From the June 28, 2014, Closing Executive Committee Meeting
President Mike Sherman calls the meeting to order
Roll call
Officers
— First vice president: Mary Byrne, USA Today Sports
— Second vice president: Tommy Deas, The Tuscaloosa News
— Third vice president: John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal
Past presidents
— Tim Stephens, CBS Sports
— Gerry Ahern, USA Today Sports
— Phil Kaplan, Knoxville News Sentinel
— Jerry Micco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Regions
Atlantic Coast
— Andi Petrini, (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press
— Steve Hemphill, Roanoke (Va.) Times
Great Lakes
— John Styf, Northwest (IL) Herald
— Loren Nelson, Minnesota Hockey Hub
Great Plains
— Michael Peters, Tulsa World
— Chris Fickett, Kansas City Star
(Scott Monserud — Denver Post is present and will represent)
Mid-Atlantic
— Mike Harris, The Washington Times
— Chris Imperiale, The (Scranton) Times-Tribune
— Mike Sedor, Harrisburg new vice chair Northeast
— Judy Connelly, Times-Herald Record (Middletown, NY)
— Jim Luttrell, New York Times
Northwest
— Jerrel Swenning, Yakima (WA) Herald-Republic
— Seth Prince, The Oregonian
(Don Shelton or Robert Gagliardi present and will represent)
Southeast
— Mike Szvetitz, Opelika-Auburn (AL) News
— Chris White, Athens (GA) Banner-Herald Southwest
— Nick Mathews, Houston Chronicle
— Greg Rajan, Corpus Christi Caller-Times West
— Gene Warnick, Los Angeles Daily News
— Melissa Geisler, Yahoo! Sports
Associated Press
— Oscar Dixon, AP
Thanks to sponsors/vendors.
Sponsors: USA TODAY Sports (Red Smith Award banquet and several other things), ESPN.com, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun, BH Media Group, CineSport, Indiana University, Signs of Excellence LLC, CBSSports.com;
Vendors: CineSport, Reuters, Richmond 2015, SportsDirect, SportsManias, XML, Team Solutions, The Associated Press
Special guest
Linda Shockley, Dow Jones
Executive Director’s report
* 124 paid, $25k; more than $60k in sponsorship and vendor fees; should finish in black for conference; upcoming summer and winter conference schedule reported
President: Thanks to Tim Stephens and all involved for conference work
Tim Stephens reports on student attendees satisfaction with the conference experience, Ohio University has applied for student chapter
Old business
Membership
— Reminder Sign up a dues-paying member. Receive $25 off registration
— Reminder Sign up the most have convention fee waived
Contest
* Promotional videos
* Stories of diverse hires
* Q&A with sports editors
Committee Reports:
Commissioners (Jeff Rosen)
Priorities for 2014-15
— Ideas committee members assigned to each sport represented (MLB rep, NBA rep, etc.)
— Poll membership on issues and agenda to present at commissioners meeting.
— Through the committee representatives to the leagues, have an ongoing relationship so that the meeting is a continuation rather than a start.
Joe Sullivan, Boston Globe, speaks on need for APSE to work to get input into media policies of major sports leagues, most notably NFLPA; Lou Ferrara, Associated Press, suggests regular (perhaps monthly) conference call to discuss team access, particularly in the NFL. Other access issues addressed from the floor, including NCAA and colleges
Contest (Mary Byrne)
Priorities for 2014-15
— Splitting duties for running the contest. (First vice president: Section/writing/multimedia contest in March; Second vice president: Web site)
— Ease of entry. Matt Pepin asked to make a proposal on how to Google Docs as our entry hub. (discussion of moving to electronic entries)
Internet Contest (Tommy Deas)
Priorities for 2014-15
— Widening the window of judging on the web contest. Need judges for the four categories (8 to 10).
— Improving and communicating the criteria for website judging.
Conference (Mike Sherman)
— Priorities for 2014-15: finding future conference site
— Get a running start into conference planning session in March, working with Todd Adams
— Use region sessions as auditions/test drives for national, working with Todd Adams
— Working premise is outfitting members with tools they can use to do their jobs.
Diversity (Jorge Rojas)
— Promote Diversity Fellows applications in August
— Recruiting effort needed beyond Diversity Fellows
Futures (Glen Crevier)
— Priorities 2014-15
— Mobile: Do we need to add mobile to the multimedia contest?
Legal Affairs (John Cherwa)
— Priorities 2014-15: Let members know this committee is here to work on their behalf
Olympics (Jerry Micco)
— Priorities 2014-15: 2016 Summer Games
Outreach (Phil Kaplan)
–Goal: 50 new members and total membership of more than 325 by 2015 convention.
Professional development (Ron Fritz)
* This committee needs to look at how it can best be tasked to be of use in the immediate future
Regions (Todd Adams, update provided by Mike Sherman)
* Audition for national convention
* Addition of region outreach chair
* Region chair/vice chair brought into loop of twice monthly email among executive committee
* Bleacher Report in San Francisco to host West Region meeting.
Scholarships (Joe Sullivan) — winners by end of July
Student Liaison Committee (Tim Stephens) — goal is to have 20 chapters by this time next year
Writers Group (Nick Mathews)
— Convert the committee to emphasis on value for writing members.
New business
— Adding web sites to the Web contest. Tommy Deas suggests vote and discussion on proposal (Tim Stephens makes motion, Mike Szvetitz seconds).
Proposed: That website-only members be made eligible to compete in the web contest, at the level they pay dues (Class A, B, C or D as determined by unique monthly visitors), and that they will compete in writing and multimedia contests at the same level.
The web and multimedia contests will be judged in A, B, C and D classes based on unique monthly visitors as structured by the Executive Committee for dues payment. Newspapers will compete in web and multimedia contests based on circulation (Class A, B, C or D), same as they compete in the writing contest
Motion carries by 10 to 6 vote
Tim Stephens recognizes Craig Stanke 5K Award winner, John Affleck of Penn State University
Jack Berninger lists job fair participants.
Tim Stephens proposes Ohio University be admitted as a student chapter member. Mike Szvetitz makes motion, Gerry Ahern seconds, motion passes unanimously.
Jack Berninger proposes budget, passes.
End of meeting.
