February 2006 Committee Reports to the BoD

Executive: no report

Finance: no report

Personnel:

We have begun two staff evaluations: Jim Goronson (his delayed 4 month eval); and Nathan Moore's annual evaluation. Volunteer forms will be distributed to volunteer boxes at the station this week and will also go out on volannounce. Staff evaluation forms will go out after the pledge drive. Current committee members anticipate the process will finish up in April.

MCOC:

We welcomed new member Lea Zeldin and returning members, UW student Lynn Pophal and Dan Lerner (temporarily in town from Spain.)

Nathan Moore gave a brief summary and explanation of the most recent Arbitron results. No action was taken by the committee though there was a discussion of the ascertainment project and the general desire to increase listenership. At one point when we were discussing the pros and cons of surveys, Dan Lerner made an insightful comment: If we ask folks for their opinions on programming, they might get ticked off at us if we don't make the changes they suggest. However, we COULD ask them how they think we can get their friends and neighbors to listen.

We discussed the plan for 'Genre Publicity'. The plan is in initial stages and we hope to begin implementation within 1-2 months. The overall idea is to bring programmers of a specific music genre together, with MCOC members, to come up with ways of publicizing their programs.

Sharon and Glenn reported on the community Powerpoint presentation made to the Northside Planning Council in November. Alex will email thoughts on developing a template for followup based on his meeting with Sharon in November following the presentation. The discussion included making more contacts with other groups, and also, most importantly, follow-up after the presentations. Dan Lerner designed a simple thank you note which includes a copy of the presentation and also an encouragement to the different member groups to contact us if they feel any particular cooperation would be useful. We also discussed uploading the power point presentation to the WEB site.

We set the next meeting for Thursday, March 2 at 5:30. At that meeting we will continue discussing projects/goals for the coming year.

On February 1st, Glenn Mitroff attended the Programming Committee meeting to talk about promoting WORT's programming. (MCOC member Alex Gillis was also present as a member of the Programming Committee.) We talked about promoting the various musical genres. Step 1 will be to create a flier for each genre of music in our programming. Step 2 will be a process of working with volunteers, a genre at a time, to design a plan for promotion of the shows within that genre.

On Feb. 9th, Lynn Pophal and Glenn Mitroff attended the Events Committee meeting to check in with them whether they feel that they would like to have a joint meeting. At this point, neither MCOC or Events feel the need for a join meeting. In Raechel's absence, Glenn & Sybil have agreed to alternate in attending Events Committee meetings to provide support to Maggie. Following the meeting, Glenn & Maggie talked with Lynn regarding ideas for promoting WORT to UW students

PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE: Membership approved. See notes

ENGINEERING COMMITTEE:

SAP (Secondary Audio Program)
Laura diagramed the equipment we would receive as part of the PTFP grant and how it would connect with our existing equipment. The grant will only fund 50% of the SAP equipment rather than 70% as previously thought.

TIMELINE FOR BUILDING PROJECTS
As requested by the board, the engineering committee set dates by which it would complete the following building-related projects:

1) Expansion. Norm will bring some numbers and a 2nd story quote to the March board meeting.

2) Appraisal. WORT¹s land and building will be appraised by April 1.

3) Space Utilization. We will be able to report on the evaluation of our current use of space in the building by May 15.

EBAY
We are looking for someone to volunteer to handle the transactions involved with selling old equipment on eBay. Both Ted and Jon will ask some contacts if they would be willing to volunteer that time.

WEBSTREAMING
The webstream has been cutting out sometimes recently. Norm will look into this to see whether the problem is at the station or with Viastreaming.

WIRELESS NETWORKS
WiFi networks will be springing up around Madison in the coming months. WORT may be able to use these networks to do wireless remote broadcasts around town.

CAB:

All members attending (Victoria Straughn, Joel Garb, John Fournelle and Mitch Rosefelt) indicated that they would be willing to renew their CAB membership. continue to serve on the CAB. I will be asking those who did not attend, whether they plan to renew their membership. With Ted Gisske completing his term with the Board, the CAB is presently without a Board Liaison.

The CAB has scheduled their next meeting for Wednesday, March 22nd at 6pm to be their Annual Meeting with election of a Chair and Secretary. A major project for the coming months will be for the CAB to complete recommendations to the Board for updating the CAB Charter and Bylaws.

FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE:

Present: Raechel Pundsack, Maggie Weiser, Jim Goronson, Annie Courtney, Jane Richard

* RP and JG and MW passed out copies of a draft version of the development team’s workplan/2006 calendar.

* Presently on-target to meet fundraising goals.

* Discussed the Below the Radar campaign, and how to evaluate

* Spring 2006 pledge drive: February 19-March 4. Preparations are well in hand. An abundance of posters and t-shirts from pledge drives past; need programmers to become familiar with the size, color, etc., in order to describe on their shows.

* Discussed long-range ideas, including major donors. So far, we know for sure that the meaning of “WORT major donor” and the method of wooing WORT major donors will be non-traditional.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE COMMITTEE: no report

BYLAWS: no report

EVENTS::

I. Plans for next meeting
A. Thursdays are no longer good: Wednesday nights?
B. Will try Wednesday 8 March, 6:00 PM

II. Block Party
A. Have started working on the permits and necessary paperwork
B. Have spoken with Ted from the Homebrewers Association
1. He will come in April to discuss the needs of the Homebrewers
C. Have contacted the president of the Homeowner¹s Association of 4th Ward Lofts

1. Maggie and Glenn will go to their meeting in April

2. We will be offering them beer tickets again but need to find a better way of distributing them

3. Need to touch base with Delta Storage about their parking lot
D. Streets meeting on April 5th

E. Petition drawn up by lawyers

III. Bowl-A-Thon

A. Rachael and Maggie met with Mona
1. Will charge $6 per person this year
2. We should consider a different place next year
3. Will have to raise the price of the tickets to $12 so that we can still split 50/50
4. Have not yet decided pricing for bowlers with sponsors.
5. Volunteers will get two free games and their shoes, with each additional game costing $1.50

B. Bands
1. Have talked to the Buffali and they are playing (need $50)

2. Ralph and Maggie have talked to other bands, have not heard back on any others
C. More particulars
1. Already sent out lane sponsorship forms

2. Will go from 7 PM ­ 1 AM this year

3. Color coding for prizes (must discuss prizes more next meeting)

4. Glenn would like some clear directions for the volunteers to read
D. Food
1. Supreme Pizza: 2 deliveries of pizza at 8:30 PM and 10:30 PM
2. Lasagna?
3. Willy St. Coop
4. Bunky¹s Café (hummus and pita again?)
5. Possibly Pasqual¹s for some chips and dips
6. Two major deliveries with snacks in between, stop serving food after around 11-11:30 PM
E. Artist for Flyers
1. Robin Goode already has deadline for the artwork
2. Will reuse the Max Ink and Rick¹s Café print ad from last year (with this year¹s info)

IV. Outreach for the Events Planning Committee
A. Promo Scripts
B. Handbills to volunteers/at info tables
C. Invite the Rock Latino Folks to a meeting
1. Possible event at the new Palace nightclub?
D. INVITE SOMEONE!
E. Announcement over Volannounce
F. Talk to the WORT dance party event planners and see if they¹re interested in coming
G. Get back in contact with the people who once helped out here
1. Including: Daniel Powers, Ryan Parks, Ralph? Others (I¹ll think about them)

V. Touching base with Marketing/Public Relations Committee

Sister Station Radio Project Ad Hoc Committee
Present: Alex, Bob, Norm, Peter

1..Reason for the project were re-examined and many positives were brought up. These included transfer of skills: technical, interviewing, content choice. Also a general solidarity with other stations in similar positions with an eye towards exciting future projects..

2. A power-point presentation was shown to the committee and was presented by Alex and Jill at the Annual Meeting. This was very well-received.

3. Ways that WORT could directly help Radio Victoria were discussed and include donations of equipment, particularly cassette recorders which Norm indicated he could get together and arrange for transport.
Other possibilities include fund-raising events for equipmen and also to aid in degree-oriented education of Radio Victoria staff. No decisions were reached on these fund-raising issues.
.
4. A major project is to arrange for Radio Victoria members to come to Madison this summer (coincidence with Grassroots radio conference, if it is held here, was looked on positively). This involves getting grants. The Evjue foundation deadline is in March and is a major goal. Other possibilities include Rotary, AJ Muste. A proposal is being worked on, mainly by Jill Hopke who will be devoting significant time to it in the next two weeks.
There is a potential difficulty in getting Visas. Ways to facilitate this were discussed; efforts will be made to communicate with legislators (Baldwin, Kohl).

6. There was some discussion about whether putting efforts into bringing people to Madison was the appropriate place to put a lot of effort (vs direct help to the station). The consensus was that the planned visit was indeed worthwhile as a way to energize (maintain the energy of) the project but that more concrete day-to-day work was also very important.

The Community Advisory Board met on February 8th. Some members had a heck of a time finding parking, due to an event at the Kohl Center. (If you are planning to drive to the station, it might be good to check the Kohl Center schedule.)