Meeting Minutes Fall-Winter 2006

The AAJA Governing Board met for its annual fall/winter meeting in San Francisco Dec. 1-3, 2006. At the meeting, the board took the following major actions:

Summary

* Certified North Carolina as the newest AAJA chapter.

* Accepted the New England chapter's bid to host the 2009 convention. The convention will take place in Boston at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center.

* Adopted a financial plan. The plan includes the following provisions and further Board actions:

• Agreed to hold the convention gala banquet on Saturday evening as the closing event. This will be implemented in Miami, with a follow-up evaluation.
• Agreed to further explore a "convergence" type of convention student project. Staff will work with the national programs committee to present the structure at the spring National Board meeting.
• Agreed to continue to hold a mid-career networking reception at the convention (first implemented as a pilot project last year), but establish, and make sure our members know, new criteria on who is invited.
• Requested that the membership and chapter development committee explore and present a plan at the spring Board meeting that would include a schedule of when to revisit membership dues, whether to raise gold membership dues, whether to create a platinum membership level, whether to open up corporate membership to communications companies. The membership committee will present a proposal in writing to be distributed electronically to National Board members before the spring Board meeting.
• Approved the name change of the AAJA 25th Anniversary Endowment Campaign to the AAJA Endowment Campaign, and extended the deadline until the $2 million goal is reached.
• Approved the use of interest from the money raised for the endowment so far to be used for programming.
• Called for further inventory of national programs and requested that the national programs committee give a presentation at the spring Board meeting after their review of the inventory.
• Considered whether to take paid ads on the AAJA Web site. Board members thought a wider discussion was needed. The policy committee will draft and send out suggested guidelines by the end of December, and Governing Board members will contact their Advisory Board buddies in January to begin discussion on this issue.

* Revised the National Board travel assistance guidelines to a maximum of $450 per calendar year per person, from the current policy of $450 per person with no date limitation.

* Adopted the 2007 budget.

* Approved an accounting policies manual.

Minutes

Read the minutes from the full meeting.