Minutes

Meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists, Valley of the Sun Pro Chapter

July 10, 2022, 10 a.m.

Started: 10:08 a.m.

Attendees: Tim Eigo, Mark Scarp, Teri Carnicelli; Nicole Greason Deb Krol, Absent: Doug MacKenzie

Opening

• Secretary’s report/approval of minutes from May 15, 2022 – Board action: Moved (Teri) and seconded (Mark) — unanimously approved.
• Treasurer’s report – Teri reports our investments with Russell Life Points/Northwestern Mutual as of July 10 lost $396.62 in the past quarter, to $17,804.91. Our checking account as of the same date contained $4,415.55, compared to $4,274.20 on May 14, 2022.
• Mark’s Mighty Minute! – Mark asked if the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona has held any meetings in the foreseeable past. No board member was aware of one; Teri had been asking for months where to send dues money but never received an answer. Mark said that with an impending lawsuit the coalition’s lawyer, Dan Barr, is likely to file over the new video recording of police law, perhaps we should find out its status. Tim will contact ABA’s Chris Kline over whether it’s receiving money from its member organizations and Deb will contact Morgan Loew, FAC president, about its status.

Old Business

• Summer Solstice mixer on June 20 – About 10 people came to State 48. Those attending enjoyed themselves and the food and beverages were good. We should consider it as a site for our holiday mixer in early December.

• SPJ chapter annual report filed on Friday, June 17 – Tim filed the annual report on time and thanked Teri for doing the lion’s share of the work with the financial information, which is the bulk of the report.

New Business

• Chapter election results – All four officers were re-elected. Tim Eigo as president, Debra Krol as vice president, Mark Scarp as secretary and Teri Carnicelli as treasurer.

• Welcome to board member Nicole Greason! – Tim welcomed Nicole, who has had a long career of service to journalism. A former journalist (her background is on the chapter website’s page about the board), she has been a longtime member of the chapter’s Valley Publicity Summit Committee and serves on the Arizona Latino Media Association board. Nicole said she foresees no problem continuing to have the Valley Publicity Summit at Barrett, the Honors College, at ASU, where she works, under the new dean that starts Aug. 1.

• FYI: Request to join the board and result (member Alan Korwin) – Chapter member Alan Korwin, a longtime freelance writer, editor and author, asked Tim to nominate him for board membership. After multiple conversations Tim decided to decline to forward his nomination to the officers for approval, in accordance with the chapter bylaws. Alan said he was still willing to help plan and put on chapter programming. Mark said he would work with Alan to organize such programs.

• SPJ MediaFest annual convention, Oct. 27-30 (https://www.spj.org/convention.asp) – It’s in Washington, D.C. this year. Nicole is planning to attend, with some costs funded by ASU, her employer, and will stay with her stepdaughter in Alexandria, Va., saving lodging costs. Tim is also planning to attend; the chapter will reimburse part of both his and Nicole’s expenses as per board policy.

• 2022 Publicity Summit – Mark reported the first committee meeting will be Tuesday evening, July 19, with the main topic being promotion efforts to attract the most possible participating media and PR people. It will be outside again, given the popularity of it being outside in 2021, but we will have fallback positions for inclement weather.

• AAJA request for speaker suggestion on “how to pitch your business story” (maybe a morning assignment producer from a past Publicity Summit) for Aug. 18-19 Asian Corporate & Entrepreneur Leaders’ (ACEL) Dynamics of Leadership Conference –

• Annual chapter awards: Proposed honorees and renaming awards – Board members agreed to continue our relationship with ANA regarding having our awards given out at the fall ANA convention. We also agreed to continue giving out the awards we have been each year: One Phil Alvidrez Award for Excellence in Journalism and three Order of the Silver Key awards to those with at least 25 years working in Arizona journalism. Board members decided not to take up naming any awards for famous people (other than Phil Alvidrez).

• FYI: Aug. 1, Conference of Court Public Information Officers annual conference (https://www.ccpio.org/) – Tim is helping organize two panels of journalists for this conference, which is being held in Phoenix.

• Spring regional conference Aug. 20 – Being put on by SPJ LA, postponed from June. LA chapter people said last week that ticket info will be send out week of July 11.

• Programming and membership-building suggestions: Possible training on tactics for freelancer success – Mark will be working with Alan Korwin on a program on this topic.

PROPOSED NEXT MEETING: Sunday, September 11, 2022, 10 a.m.

Adjourned: 11:32 a.m. (85 minutes)

Respectfully submitted,

Mark J. Scarp, Chapter Secretary