One oft-regurgitated theme of this blog has been SPJ's poor marketing skills. Fact is, we do a crappy job publicizing all the good jobs we do. For proof, all you had to do was attend this morning's national board meeting...• During a wide-ranging discussion about how to rank chapters — which range from one to four stars — some of us asked what benefits a four-star chapter gets, anyway. One of the answers was discounted convention registrations — up to 35 percent off. That's very cool. So how do chapters find out about this? They have to ask. A lot of us board members didn't know this perk existed. Even treasurer candidate Darcie Lunsford, one of the most respected Executive Committee members, admitted she didn't know. She's from my chapter, South Florida, and we've always paid full registration. So it begs the question: How are you supposed to know to ask?
• A the end of our three-hour meeting, outgoing president Dave Aeikens reminded board members to read the "committee reports" at the very back of our agenda packets. I'm not sure if anyone did so, but I perused those reports over lunch. Damned impressive stuff. I didn't know the Ethics Committee gets 1-2 calls per week to its Ethics Hotline, with intriguing questions like, "Is it a conflict for a sports reporter to participate in a betting pool that involves a team he might cover?" I didn't know that PRSA asked for the Ethics Committee's input on video news releases. And that's just one committee. We should be pimping this stuff hard to our members in Leads and to potential members on our website.
• The search for a new executive director to replace Terry Harper is apparently going great. Soon-to-be-president-elect Hagit Limor said 180 candidates applied, and more than 20 are exceptional. It might behoove the board to tell its membership that the search to replace Harper is already a success. There are more than a few folks who are worried, precisely because Harper was so damn good at his job. (SPJ was almost broke when he took over, and when he died, he left us with sufficient reserves to weather this recession.) Hagit and her committee should be boasting about the thorough job they're doing, so membership can rest easy.
And before anyone gives me crap for discussing SPJ's business on this blog, let it be known that the Working Press had a reporter there. So everything I've revealed here was said in front of a student journalist with an open reporter's pad.
FRIDAY: Who's attending what.
