WFIU Community Advisory Board Meeting
DeVault Alumni Center, Metz Board Room
Monday, October 7, 2019, at 4:00 p.m.
Attending: Pam Davidson, Sarah Taylor, Laura Ginger, John Clark, Charlotte Zietlow, Janet Stavropoulos, Abby Henkel, Matt Pierce, Adrian Starnes, Hilda Andres, Miah Michaelsen, Lynn Schwartzberg, Catherine Winkler, Alexandra Chamberlain, Nathan Watson. Staff: John Bailey, Rob Anderson, Laura Baich.
Absent: Sara Peterson, Mary Hall, Quinton Stroud, Daren Redman, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Quincy Robinson, Lacy Hawkins, Alain Barker, Brent Molnar.
Lynn Schwartzberg calls the meeting to order.
- Welcome & Introductions
Lynn Schwartzberg seeks motion to approve July 2019 minutes. Pam Davidson moves, John Clark seconds. Motion passes.
- Public Comment
No members of public are present to comment.
- GM Transition
John Bailey: Rob Anderson, assistant general manager of Radio-TV Services has taken over as interim GM as of October 1, following the retirement of Perry Metz. A search committee, including Alain Barker, Janae Cummings, and Anne Ryder, and led by Brad Wheeler, has been appointed and has met with Radio-TV senior staff to collect their impressions of the culture of the organization and their hopes for future leadership. The job has yet to be posted. The current hope is that Perry’s permanent successor will be named by spring.
- Board Business
John Bailey: The CAB nominations committee met and made recommendations to a shift in the board’s leadership structure. They suggest that the governing document be amended to replace the current structure (Chair, Vice Chair, and Recording Secretary) with:
- A Meeting Chair whose job will focus on facilitating CAB meetings and the work of the nominations committee
- An Advocacy Chair whose job will center on engaging the board in community and advocacy efforts on behalf of WFIU
- And a Fundraising Chair whose job will focus on engaging the CAB in marketing and fundraising efforts with and for WFIU.
And that recording secretary duties be formally delegated to station management, which reflects our current function.
These three new board leaders will work as an executive committee with staff.
Lynn Schwartzberg requests a vote to approve this recommendation, and to approve this slate of officers for 2020-21: Alain Barker, Meeting Chair; John Clark, Advocacy Chair; and Abby Henkel, Fundraising Chair. Janet S moves, Laura G seconds; approval by voice vote.
John Bailey: Outgoing members as of this meeting: Pam Davidson, Laura Ginger, Mary Hall, Lynn Schwartzberg, Janet Stavropoulos, and Charlotte Zietlow. We thank them for their combined decades of board service. And, the repopulation is underway with three new members having agreed in the last week to join: Lauren Dexter, the BHF marketing director; Judy Stewart, a senior judge in Brown County; and Nathan Watson, the ops dir of Bedford Public Library. Working from nominations committee recommendations, we are continuing the process of interviewing and selecting as many as three more candidates by January, and are continuing to seek geographic and demographic diversity in our board composition. The nominations committee will reconvene if needed. - Manager’s Report – John Bailey
Fall drive and CAB match
The goal for fall was 900 pledges / for $135,000; including pre-drive pledges and met challenges and matches, we landed just shy of 700 pledges, and a bit short of $125,000. Nearly half the pledges were renewals; almost one-quarter add gifts; one-seventh expired; one-sixth new. About one-third of the gifts were sustainers, including 47% of new gifts. We added 86 new members to McRobbie Bicentennial Challenge, which will mean $2,000 from the IU President if we can take in 200 new members by IU’s 200th birthday in January.
We should easily recoup the missing $10,000 on Giving Tuesday, especially because we’ll probably be asking the challengers whose goals we missed to offer a large combined challenge on that day – it could be as large as $15,000!
The CAB match was three-quarters met – in the last two hours of the drive, we structured the board’s combined pledge of $4000 as a $50 per-pledge match up to the ambitious goal of 80 pledges. We received 61 pledges. We ask that you fulfill at least three-quarters of the pledge you made toward the match; 100% fulfillment would be entirely welcome!
Miah M suggests we tap CAB emeriti to participate in future CAB challenges.
b. Production and syndication update
The Ernie Pyle Experiment: production on a 13-episode, six-hour-plus audio theater podcast involving some two dozen actors from around the Midwest is underway this week and through most of the month. Post-production is expected to continue through the end of the year; and it will drop at the same time as the TIU doc about Pyle. We will air it once, in a binge on WFIU2 on the first Saturday in March, and will make it available on PRX; but otherwise will be treating this as an online product.
Also headed to syndication, as soon as we can work out some administrative details: PorchLight with Tom Roznowski; Sylvia and Friends; the Saturday Soul Kitchen; possibly Profiles.
c. New NPR CEO
John Lansing’s first day on the job as NPR’s new CEO is next Monday. For the last four years he has been the director of the US Agency for Global Media, an independent federal agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other networks that broadcast internationally but are funded and managed domestically.
Before that he spent about 20 years with Scripps, as a GM of local ABC stations, then as president of Scripps Networks, which includes Food Network and HGTV.
NPR’s board seems to have selected someone with an understanding of news and of large-scale media management, and who is a steady hand if not a visionary.
d. Implicit bias training
Wednesday, November 20, will be a special day. All Radio-TV staff will be strongly encouraged to attend a session from 1 to 4 in Studio 6. It focuses on the effect on our day-to-day lives of implicit bias – attitudes or stereotypes that emerge in an unconscious or involuntary way (as opposed to biases that someone might be aware of and try to suppress). The training will be led by two members of Building a Thriving Compassionate Community, funded by the Youth Services Bureau of Monroe County. One of the presenters will be “Brother William” Morris.
e. New endowments
We have indications from two major donors that they will make gifts to fund two new endowments: one focused on jazz programming, the other in support of a pair of new internship positions. Once the gift agreements are signed by the donors and the IU Foundation, we will be able to share more.
Finally, the Radio-TV Open House is Tuesday, October 29, from 6 to 8. We hope to see you there!
- 2020 Preview – Lynn Schwartzberg
Looking ahead to 2020: in January, we will welcome new officers and new members. John B will offer an annual update on the State of the Station and our progress toward our 2015-2020 Strategic Plan goals.
Meeting dates for 2020: January 6, April 6, July 6, October 5.
At the January meeting, with new members in place and a spring drive date set, the board will discuss plans for its on-air challenge activity for the year as a whole.
- Adjourn
4:53 p.m.