February 18, 2015

Public Radio in Mid America
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
February 18, 2015 

Called to Order: 2:30 PM

Board Members Present: Dan Skinner, Tim Eby, Regina Dean, Karen Olstad, Paul Maason, Mike Savage, Steve Schram
Guest: Greg Petrowich, Tom Hunt

  1. Update on 2015 PRIMA Conference—Logistics (Paul & Tim)
    1. Paul is working on finalizing meals, etc.
    2. There will be a 44 passenger bus to shuttle attendees between hotel and ballpark
    3. Limited number of tickets to ballgame, will be offered to conference registrants first before offered to comp’ed conference speakers.
    4. May have potential underwriter for breakfast, Paul will get estimate of cost.
    5. 13 people have already registered
    6. Regina will look into availability of additional tickets to ball game
    7. Dan will publicize via PRIMA listserv a couple of more times before putting on AREPs and Pubradio listservs.
  2. Discussion of draft PRIMA Conference –Agenda (Dan)
    1. Dan shared a draft with of the agenda with sessions and speakers
    2. PRIMA Board members will moderate sessions, Dan will make assignments 
  3. PRRO Update (Dan)
    1. Still settling bills for Super Regional, will likely net about $45K
    2. Discussion about suggestion that PRRO becoming a 501(c)(3) organization and potential advantages and disadvantages. Many questions about what would be the purpose of the organization other than annual conference. Dan will relay concerns back at next PRRO meeting.
  4. NPR Underwriting Credits Announcer – Karen/Mike
    1. Dan will follow up with Gemma on behalf of PRIMA Board to express our appreciation that NPR responded to concerns expressed by stations.
  5. PRIMA Auditor Question – Regina
    1. Board members will send Regina an email to report the average weekly hours spent on PRIMA Business to be reported on the organization’s tax return Form 990.
  6. NPR Digital Services Discussion –
    1. Suggestion that NPR Digital Services needs to relook at its mission, be more focused. Perhaps more opportunity to do so now that PMP is working with INN to offer a WordPress plug-in to stations , which might be a better alternative than for NPR to continue to develop/support a CMS for stations
    2. However, many stations threw in their lot with NPR DS in order to get value for the money they have invested in NPR DS and are committed to Core Publisher.
    3. There will be a session at the PRIMA Conference to get an update on NPR Digital Services activities and plans. Tim Eby will moderate.
  7. NPR Board Update (Greg)
    1. Amendment to implement electronic voting was approved
    2. NPR Chair Kit Jensen challenged Board to look at Governance structure and board composition. No guarantees that changes will be proposed, and any that are must be approved by membership. Greg welcomes members’ ideas and suggestions. The Annual Membership meeting will be held at NPR Headquarters September 11, 2015.
  8. U:SA (Tom)
    1. Work continues by US:A Executive Director, Craig Beeby, along with Gemma Hooley at NPR to streamline NPR Master Services Agreement and Digital Services Agreement, as a result of issues raised by many university licensees.

Adjourned at 3:40 PM.

Next meeting March 18 at 2:30 PM EST.

Respectfully submitted,
Karen Olstad
Secretary

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