WFIU Community Advisory Board Meeting

The Virgil T. DeVault Alumni Center, Metz Boardroom

October 6, 2014 at 4:00 p.m.

Notes prepared by Michael Homan

Attending: John Bailey, Alain Barker, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Becky Cape, Laura Ginger, Catherine Hageman, Mary Hall, Michael Homan, Nancy Krueger, Phil Meyer, Miah Michaelsen, Todd Nation, Sara Peterson, Lewis Ricci, Lynn Schwartzberg, Janis Starcs, Janet Stravopoulos, Beth Watson, Eva Zogorski. Attending via conference phone: David Bowden

Lewis called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. and initiated introductions.

New Business: Personnel

Lewis R: First, I would like to recognize three new community advisory board members; Todd Nation, Beth Watson from Greencastle, and Matt Pierce, our state representative.

New Business: Fund Drive

Lewis R: In years past, the community advisory board has posed challenges for listeners; I would like to do one as a community advisory board. So maybe that’s an item that we could vote on. I think the goal is 100% participation by the community advisory board.

Some of you have enjoyed giving to a specific program of your choice, which is terrific, but probably wouldn’t be part of the challenge given to the community advisory board. All in favor in having a challenge from the community advisory board – can I have a motion?

Lynn S: Motion.

Janet S: Second.

Lewis R: Any discussion?

We have twenty community advisory board members. I think it’s reasonable to expect a board member to give out the $150 ¬- $250 level at least. Even with a few people deciding they want to go to another program, other than the challenge, I would anticipate that we should be able to do $4,000 or something as a group. We should do an email follow-up with this group since not everyone is here today.

Eva Z: Will sets the challenges, but I can definitely make sure an email is sent following up from this.

Lewis R: We’re talking about an advisory board challenge for the Fund Drive, and we’ve had a motion that we should have a challenge from this group, and a second, and we’re having some discussion about goals, of which there are none except for 100% participation. Does the motion reflect that?

[Conference phone rings]

Lewis R: Let me acknowledge whoever’s on the phone here. Hello?

David B: This is David Bowden.

Lewis R: We have had a motion here which acknowledges that we would like to have 100% participation in the Fund Drive from the community advisory board and that we would like to have a challenge grant from the community advisory board fully recognizing that some members may want to give to other programs than to the challenge grant. If you decide to do that you would still be counted as far as the 100% participation, but the challenge grant would be whatever the non-restricted members would give. Is there some discussion from you, David, before we vote?

David B: I support it.

Lewis R: Hearing no more discussion I will call for a vote. All in favor?

Unanimous: Aye.

Lewis R: The motion carries. And the dates are?

Eva Z: The 16th through the 26th of October.

New Business: Board tenure and rotation

Lewis R: You should have received a spreadsheet to which there is a correction, which is the three new members – Beth Watson, Todd Nation, and Matt Pierce – you’re terms actually go through December 2017, because they’re three year terms. You’re closing out this year and have three full years afterwards. The nomination committee divided rotation it into three groups. What I will consider founding members, a large group that’s in-between, and then those that have been recently appointed. All of them were over the three year term that we voted to accept, and we’re not trying to make that retroactive in anyway, it’s just that all of them are actually beyond the sixth year of two terms and so, over the next three years, we took the founding members off, not at the end of this year but at the end of another calendar year, so we gave them yet another year, which I think is great for transition, because we heard some concerns around that. The next group, after two full years, starting in January, and the third group after three full years starting in January, with that being the new group who’s just starting. We thought that was the most rational way to do it given the long tenure of some folks and the fact that we now have six years as a maximum, trying to look back and separate that group into three groups so we’re not also trying to replace everyone in one cycle.

New Business: Strategic planning

Sara P: Will and I have gone through the purchase order and contracting process of the university. Before we start a planning group, we’re going to hold two facilitated stakeholder conversations – one with the CAB and one with staff to get a good cross section of perspectives on how things are going. We haven’t solidified the final planning group. The goal is to be finished with this process by the end of February. Next is for Will and myself to sit down and start setting dates. I am available to you through the planning process – I want to be as accessible as possible to all of you, including staff.

Lewis R: Do you have the information you would want as a baseline for planning?

Sara P: Yes and no – I’ll tell you what I’ve asked for thus far. I’ve asked for bi-law equivalents for the CAB, the roster, financial information for the last several years, any current strategic work plans or annual reports. I already have the meeting minutes from the last year and a half or so.

Alain B: Two things that may come into play: IU’s strategic goals vision and whether IU foundation has any case statement being applied to WFIU/ WTIU.

Lewis R: Do you track figures like what percent are new members, what percent are recurring members, etc.? Membership data would also be relevant.

Alain B: IU Bloomington Provost released a document for strategic planning this year – you may want to look into that.

Discussion: Media sponsorship policy

John B: It’s been a somewhat cluttered policy – a few years ago we put in a new corollary that required organizations that maintained a box office, that charged admission for their events in order to qualify for a media sponsorship to agree to at least a $500 underwriting contract over the course of a year. But we found ourselves making exceptions with a number of partner organizations in communities that we wanted to get on air. We didn’t have Kokomo, Terre Haute, Bedford well represented on air so we made exceptions for them. Will suggested in June that we scale back and, for the time being, focus our sponsorships on free, open-to-the-public events. This has scaled back our media sponsorships from three dozen partner organizations to about ten. Will has also said that he would like to see more meaningful partnerships that go beyond messaging in exchange for a logo or an ad, but instead involve staff participation and visibility.

Alain B: What is the logic behind intentionality?

John B: We would like to be more active than passive – get out to see the community and have the community see us.

Carolyn C: So you will be able to approach individuals, and individuals will no longer be able to approach you.

John B: That’s not the case. We continue to receive applications from partners, some of whom remain eligible under the new guidelines.

Carolyn C: I’m still not clear on the benefits of this adjustment.

John B: More than likely, organizations will rely more heavily on the other two messaging arms that are available to them, which are free PSA’s, and the opportunity for paid underwriting. A media sponsor does not require anyone to place underwriting in order to get in the gate.

Lewis R: The CAB would like to be a sounding board for similar types of decisions in the future and we’d like to understand more how the group outside the pale is going to be dealt with in order to preserve their community place in the station’s life.

New Business: Terre Haute situation

John B: As of September 15th WFYI has been simulcasting from Terre Haute via a former ISU student station frequency – operations, I believe, are now occurring on the Rose-Hulman campus. We don’t know exactly what their motives are, perhaps some passive membership revenue.

Lewis R: There are hints of other stations/relationships being sought by WFYI and I would suggest that we be more proactive in those cases.

Todd N: What’s the concern?

John B: Risk of dilution.

Lewis R: A majority of our listenership comes from our flagship programs ¬– this will put us head-to-head for listeners, and therefore for fundraising, sponsorships, and underwriting.

Eva Z: Was WFIU not adequately serving Terre Haute?

John B: I think it was an expansion opportunity that WFYI identified and took.

Lewis R: Upon being approached by WFYI, the folks at ISU did not contact WFIU to ask if we were interested – we were not perceived as being in a position of partnership with the community, which is the element that concerns me.

Miah M: It may be time to reach out to key partners to see where we stand.

New Business: Station manager report

John B: There have been numerous conversations among IPBS station managers about collaboration possibilities. We’re leading the discussion about sharing an “All Things Considered” host between multiple stations in the state. The most likely partners are Bloomington, Muncie, and Lafayette. More than likely, the host would originate in our studios so that what our listeners hear would be simulcast in other communities. We would need to be mindful of what we say on air so that these other communities would be served as well. There has also been discussion of sharing traffic duties, such as preparing program logs. We have begun the sharing of classical music.

Clock changes – NPR has pushed the launch date back to November 17th for newly structured clocks, which means breaks will come at different times. “Morning Edition” will change the most with headlines sounding at twenty past and forty past. We need to figure out how we’re going to structure our local news to compliment this new model.

Listener data – We will begin pulling from the National Research Database in order to collect diary data from communities where we’ve never seen listener data.

Fund drive – Cyber days, which has been the pre-drive campaign for online donations, has been transformed to Sustainer days, in order to promote on-going, sustaining gifts in an attempt to reach two-hundred sustaining members in the week before the on-air drive.

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Laura G had an amendment to the minutes to add her name to those present. Lynn S seconds; Lewis R calls for the motion, which receives unanimous agreement.

Lewis Ricci moves to adjourn the meeting.

Adjourned.

Next meeting is January 5th, 2015.