroom,

move up, and so on.

Cindy suggested events should be coordinated by

two-person teams.

Cindy and Prashant will work on the SAJA panel, and

Rebecca will be there as well. Cindy will moderate.

Charles suggested Arthur Chi'en as a potential

moderator.

e)           Softball/family day picnic

Cindy noted Shannon Troetel confirmed a parks

department permit for Sat. July 22. The softball game

will be the traditional print vs. broadcast.

Rebecca suggested a family day, perhaps interacting

with the amusement park near Wollman's Rink. Cindy

noted we have roughly 380 paid members in AAJA-NY, and

while many are students who show up for networking

activities, many others are formerly active members

who have families now, so a family day could be fun.

Charles suggested promoting a "get reacquainted with

AAJA" or "meet members who are fellow parents" angles.

Jennifer Philips suggested having people with dogs

bring them instead of kids. Cindy noted we should

figure out an extra volunteer for the food. Anne

Marie, who is playing softball, volunteered to help.

IV.          End of 2006

a)           Membership mixer with Connie Chung on Sept. 13

Cindy noted we can reconfirm with Connie. Hopefully we

can get students when they return to school in

September. We need a venue for Connie to speak, and

bring appetizers. The January mixer cost $400. Alex

will head up the membership mixer. Rebecca will also

help.

b)           Mentor program

Tony Ramirez has bowed out of the mentor program, and

Charles volunteers. He will meet with Tony about it,

update current mentor and student files, send out mass

emails to ask for those who are interested in being

mentors and mentees, and match them as best as

possible. He will also encourage the mentor

relationships over the school year. Jennifer Philips

is interested in helping, having went through the

Columbia mentorship program and seeing possibilities

for improvements, such as having two or three mixers

between mentors and mentees to help encourage

connections between the groups. Cindy noted Charles

should send Tony a note, and that we should start

soliciting people in August. Jen Abbasi noted A3 has

printed materials on mentorship programs. Anne Marie

noted A3 mentors may be happy to volunteer, and said

that she would get A3 mentorship program people in

contact with Charles. Charles noted the existing

mentorship program may dovetail well into his proposed

high school mentorship program.

c)           Copyediting workshop

Cindy noted it will be the last skills workshop of the

year, at the end of September or early October. Jen

Abbasi noted Eric wants to help out.

d)           Holiday party

Cindy noted last year's party venue, the Bentley

Hotel, was great. Barbara Chen wants to work on this,

to hopefully go back to the Bentley. We should get

different appetizers. We also had a live auction that

probably raised a small amount.

e)           End of the Year meeting/Planning retreat for 2007

Cindy noted we should have the 2007 planning meeting

at the end of 2006, to give ourselves more time to

schedule events. Cindy suggested having people over to

her apartment to talk candidly and openly over what

worked and what didn't, maybe at the end of Seotember

or in early October. AAJA-NY probably will not have

another board meeting until then.

V.           Miscellaneous

a)           Raymund Flandez suggested inviting five to 10 or so

new AAJA members to a food findings trip in Manhattan,

picking a place for a sit-down dinner that is more

intimate than the mixer we had before, so that new

folks won't be so intimidated and actually have good

conversations. After the dinner, a person would

volunteer to pick and choose another restaurant to go

to for the next event, and perhaps we could even do it

every month. This could help retain new members, get

them to know us, make connections, and let them

facilitate recruiting on their own by spreading the

word about AAJA. It would be a no-hassle,

non-networking-advertised event -- you would just be

going out to try interesting new food. Of course,

AAJA-NY would partially subsidize it. Yvette Fernandez

has agreed to help.

b)           The next skills building 101 class will be on how

to produce and edit for the Web.

c)           The National Association of Asian American

Professionals (NAAAP) has offered to cosponsor events

with us, and offered a number of possibilities. The

idea that was viewed as the best was AAJA providing

three to four high profile women from the media to

speak at a NAAAP/PINK (a South Asian magazine)

executive women's breakfast next year, a high profile

event. Cindy thinks it'd be a great idea to get

someone like Jeannie Park or Janice Min, if we give

them enough notice.

d)           The South Asian Media and Marketing Association

(SAMMA) has approached Rebecca with interest in future

cooperation.

e)           How effective are the new committees? Charles said

that Roger and he had not had meetings per se to

recruit others into the committee, but felt that the

committees so far mostly only needed him and Roger to

do most of the work. Jen Abbasi noted most of the

programming was done at board meetings, so there was

not much need to solicit outside.

            Charles suggested stressing on the Web site, "If you

have a student idea or issue go to XYZ; if you have a

programming idea or issue, go to XYZ."

            Jen Abbasi noted we should have stipend awardees

volunteer, maybe take them out to dinner. Cindy noted

we should hit ELP people up.

            Charles again brought up the idea of having delegates

at news outlets to help drum up AAJA members more.

f)           Cindy noted other AAJA chapters have co-presidents

instead of a president and vice president, and that it

might be a good thing, less scary to run if you know

you will have a partner. She suggested aiming for one

print president and one broadcast president.

g)           We will inquire further about what happened with

Cindy Hsu at CBS to see if AAJA-NY should send off a letter.