January 21, 2015

Public Radio in Mid America
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
January 21, 2015

 Called to Order: 2:30 PM

Board Members Present: Dan Skinner, Tim Eby, Regina Dean, Karen Olstad, Paul Maassen, Steve Schram, Christina Kuzmych
Guest: Greg Petrowich, Tom Hunt

  1. Update on 2015 PRIMA Conference—May 6-8 in St Louis (Paul & Tim)
    1. Baseball game is set for Wednesday night, Tim will follow-up with CARS regarding sponsorship. Tickets are available on first come, first serve basis.
    2. Registration will open soon. Working on ability to register online.
    3. Tim and Paul will discuss catering in a separate call utilizing expertise of someone on Tim’s staff.
  2. Discussion of draft PRIMA Conference Agenda (Dan)
    1. Board agreed that draft agenda looked good with a few tweaks.
    2. Added: Dinner event on Thursday night following tours of Saint Louis Public Radio, Nine Network and Public Commons.
    3. Will try to facilitate dinner seating in groups of stations with similar affinities (by size, licensee type, format, etc.)
    4. PRIMA suite later that evening.
    5. Dan will begin extending invitations to the speakers and try to finalize schedule.
    6. We will work on making better titles for session to make more enticing. 
  3. PRRO Update (Dan)
    1. Don’t have final bills from hotel, but Super Regional Conference appears to have made money, evaluations were very positive about content, only criticism was of venue.
    2. There has been discussion of PRROS of a having joint website. It would give each the ability to pool resources and share joint content, but each regional org would have its own section with unique content. It hasn’t been decided who would be responsible for whole thing, but each org could administer its own content. As person who has been doing PRIMA website, Dan feels that this approach would be a good idea. Dan asked for ideas if anyone knows of someone who does this work and would be willing to do it. Suggestions: NPR Digital Services, Greater Public, PBMA
  4. NPR Board Update (Greg)
    1. Call is out for candidates for election, Greg encourages PRIMA to solicit prospective members
    2. No word yet on outcome of By-Laws vote, will likely hear at next board meeting.
    3. Discussion about quality controls and levels.
  5. U:SA (Tom)
    Discussion of on-going issues with NPR Master Service Agreement, seems to be more of an issue for University Licensees because of clauses that are contrary to many states laws. USA is taking advocacy position, had discussion with Jarl and Gemma. Greg has been championing at the Board level. USA is hoping that PRIMA board members will take this up and work on it. Greg encouraged members to document what the specific clauses in the agreement caused problems for licensees.

Adjourned at 3:52 PM.

Next meeting February 18 at 2:30 PM EST

Respectfully submitted,
Karen Olstad
Secretary

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