Board of Director’s Meeting

New Wave Corporation

915 E. Broadway – Columbia, Mo.

KOPN Studios, Cope Ashlock Room

Meeting of June 23, 2009

In attendance were Thomas Sobieck, Scott Meiner, Randi Bishop, Ryan Kind, Meg Pochė, Tom Verdot, Brigette Early, and Ray Marks. Also in attendance were General Manager, David Owens and Financial Manager, John Clark. Absent: Ann Mehr, Kyle Cook, Sheryl Clapton, John Betz, and James Baker.

Call to Order:

Board President Thomas Sobieck called the meeting to order at 7:05pm and asked for any changes in the agenda. No changes were requested.

Review of Minutes:

The minutes from the May 2009 meeting were reviewed. Scott Meiner motioned to approve the May Minutes. Ryan Kind seconded the motion. All agreed.

*The minutes from the May 2009 Board meeting were approved.Staff Reports:

FY2009 Budget:

John Clark presented the current budget and near term projections, which were also provided to David Owens for his June 10th presentation to the Executive Committee, and emailed to the KOPN Board at the same time. All projections remain the same as of the time of this meeting. A discussion was held regarding moneys owed to the station for underwriting. There are times when underwriting is put on-air before it has been paid for. All attending Board members agreed that a policy should exist whereby underwriting is paid for up front.

*Thomas Sobieck agreed to invite Brian Davis to attend the next Board meeting to help implement a policy for payment up front on underwriting.

GM:
Underwriting – Documentation and Verification: Notification has been given to David Owens and the KOPN Board by Brian Davis, regarding 8 spots on the air room logs during the past week, in which underwriting spots were not read or were read but were not documented. David expressed the need to maintain expedient and consistent review of the air room logs, preferably on a daily basis. In keeping up with this task, individuals who are not following FCC and KOPN guidelines for underwriting could be identified quickly. Once identified, those individuals could be trained in order to fix the problem, or suspended from volunteering if they refuse to cooperate. David expressed frustration that the logs were not consistently being reviewed by staff as expected, and noted the need to reinforce job expectations with some staff members regarding this matter. Tom Verdot suggested that volunteers could also be trained to check logs during the slower times of pledge drives. David has also assigned the task of air-room log review to KOPN’s summer intern for the CARE program. He is placing post-it notes in the logs where problems exist, in order to help appropriate staff expedite their task. A conversation was held regarding the training needs at the station. David admitted that KOPN’s training system is inadequate at this time, and there is also a shortage of responsible people who can trouble shoot problems as they arise.

Programming Changes – David met with Mike McGowan last week. Mike is working on the paths for streams and various download requirements. IE: Satellite downloads, Rich Winkel’s capture by Hulk set-ups, and streams accessed by people in air room.

Officer Reports – Exec. Meeting

The Executive Committee met on June 10 and reviewed the fiscal projections as presented by General Manager, David Owens. Discussions were held about the projections and ways to cut costs. David is in dialogue with Josh at Socket regarding bundled packages that will best serve the needs of KOPN in the months ahead in as fiscally conservative a way as possible, including in kind trades. Discussions along these lines also included setting up account restrictions and password protect on KOPN’s long distance service to prevent people from using the phones for personal business.

Committee Reports

Programming Committee: The Programming Committee met on June 2, 2009 and discussed possible alternatives to the noon broadcast of Democracy Now. The Committee decided that consideration should be given to filling the noon slot with an exciting selection of podcasted programs from the web, or from KOPN’s own archives and podcasts, KOPN’s reel-to-reel project, or KOPN in-house productions as available. These ideas are vague at the moment but will be presented in detail when particulars are worked out.
David Owens pointed out the need for production engineers in order to achieve the proposals by the Programming Committee. David also announced that Melinda and Dan Hemmelgarn are going to be doing a new “Food Sleuth” show. Melinda is a registered nutritionist, KOPN member, and former columnist for the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Unfinished Business

KOPN Auction: The Summer KOPN on-air auction will be held on July 19 from 1:30pm to 7:30pm. Help is needed to procure quality items, prepare the auction packages, and get the word out.

A new fiscal year is approaching. Thomas Sobieck requested a new fiscal plan before the year starts. Ryan Kind reminded David that the General Manager is responsible for producing the new budget, but that the Board stands ready to help if needed. David related Holly Maness’s meeting with a representative from Collette, a company that conducts travel and helps organizations raise funds, similar to Bank Travel. KXCV in Maryville, Mo. uses them.

*David will send the Board the email about “Collette” that Holly sent him.

A discussion was held regarding local businesses donating a percent of their profit to those who buy goods and services from them during a specified time. An example would be a restaurant donating 10% of all profits made during lunchtime on a specific date. There are questions about the FCC legality of KOPN announcing such an event, and more research is needed before we embark upon something like this. The NFCB is a good source of information such as this. Tom Verdot and other interested Board members can dig in to this further and report back to the Board when they have answers.

Meeting adjourned: 9:05pm Next Meeting: July 21, 2009

Respectfully submitted to the Board by Meg Poché on July 2, 2009