Minutes of the February 2018 Meeting of the KOPN/New Wave Corporation Board of Directors

The monthly meeting of the KOPN/New Wave Corporation board of directors was held on the 19th of the month in the Cope Ashlock room at the station, 916 E. Broadway. In attendance were Dan Hemmelgarn, Mohammed Sawami, Jackie Casteel, Margot McMillen, Tim Pilcher, Laird Okie, Laura Wacker, John Clark, Allen Vaught, Gordon Rogers, John Lofton, and General Manager/Ex-Officio board member Sean Spence. Also in attendance were station employees Jay Teutenberg and Sarah Catlin. Jeff Stack was visiting. The meeting was called to order at 7:03 p.m. Minutes were taken by secretary Heather O’Connor.

The minutes from January 2018 were reviewed. Laird Okie proposed that they be approved with one minor revision; Allen seconded, and the minutes were accepted by unanimous voice vote.

Financial report:

Allen presented the financial report. He had sent several financial documents to the board via email a few days before this meeting, and provided written answers to all the questions that board members had asked. John Clark moved that the report be accepted, Gordon seconded the motion, and the financial report was accepted via unanimous voice vote.

General Manager’s Report:

Station outage: the station was down for about 13 hours, beginning at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, February 14th. Technical staff and volunteers were quick and effective. The fix was a simple reset, and the cost was nothing. Jay emailed a technical report to the staff and board earlier this week that explained this and several other issues.

The pledge drive raised approximately $23,000. Hand-made thank-you notes crafted by Sarah were mailed to donors.

Engineering: There is a problematic hum in the Comrex, which should be resolved by some minor modifications. It should be usable by the time of the women’s day house concert and the beard contest. It may also be used for a live remote of the school board candidates’ forum.

New grant writing working group: Joy Rushing, Mark Foecking, and Trevor Harris are current members.

Reports from Working Groups:

Financial Working Group: Combined Federal Campaign eligibility is possible.

Programming: The committee is working on developing its rules and processes for getting people trained and slots filled for shows. It doesn’t currently have a chairman.

Membership and Fundraising: Discussed having membership week with various activities including a members’ reception or open house at the station. articipation in percent profit sharing days at Shakespeare’s, Broadway Brewery, Logboat, Lucky’s, or other businesses. The next meeting will be Thursday March 8th at 4 p.m.

Sean has been approached by the owners of local McDonald’s franchises for potential underwriting: the board was not in favor.

New Business:

Messaging/Organizational Image: Dan proposed a new working group to work on messaging and organizational image. This will be addressed in the next meeting, along with a group to consider guidelines/criteria for underwriters. These may be separate or merged. John Clark and Ellen expressed interest in serving on the messaging/image group.

The existing committees are:

Fiscal: Allen Vaught, Dan Hemmelgarn, Gordon Rogers, John Clark, Sean Spence

Programming and Training: Jackie Casteel (liaison), John Lofton (training, specifically for the morning shifts)

Engineering: Jackie Casteel (liaison)

Membership/Development: Margot McMillen, Gordon Rogers, Heather O’Connor (note: It’s possible that the messaging tasks will be given to this group, or that there would be a merger between membership and messaging)

Library: Laird Okie (liaison), Mohammed Sawami, Laura Wacker

Grant Writing: Sean Spence (liaison), Joy Rushing, Trevor Harris, Mark Foecking

The Pod: Tim Pilcher (liaison)

Volunteers: Margot McMillen (liaison)

Tim Pilcher is offering trainings on basic audio production in the Pod. Dates and times are being posted on the Facebook group “KOPN Volunteers.” These introductory mini-classes teach people to use the equipment and software in the Pod. Two training sessions have been held to date and both have been filled.

The beard contest will be March 21st at Cafe Berlin.

The idea of a 45th birthday celebration was raised by Laura; the 3rd of March is our 45th on-air anniversary. Her idea is to have a celebration some time in March, with the theme of “45’s” (records).

Volunteer hours in lieu of paid membership: Margot spoke to this issue as she has been working for the volunteer committee. There should be a proposal from the committee at the next board meeting.

Conflict of interest policy: Joy Rushing drafted something that will be emailed and distributed to board members for perusal.

Changes to the bylaws regarding elections: The new wording discussed at the January board meeting was posted publicly at the station in advance of the meeting, so it was proposed as an official change in the by-laws. Mohammed felt that the wording was not accurate.

Allen moved that Mohammed draft a clarifying portion of a clause about general elections specifying the desired changes in voting procedures in the bylaws and send it to the board within a week. Dan seconded the motion, which passed by unanimous vote.

The meeting went into closed session at 9:16 p.m., and the visitors left the room.

The closed session adjourned at approximately 9:45 p.m.