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CONVENTION

In attendance:
Boaz Herzog, The Oregonian, President
Jay Wang, The Oregonian, Vice President for Print
Tracy Jan, The Oregonian, Treasurer
Angie Chuang, The Oregonian, Secretary
Maya Blackmun, The Oregonian, National Board Rep.
Shirley Dang, The Oregonian
Helen Jung, The Oregonian
Tracey Lam, KPTV
Sam Louie, KGW
Emily Tsao, The Oregonian
Peter Wong, Statesman Journal

Meeting called to order at 12:30 p.m.

I. Camp AAJA Report
Tracy Jan and Tracey Lam gave a report from Camp AAJA, which they attended in late January.
Tracey reminded chapter members of AAJA’s mission:
1. To encourage Asian Pacific Americans to enter the ranks of journalism
2. To work for fair and accurate coverage of Asian Pacific Americans
3. To increase the numbers of Asian Pacific American journalists and news managers in the industry.

Tracey and Tracy gave a presentation on three areas:
1. Membership
* We should work to get more photographers, graphic artists, designers and broadcasters to become members of our chapter. We could hold a Photo Gallery event showcasing photojournalists work.
* We should improve our student outreach, perhaps hold regional meetings in Eugene, closer to University of Oregon students. Teresa Jung, a new member in Springfield, had expressed interest at the mixer in doing something like this, Tracy said. We could also subsidize student memberships.
* Mid-career development is a big issue: How can we help our members with professional development?
* We should put up bios of every member on the Web site.
- Our e-mail list could be turned into a listserv.
2. Programming
There are four kinds of programming we should aim to do:
* Student development and outreach
* Social mixers, networking
* Outreach to ethnic communities
* Professional development (we used to do more of this, but have slacked off recently)
Some ideas: We could hold a media access workshop for ethnic communities. Broadcasters need to more included in professional development – we could have a negotiations workshop focused on contracts, but also aimed at helping print people negotiate salaries, raises, better beats, etc.
We should have a half-day officers’ retreat – sometime in March. Officers will work on coordinating schedules.
3. Fund raising
Some ideas:
* We should advertise our events in local publications.
* We should look for opportunities to do “leech” events onto Asian American author appearances, events
* Can we look into an Ann Curry event when she’s in Portland?
* Can we look into bringing ELP to Portland, to raise chapter’s profile?

Tracey distributed and compiled a brief survey of members, and these were how their priorities ranked, in terms of what the chapter should be doing with our funds:
1. Student scholarships and internship support
2. Professional development
3. Networking / social
4. (tied) Stipends for conventions / seminars
4. (tied) Outreach, news access workshops
5. Fund raising for national

II. VP Broadcast
Kyle Iboshi, the new father of twin boys (Congratulations!), has expressed concern that he will not be able to fulfill his chapter Vice President for the rest of the year. We appointed Tracey Lam of KPTV to take his place.

III. Scholarship and Fund Raising Banquet
The Banquet will be on Friday, May 14 evening
We checked out House of Louie’s banquet space before the meeting – Joann Ng, past chapter president, has suggested we could do an evening dim sum event at House of Louie.
Other possibilities: Great China Seafood and Legin, our last two years’ sites. Jay suggested a conference room in the Paramount Hotel, catered by Dragonfish, or Sungari downtown – these would have a smaller capacity (70, instead of our last year’s attendance of 100) and would necessitate a higher ticket price. We could find a site and have the dinner catered, too, but that may increase the expense. Jay agreed to compile a list of possibilities with prices, capacity, etc.
Speakers: Emily suggested a Unity theme for the speakers, allowing us to draw from other minority groups. Maurice Cheeks, Blazers head coach, was suggested. Tracy J. will call his publicist.
b>Entertainment: Angie is going to look into the local Wu Shu extreme martial arts team.

IV. National Board Rep report, by Maya
A. National Board visit
National board will be here March 4-7. We will have an evening reception to welcome them on Thursday March 4. Current members will be invited.
B. We’d like to plan a mid-career regional event in Seattle with the Seattle chapter
C. We should develop our spending / financial goals at our officers’ retreat (see above)
D. Unity Karaoke Night
Maya checked on our Programming responsibilities (our chapter assignment for the convention this year), and it looks like our role in the Karaoke night will take care of that. Our main job with karaoke night is to book the entertainment (a high-profile Asian American entertainer to go on before Karaoke begins). Site logistics and emceeing is taken care of. We’ll need to provide a couple people for the night of to take requests, etc.
One suggestion (from emcee Wilma Consul) was to have a Hawaiian-themed night with a performance for a local dance group that’s supposed to be very good.
Angie had gotten an initial quote back from Margaret Cho’s management late last year – they want $20,000-30,000. Right now, we have no budget for the event, and national is looking into corporate sponsorship. We need to have someone contact Cho’s management again and check her availability and see if she’ll perform for a lower price or donate her time.

V. C.A.C.A. Scholarship
Betty Jean Lee of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in Portland has asked us to judge the first round of their annual scholarship competition again. The deadline is April 1. Jay, Sam and Tracey will be the judging committee, and Sam has agreed to be the point person for Betty.

VI. Unity Subsidy
Because many local media outlets are not paying registration for all Unity attendees this year, the chapter will be offering a stipend. We only have four applications: Bo, Tracy J., Janie Har (of The Oregonian) and Angie (whether she’ll need the stipend is up in the air right now). We agreed to give $150 each to these four applicants.

VII. Intern picnic
Jay would like to reserve a location for our annual intern picnic. July 17 is the tentative date. He’ll look into availability of spots at Portland Parks and Rec.

VIII. AsiaFest sponsorship
Angie forwarded a request from the organizers of AsiaFest, a new annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebration that will replace the now-defunct state Asian Commission’s festival in Pioneer Courthouse Square. AAJA member Jason Lim of The Asian Reporter is the organizer of the July 22 event at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. He asked if AAJA would be interested in a booth there for $250. Because the event is one week away from the banquet, we had doubts as to whether we’d be able to staff a booth. But we will consider a straight cash donation to the event – to be further discussed.

IX. Cranium Tournament
Seattle AAJA wanted to know if we wanted to encourage The Oregonian or other local media outlets to form a team for their March 19 event, which includes the creator of the board game. We agreed that it was unlikely people would be able to make a Friday event in Seattle, but that individual members could form teams and enter if they were interested.

Meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m.