PRIMA Board Meeting
December 17, 2020
Meeting convened at 1:30pm CT.
Present
Paul Maassen, president
Steve Schramm, vice president
Richard Myles
Neenah Ellis, secretary
Dan Skinner
Regina Dean, treasurer
Myrna Johnson
Nico Leone – leaves the meeting at 2pm
Agenda
Super-Regional Meeting
Maassen reports that PRRO is discussing the Super Regional meeting scheduled for November 2021 in Denver. Georgette Bronfman has retired. A reinvention of the conference is under discussion.
Schramm wonders what will be compelling at that time. Notes that travel budgets will be softer.
Maassen says people will want to get together in person. There is an August cancellation policy. Content is under discussion. Regionals may be asked to step up and provide more programming.
Is there a new vision possible now? The PRRO leadership seems to think it went off track and could be made more useful.
Regina Dean notes that in the past there was no director and once there was one, it grew larger and more costly.
Nico notes there will be many things to discuss because there will inevitably be changes in the public radio landscape.
Myra – what do we offer that the other conferences don’t. What is the rationale for this conference.
Nico – maybe there could be deeper conversations between stations and NPR.
Maassen – regional meetings were not being held at Super Regional. Maybe that would be more useful to managers on a core level. Maassen advises the group to think about Super Regional and we can return to it.
NPR Board Composition Discussion
Discussion about the makeup of the NPR, the general composition seems to favor larger rather than smaller stations. Some PRIMA members have brought this up.
Now there are 12 managers on the board and three stations under 3 million dollar budget. Twenty five percent of the board composition is smaller stations.
Is this a problem? Should PRIMA speak up?
Myrna – there are other diversity issues as well.
Nico – It’s an important factor, one of four or five factors that are considered when new member directors come on.
Some board members represent many small stations. It’s impossible to represent all the different factors.
Regina – the station compact discussion noted that the bigger stations were wielding influence – and asks whether or not this question has already been addressed, perhaps by CPB.
Nico – suspects those conversations will resurface – 2020 seems like mostly a lost year on the compact work except for the CSG decisions that were made. This is likely to come up in the future.
Paul – maybe we could reach out to LaFontaine and let him know how we feel, to keep the discussion going.
Nico – he’s thinking a lot about diversity and representation on the board.
NOTE: THE SMALL AND MEDIUM STATIONS REPRESENT THE LARGEST PERCENTAGE AMONG ALL STATIONS – way more than 25% – when you measure by annual budget.
Super Regional Discussion Continued
Returning to the Super Regional discussion – what would our priorities be. What should we take back to PRRO.
1. Create a unique identity for the conference. Differentiate ourselves. Different and engaging and more substantial.
2. The suggestion is raised that we move toward small group discussions rather that experts pushing out info in PowerPoint presentations. Make them sessions discussion –friendly with facilitators rather presenters.
The meeting is adjourned at 3:29 ET.
Submitted by Neenah Ellis, PRIMA Sectary.