Dec. 3, 2005,

Oct. 8, 2005, at board member Alia Rau's home, Tempe, Ariz.

Sept. 8, 2005 at board member Alia Rau's home, Tempe, Ariz.

Aug. 27, 2005, at the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

May 21, 2005, The Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, Ariz.

March 12, 2005, Tucson

March 1, 2005, via teleconference

Feb. 12, 2005, Phoenix

Arizona Press Club
Noon, Sept. 8, 2005 Tempe, AZ

In attendance: Alia Rau, Laura Clymer, Le Templar, Beque Allen, Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor, Sarah Fenske, Paul Rubin, Rick Barrs

--Laura called the meeting to order.

--Le made a motion seconded by Beque to approve the minutes of the August meeting. It was approved unanimously.

--2006 contest rules:
Members in attendance went over the proposed 2006 contest rules. There was a discussion about whether we could and should require all submitters to submit PDFs for design, and the consensus was that we should not require it in case the smaller papers were unable to comply. There was also a discussion as to whether we should require news categories to submit tearsheets or require them to submit online archive versions, but the consensus was again not to require one or the other specifically to avoid making it difficult on smaller papers.
In addition to suggested changes to update dates and addresses, there were several suggested changes:
--All references to multiple bylines should be removed.
--The criteria suggested to judges should be removed.
--An education reporting category should be added to A and the numbers adjusted.
--A sustained reporting category and an education reporting category should be added to B and the numbers adjusted.
--In C1, "one or more pieces of a single story" should be changed to "one or more pieces of a single topic."
--In C5, the phrase "single reporter" should be removed.
--In C10, change advances to trends and make it research OR knowledge.
--In C15-19, add, "Up to five parts of a single story presented within a seven day period, may also include sidebars."
--In C17, change design to presentation.
--Under Feature Beat Reporting, take out "news" and deadline requirements.
--Delete all references to word count.
--C22 Slice of life reporting, should be, " A story and related sidebars about people and their lives."
--C31 sports column writing should say "sports columns" n the description.
--C35 business column writing should ask for three examples instead of five.
--The Don Schellie Award should go for first-person column writing.
--D4-6 should include that sentence about "up to five parts of a single story..."
--Under H1, "Online entries should consist of a live link or a CD copy."
--on the entry form, change "entry fees" to "contest fees"
--On the entry form, note that the fees of entries that are disqualified will not be returned.
--In the photojournalism rules summary, note the fee for photojournalist of the year is $25 regardless of circulation size.
--Encourage submission of PDFs, and include a link to the Web site to convert pages to PDF
--State: In case of multiple bylines or staff entries, each person on the byline must pay a contest fee. Only one entry fee per entry is
required, regardless of the number of people on the byline.
--Members agreed that there were too many changes to vote on the proposed rules as they were, and asked that the suggestions be submitted to Jill and another revised version be submitted to the board for a future vote.
--A suggestion was made to remind someone at the banquet to explain at the beginning of the night why there is no second place awarded if there are two first place awards. And the MC should mention it once or twice when it comes up. Last year, some people thought the third place winner in that situation might not have been good enough to merit a second place.

--Fall workshop:
Laura provided an update of the fall workshop in Flagstaff. She said Northern Arizona University adopted a fairly strict policy about who can use their facilities, and are asking for a certificate of insurance and general aggregate liability of $2 million for the Press Club to use classrooms. Laura called a local insurance agent and had them price it out.
The cost would be a one-time cost of $420 and then $60 to have the building open for four hours.
Beque said we have the funds to pay for this, but several members questioned whether we wanted to do this. There were also problems with selecting a date. Nov. 5 would be the best date, but that is NAU's Homecoming and Laura was concerned about being able to get everything arranged that quickly. Laura said we had a great turnout at the event last year, and wanted to make sure we picked a good date so the students would again attend. The consensus was to postpone the workshop in hopes that NAU would change its policy. Alia said she'd also like to wait and see what the First Amendment Coalition planned to do about a program in Flagstaff, as she'd like to see the two done together if possible. Laura said she would look at a date in April.
Le made a motion that Laura send a letter to the president of NAU objecting to the policy and explaining its impact on small civic organizations. The motion passed unanimously.

--Banquet
Le said he is still looking for an MC. He asked that anyone with suggestions should e-mail them to him.

--Officer votes:
All current officers had indicated they were willing to keep their seats for another term. The new term runs through August 2006. Le made a motion to keep the existing officers for the next term. Rick seconded the motion.
It passed unanimously.

--Resignations:
Maureen West had told Alia that she wanted to resign from the board. Beque moved to accept Maureen's resignation and Sarah seconded it. It passed unanimously.

--New members:
Mike Meister has indicted an interest in becoming a Press Club board member and taking one of our spots on the First Amendment Coalition. Alia said she wanted to make sure Meister wanted to be on Press Club as well as FAC. She said those in our FAC seats should be there to represent the interests of the Press Club, and not just use the press club to get a seat on the FAC.
She asked that someone make sure Meister understood that he would need to be a regular press club board member and attend meetings, and was ok with that.

--Treasurer report:
Beque reported that there were no bills that had to be paid this past month. She said the Heard deposit will need to be made soon. She said gift certificates were never given to Jeff Scott and Jana Bomersbach last year.
The board agreed to get a Durant's certificate for jana. Beque said she would call Jeff and find out where he'd like a certificate to. We owe $126 for the PO Box and $107.40 for Web hosting.

--Sarah moved to adjourn the meeting. It passed unanimously.


Minutes from meeting August 27, 2005

Meeting called to order 11:35 a.m. at the East Valley Tribune conference room

Present: Jill Jorden Spitz, Patti Epler, Laura Clymer, Rick Barrs, Sarah Fenske, Beque Allen, Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor, Rob Schumacher, Paul Rubin, Ryan Gabrielson

Laura opened the meeting by saying we’d be looking at the changes suggested by the Contest Rules Committee to see if this was the direction we wanted to go.

Jill moved to add Rick, Sarah, Ryan, Monica, and Paul as board members.
Patti seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously.

1. The proposed changes. Jill said the committee focused on the problems of the last year and ways to address them. The biggest problem was the word count issue. The committee also looked at what categories are too big and might need to be split, as well as what categories could be done away with.
One problem was that the feature categories were vague and nobody knew which to enter.

Jill then started with the A categories.

Beque asked to add education writing. Jill said its omission had probably been an oversight and it should be added.

Jill talked about the B categories, and Beque asked about the elimination of the commentary/analysis category. There had been 29 entries. The committee agreed that its elimination was probably a mistake, too.

For the C categories, Jill said the committee looked at winning entries from the past to decide how better to split feature categories. The idea:
Do away with all word counts, but still keep the categories to a manageable size. If we decided to do something like this, it would have to be a wholesale change.

Laura asked if the changes eliminated categories that didn’t have many entries. Jill said yes. Patti said the committee had determined because of eliminations, it wasn’t many categories. Net gain thought to be 3-4.

Laura asked about photo. Rob said he wanted to talk to photo editors around the state to see what they thought. Rob said we might want to tweak it – to add, possibly, food & fashion, and maybe get rid of photo illustration. No new categories would be needed. He would report back at the next meeting.

Beque asked about the lawsuit clause. Jill said other contests do have it.
Dan Barr is looking for one from radio/TV contest.

Rob asked about design entries. Gotta either go all digital or all tearsheets. It’s too hard to judge this way. Jill said the judges prefer a screen, but a lot of papers didn’t do that, particularly the smaller ones.
Laura didn’t think the press club could expect the weeklies to do it digitally. Jill said if we can’t get everyone to enter on disk, we should tell everyone to do tear sheets.

Laura asked about Community Journalist: Should we better define it? Patti said to just leave it. There was lengthy discussion about to limit the category in a way that keeps magazines out. Sarah suggested limiting entrants to “any newspaper in the A or B category” and the committee agreed.

Laura said that all the changes should be looked at a further meeting; it was too soon to approve them. Beque suggested a strike-out version to show old v. new rules and categories. Jill said she’d send one out before the next meeting for review.

Laura asked if word counts had helped the smaller papers. It was agreed that the result was just the opposite. Jill said the category became a catch-all, which defeated the purpose.

Do we need a spotlight category? Jill said we shouldn’t be obligated. Laura said if something really big happens by November, we would discuss it.

Patti promised to find the ANA postcard sent to rejected entries. We could put together an electronic version so rejected entrants would get a form email. Sarah suggested that the form email should note that any responses or complaint should be kept to email rather than phone so that there would be a record.

2. The treasurer’s report
Beque said the only thing outstanding is a receipt for Maureen’s supplies and $200 for banquet gifts.
There is $5,198 in the bank.

3. Banquet Plans
Joe had previously had ideas about new venues, but one was tentative about cost. Beque said we had a tentative hold on the Heard until the end of the weekend. Then we either have to sign a contract or give up the date. If we want it there on 5/6, we’ve got to make the call now. The Heard is booked for both 4/22 and 4/29.

Money-wise, we’re better off this year than last, when we only had $4,000.
Audiovisual dropped. So even though the caterer cost more, it balanced out.
The caterer we like is available. It’s ½ price to rent the room because we’re a non-profit.

There was talk about making it more casual. Jill said she’s not willing to do anymore. If Joe hasn’t gotten any final numbers yet, that doesn’t sound good. Laura had said it needed to be done by summer.

Rob motioned for the banquet to be held at the Heard 5/6 and to sign the contract. Paul seconded. Unanimous approval.

Beque said we should ask the band to play again. Everyone agreed.

Monica said we should invite everyone to the after-party. Patti suggested New Times plan a surprise for the after-party. Rick said he would take the lead on that.

4. The First Amendment Coalition
We can add someone. Patti said she wanted off. Rob said he’d talk to Republic photographer Michael Meister about doing it.

5. Tour de FOIA
It was supposed to be in Flagstaff 9/24. Laura said she would talk to Mark.
Do we have to have Dan Barr there?

Jill said a half day works best.

Laura said they want to make it bigger than it’s been. Invite the public and public officials. Jill said if that’s the case, there’s no way it can be done in September. Maybe November?

Jill suggested getting the community journalist, Virg Hill finalists, and photog of the year and do panels. Laura said in that case, October is better, but we’d have to avoid 10/9 and 10/22.

Someone suggested getting Ric and Jacques from the AP to do it instead of Dan.

We should make sure the Zane Grey is clear.

6. Closing
Beque reminded everyone that we have to elect new officers. Laura said next meeting.
Sarah moved to adjourn. Beque seconded, and it was approved unanimously.

-- Submitted by Sarah Fenske, 10/3/05
 

Minutes of the Arizona Press Club special meeting Noon, Tuesday, March 1, 2005, via teleconference

In attendance: Alia Rau, Arizona Republic; Dennis Joyce, Arizona Daily Star; Rob Schumacher, Arizona Republic; Jill Jorden Spitz, Arizona Daily Star; Patti Epler, East Valley Tribune; Rebecca Allen, Freelancer; Joe Watson, New Times; Tom Gibbons, East Valley Tribune; Gawain Douglas, Tucson Citizen; Le Templar, East Valley Tribune; Laura Clymer, Arizona Daily Sun; Jennifer Sterba, Arizona Daily Star.

Laura opened the meeting, noting that there were four officers present, enough for a quorum. She said she had just been made of another contest issue.
Jill said it was a much smaller issue and she left a message with the folks from the Scottsdale Times.

The Grievance Committee, consisting of Laura Clymer, Alia Rau and Beque Allen, met Friday and reached a recommendation to forward to the board regarding the grivance filed by New Times. Vice President Patti Epler graciously recused herself from the committee after New Times requested it.
The Grievance Committee found:
An inconsistent application of the rule regarding word counts; There was no space for word count on the entry form, which might have reduced the number of entry errors; The Grievance Committee recommends to the full board that all entries disqualified for failure to indicate word count on entry forms be reinstated.
Laura said the Grievance Committee, in their research aided by Jill, discovered an inconsistent application of the word count rule. She said the entry form has no space for word count, which the committee thought might have reduced the number of entry errors.
She said the committee discussed the issue for more than an hour and came up with the above recommendation.
Le asked Laura to specify the inconsistent application.
Laura said the committee had Jill go back and look at the entry forms. She discovered that there were about 18 other entries that did not have word counts listed on the entry form and still made it through the process.
Patti said she thought Dennis and others had double checked those categories. But she said she didn’t remember double checking the personality profile categories.
Laura said the inconsistency concerned the grievance committee. She said the other alternative would be to contact the judges and remove the 18 other entries. But at that point, she said, we would be looking at eliminating more than 40 entries and questioned if that was what would be best for the contest.
Gawain asked if the rules specified that word counts had to be included on the entry form.
Laura said all C categories did specify that.
Beque said the A and B categories did not specify that, so none of those were thrown out for not including word count.
Gawain said he agreed with the committee’s recommendation, especially because of the number of entries now involved.
Le said he also supported the recommendation. He asked Jill if we would be able to get the reinstated entries to the judges.
Jill said she had already asked the relevant judges to hold off on judging.
She said it would not be a problem to mail out the reinsated entries right away.
Beque said Jill has all the disqualified entries, so the papers wouldn’t need to refile them.
Le asked if the recommendation would satisfy the New Times grievance.
Joe said reinstatement of those entries would satisfy the grievance. He said the paper would want to know which ones were disqualified and have assurance that they would be sent out the judges.
Laura said the reisntated entries would be fedexed to the five judges. She clarified that only the entries failing to indicate word count would be reinstated. It would not apply to entries entered incorrectly or entered twice against the rules.
Joe said that would certainly satisfy New Times’ needs and wants.
Le made a motion to accept the grievance committee’s recommendation to restore the entries eliminated for lack of word count.
Dennis seconded.
It passed unanimously.

Jill asked if we should count the words of the reinstated entries to find out the word count.
Alia said the grievance committee had discussed that and decided it wouldn’t be fair since we didn’t count words on all the other entries left in.
Le said the New Times had assured the Press Club in two different letters that the word counts ar accurate.
Dennis said the whole reason we set up the rules the way we did was to avoid winners being disqualified again. He said applying a different standard of scrutiny to those formerly rejected entries would be a double standard.
Joe said the New Times could give Jill the word counts, which would make their entries consistent with the others.
Jill said she would sned the headlines to Joe and the other papers to get the word counts.
Jill said she didn’t have the entry for the Northwest Explorer or the Arizona Republic. She later sent an email to the board indicating she had found all the entries, including these two.
Le moved that we request entries that have been reinstated to confirm their word count and, if they were entered in the correct category, give the papers the opportunity to resubmit any missing entries and send them all on to the judges.
Tom seconded.
Jill asked if the entry should be eliminated or moved to the right category if the word count given doesn’t fit with the category it was entered in.
Patti said she would like them moved to the right category.
Tom said we need to be consistent and, if we find something wrong, toss it out. He suggested we vote on le’s motion and make another motion that allows the grievanace committee to make a final decisio on anything that doesn’t come in at the correct word count.
Dennis said he wanted to decide now.
Le returend to his motion above.
The vote was unanimous.

Rob returend to the elimination discussion and said if the word count shows the entry is in the wrong category, it should be disqualified.
Dennis said a vote was not needed because the rules clearly state that if an entry is entered incorrectly, it will be rejected.
Patti argued that we’ve gotten into this position by being overly rigid.
Dennis said with 1,900 entries, it’s never going to be perfect. But he said the Press Club should not decide godlike to address one rule but not another one. He said if there is a problem with the word counts, Jill will have the autority to decide what to do. But he said he didn’t think it would be a problem.

Gawain offered to create a new entry form for next year, that includes a space for word counts.

The next meeting was set for 11:30 a.m. March 12 in Tucson at the Clymer residence. Laura said she will send out directions.
Gawain moved to adjourn.
Rob seconded.
It was approved unanimously.

Minutes of the Arizona Press Club meeting Saturday, Feb. 12, 2005, in Phoenix

In attendance: Alia Rau, Arizona Republic; Dennis Joyce, Arizona Daily Star; Rob Schumacher, Arizona Republic; Maureen West, Arizona Republic, Jill Jorden Spitz, Arizona Daily Star; Patti Epler, East Valley Tribune; Francisco Medina, Tucson Citizen; Rebecca Allen, Freelancer; Tom Gibbons, East Valley Tribune; Juan Villa, La Voz; Gawain Douglas, Tucson Citizen.

Le moved to approve the November minutes. Patti seconded and the vote was approved unanimously.

SCHOLARSHIP UPDATE
Alia reported that she had had a number of calls and emails from students interested in the scholarships and looking for more information, including students from the larger universities.
Le and Juan volunteered to serve on the scholarship selection committee.
Gawain suggested a design category be included in the scholarships next year.

BANQUET UPDATE
Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor from the Republic and Beque have been working on the banquet. To avoid any conflicts, Monica will take the receipts and submit them to Beque.
Beque said the caterer will cost $12,800, about $800 more than last year.
But she said that amount includes upgraded chairs and no stage for the band. She said it will cost about $200 for the bars, and said our bar tab last year was about $250.
She said the Heard will let us have access to the galleries for about 1.5 hours before the event. She will find out how late the museum will let us keep the galleries open. The board agreed to promote this aspect of the banquet.
Tom moved to raise banquet ticket prices to $35, from $30 last year. Rob seconded the motion.
Maureen said she was concerned about how a hike in prices would affect the smaller paces.
The vote was 10 for raising the fees, and one (Cisco) against it. The motion passed.
Beque said she would set an April 9 deadline for registering for the banquet.
Cisco moved to charge $35 for early registration and $40 for anyone who registered after April 9.
Le seconded that motion.
Rob suggested charging walk-ups $40, but Le said walk-ups are too much trouble.
Beque and Le said they were leaning towards sticking to the one $35 amount.
The vote was one (Cisco) for the two fees, and all others against it. The motion failed.
Jana Bommersbach has agreed to MC the banquet.
Jill moved to give her a gift certificate of $100 to her favorite restaurant. She said she would ask Amy Silverman to find out for us what the best restaurant would be.
Rob seconded, it was approved unanimously.
Cisco said he will ask Jeff Scott to handle the audiovisual again this year. Cisco said he would help also.

CONTEST UPDATE
Jill reported that we made $32,340 from the contest this year.
Jill said there were more design and Spanish language entries.
There was a discussion about someone submitting the Open Secrets project on behalf of the three reporters who were the lead writers.
Le said 80 journalists from around the state participated in it and it didn’t seem right to give these three, or one paper the credit.
Maureen suggested the project be given a special award.
Le suggested it get the Spotlight award.
Patti suggested Laura also mention the project in her annual letter and have someone write up something for Jana Bommersbach to say at the banquet.
Patti said a number of entries were pulled for failure to include a word count. She said all were double checked to make sure there was no word count anywhere on the entry or the story.
The following entries were disqualified on pack-up day:
--Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic entered the same story twice in the same category. One entry had the one story in it and another entry had that story with some additional stories. Both entries were discarded.
--Adam Kress of the Phoenix Business Journal had a C37 entry discarded for no word count.
--Bruce Pascoe of the Daily Star had a C33 entry discarded for no word count.
--Sarah Fenske of New Times had a C20 entry discarded for no word count.
--Amy Silverman and Paul Rubin of New Times had a C20 entry discarded for no word count.
--Amy Silverman of New Times had a C20 entry discarded for no word count.
--Jimmy Magahern of New Times had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Serene Dominic of New Times had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Michele Laudig of New Times had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Joe Watson of New Times had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Ashlea Deahl of New Times had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Ashlea Deahl of New Times had a second C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Michele Laudig of New Times had a second C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Jimmy Magahern of New Times had a C23 entry discarded for no word count.
--Jimmy Magahern of New Times had a second C23 entry discarded for no word count.
--Jimmy Magahern of New Times had a third C23 entry discarded for no word count.
--Susy Buchanan of New Times had a C23 entry discarded for no word count.
--Susy Buchanan and David Holthouse had a C23 entry discarded for no word count.
--Teresa McQuerrey of the Payson Roundup had a C19 entry discarded for no word count.
--Chris Hawley of the Arizona Republic had a C22 entry discarded for no word count.
--Paul Rubin of the New Times entered his molecular damage story twice.
Both entries were discarded.
--Jimmy Magahern of New Times had a C34 entry discarded for no word count.
--Robert Nelson of New Times had a C34 entry discarded for no word count.
--Paul Rubin of New Times had a C34 entry discarded for no word count.
--Amy Silverman of New Times had a C21 entry discarded for no word count.
--Robert Nelson of New Times had a C21 entry discarded for no word count.
--Mary K. Reinhart of the East Valley Tribune had a C21 entry discarded for no word count.
--Christina Vanoverbeke of Explorer Newspapers had a C21 entry discarded for no word count.

BANQUET TAB UPDATE
Patti and Le had spoken to the Tribune about covering the cost of designing and printing the tab.
Patti said the Tribune had agreed to pay for the printing, but couldn’t design it in the magazine format. She said Jason peters could design it, but not in the magazine format.
Le said the Tribune publisher said they wouldn’t pay for it unless they could design it.
It would be the Arizona Daily Star’s turn to cover these expenses if the Tribune doesn’t agree to.
Jill voiced concerns about letting the Tribune design it. She said she was afraid the winners names would be released if it was designed in the newsroom.
Patti suggested someone in the business office could do it.
Le said he would talk to the publisher again and get back to the board.
Patti said Andrew Long has agreed to design the cover.

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Maureen suggested Bob Early.
Jill said SPJ is honoring him this year.
Dennis said he would support Maureen’s suggestion.
Beque moved to give Bob Early the distinguished service award this year.
Dennis seconded it, it was approved unanimously.

BRICK WALL AWARD
Dennis said he already had about six nominations for the brick wall award.
Maureen suggested Laura send out a letter asking for additional nominations.
Patti said we could chose the winners at the March press club meeting.
Dennis said he would write the letter.

TOUR DE FOI
Dennis said Mark Scarp was submitted an application from the Press Club, APME, First Amendment Coalition and SPJ for an SPJ grant. The grant could bring us $10,000 to hold five public meetings around the state based on the results of the access audit. Mark has requested to go to Indianapolis to present his grant proposal in person. There is some money left from the Michael Roberts event that could be used to help fund his trip.
Dennis said national APME now wants to focus on government openness and has already given Arizona thousands of dollars to do a series of statewide meetings. He said this grant would allow us to do twice as many meetings, or we could do one round of meetings on public officials and another on courts.
Le said he would support helping to pay for Mark to go in person, as he thought it would help our chances.
Dennis said there should be about $600 in the account for the Arizona Communications Council. He said Mark has a listserve of the other groups who contributed money to this and said he would check and make sure it was okay with them.
Patti and Dennis said they didn’t think this needed a vote.
Beque said she would find out exactly how much money was in the account from the communications council and suggested all that money go to Mark.
Dennis moved to give mark the balance of the Arizona Communications Council funds from Jan. 2004.
Le seconded, and it was approved unanimously.

MISCELANEOUS
Colleen Sparks has resigned from the board and requested we vote her off.
Dennis moved to remove Colleen from the board, and Maureen seconded.
It passed 5-4.
The next press club meeting will be March 12 in Tucson at a location to be determined.

submitted by Alia Rau