British Parachute Association
5 Wharf Way Tel: 0116 278 5271
Glen Parva Fax: 0116 247 7662
Leicester e-mail:
LE2 9TF www.bpa.org.uk
Communications Committee
Minutes of the meeting held on
Tuesday 3 December 2013 at 1305
at the BPA Office, 5 Wharf Way, Glen Parva, Leicester LE2 9TF
Present: Adrian Bond - Chair
Paul Applegate
Pete McLaughlin
John Page
Craig Poxon
In attendance: Tony Butler - Chief Operating Officer
Zoë Francis-Cox - Publishing Director / BPA Account
Manager, Archant Dialogue
Jeff Montgomery - Safety & Technical Officer
Martin Shuttleworth - Secretary-General
James Swallow - from item 65
Mike Waters - Assistant Editor, Archant Dialogue
Observers: Jack Bradford - Council 2014 candidate
Jason Kelleher - Council 2014 candidate
Ian Rosenvinge - Council 2014 candidate
Apology for Liz Ashley - Editor, Skydive the Mag
absence:
Item Minute
58/13 Welcome
The Chair welcomed the three observers and Zoë Francis-Cox, Publishing Director of Archant Dialogue, who had returned from maternity leave.
59/13 Declarations of interest
The Chair invited declarations of interest relating to items on the agenda for this meeting. There were none.
60/13 Minutes
Paul Applegate proposed, and Pete McLaughlin seconded, a motion that the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 8 October 2013 (circulated) be approved as a correct record. This carried unanimously.
Approved
61/13 Matters arising from the minutes
61.1 Online reader survey (minute 49.3)
Mike Waters (Archant Dialogue) reported that the online reader survey had been completed. A summary of the responses had been published in the current issue of the Mag. The feedback that the survey had elicited had been positive, and the response rate had been far above the publishing industry average.
61.2 Advertising in the BPA e-Newsletter (minute 49.4)
A disclaimer about advertising, worded similarly to that in the Mag, had been added to the foot of the BPA e-Newsletter.
Action: Archant Dialogue
British Parachute Association Ltd. A company limited by guarantee. Registered in London no 875429.
Registered office: 5 Wharf Way, Glen Parva, Leicester LE2 9TF. VAT registration number 239 4696 20
61.3 50th Anniversary of the BPA Mag, 1964-2014 (minute 49.5)
Mike Waters (Archant Dialogue) said that a decision on whether or not to use gold foil or gold ink on the cover of this issue would be made nearer the time.
61.4 Online renewals project (minute 49.6)
Craig Poxon said he planned to e-mail those who had not yet renewed their membership for the current year to let them know about the new BPA online renewal facility. We had only recently reached a position where we had been confident to do this. There were probably a few hundred who had not yet renewed.
Action: Criag Poxon
61.5 Non-Mag communications work (minute 49.7)
This would include preparing the first draft of sections of the Chair’s Annual Report for the AGM.
Noted
61.6 BASE article (minute 51.2)
Tony Butler, Chief Operating Officer, said he had not yet seen the updated version of Simon Brentford’s article for the Mag on BASE jumping, having taken into account the earlier feedback he had given to the Editor.
Action: Editor
61.7 Username and password for Mag digital media (minute 55)
The Secretary reported that colleagues in BPA Membership Services had advised that they were unfortunately unable to add this information to the letter to new members, as they could not themselves alter the letter. John Page kindly offered to look into this.
Action: John Page
62/13 Editorial Report & Report from Archant Dialogue
The Editorial Report and Report from Archant Dialogue had been circulated in advance.
62.1 Subscriptions, etc
Mike Waters (Archant Dialogue) highlighted the main points of the report. He said there had been 5 new subscriptions taken out through Archant’s website subscriptionsave.co.uk. The Chair asked him to include, from the next report, a breakdown of where these had been from by country.
Action: Mike Waters, Archant Dialogue
There had been 3,358 app downloads and 197 sales to date in 24 countries across six continents, although downloads as a whole had been across 87 countries and six continents. In response to a question from Craig Poxon, Zoë Francis-Cox (Archant Dialogue) said she would find out whether it was possible to obtain more data on these subscribers.
Action: Zoë Francis-Cox, Archant Dialogue
62.2 February 2014 issue
The report also included a list from the Editor of planned features for the February 2014 issue which would, as always, depend on receipt of appropriate content in time and the availability of space. The Committee was happy with the plan.
Noted
62.3 Starter Mag
Current stock was 9,500 copies. This suggested a reprint around February 2014. Zoë Francis-Cox (Archant Dialogue) would liaise with the Editor.
Action: Zoë Francis-Cox, Archant Dialogue / Editor
63/13 Feedback from DZOs meeting held on Tuesday 5 November 2013
At the above meeting, Stuart Morris (NWPC) had raised concerns about editing of material submitted by his Centre for ‘Club Zone’ in the Mag. The Editor, who had not herself been able to be present at the DZOs meeting, had responded through the Chair, who had been present, that material had to be edited to ensure a consistent format for publication, and that unfortunately there was not always sufficient space to include everything. Stuart Morris had also suggested that more prominence be given to Club Zone within the Mag. The Editor had said that space allocation for Club News had increased from an average of 8 or 9 pages in the past to 11 pages now. John Page said he believed that the Editor was managing the allocation of space within the Mag very well, and that she was aware of Stuart Morris’s views and doing all that she reasonably could to accommodate them whilst maintaining a fair balance of the overall content of the Mag.
Noted
64/13 Image for the BPA membership card 2014-5
The Committee considered a shortlist of seven images (which had been circulated in advance) kindly supplied by the Editor to select one for use on the BPA membership card for 2014-5. The
choice was made subject to how the image would appear with the necessary membership information overprinted: 1st choice - sunset; 2nd choice - green shadow. The images were to be mocked up by Archant Dialogue to ensure that the wording could be placed appropriately and enhancement to the 2 images for review by the Committee who would then vote on the best image overall.
Tbc ASAP
65/13 Election postings on the BPA Facebook page
At the request of the Chair of Council, the Committee discussed policy relating to use of the BPA Facebook page in relation to the election of Council 2014. It was planned again at this election to upload each of the candidate statements, at the rate of one a day. Any guidance about election posts by candidates themselves would have needed to be included on the nomination form, but none had been. The Committee trusted that all candidates and other members posting on Facebook would maintain a positive and friendly tenor. Should any potentially defamatory statements be posted, these would have to be taken down.
66/13 Communications Action Plan: 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014
66.1 Publish digital copies for tablets through Apple Newsstand and Google Play
Achieved
66.2 Develop a professionally-designed html template for the BPA e-Newsletter to include appropriate advertising and/or sponsorship; and continue to explore sending BPA company documents to members by e-mail
Achieved
66.3 Enhance PR through articles on skydivers and skydiving-related themes aimed at a general readership in Archant Life titles
Mike Waters (Archant Dialogue) tabled an issue of the Eastern daily press which contained an article about the Bishop of Norwich planning to make a tandem skydive for charity next year.
Ongoing
66.4 Introduce reader competitions in the Mag with prize incentives
Achieved
67/13 Future of Mag website
The Chair reported that the Archivists had now established their own website bpa-archive.org.uk The results of the online mag reader survey had been posted on the BPA website.
The Mag website skydivethemag.com was now not much used. Its future would be a matter for next year’s Communications Committee to consider.
Defer to February 2014 meeting
See also minute 69.
68/13 BPA AGM Day: EMCC Nottingham, Saturday 25 January 2014
The Chair reported that planning was progressing well. A meeting had been held this morning with the company that was managing the arrangements for the exhibition. The afternoon seminar programme was being developed. The BPA Annual Dinner would take place at 20:00 and tickets were available from the BPA Office price £25 each.
For entertainment later in the evening, the Queen tribute band ‘Rhapsody’ had been booked, and there would be a DJ until 0200. Between band sets, a prize or prizes would be awarded for the best-dressed individual on the theme of ‘Robin Hood & his Merry Band’. The Chair suggested that the top prize in the fancy dress competition should be a year’s BPA membership free-of-charge. The Committee agreed to this.
Agreed
Any second or third prize would be gifts from sponsors, but these could not yet be confirmed.
The entertainment and disco would be open to all members and their guests, whether they had attended the dinner or not.
The Chair reported that drinks prices at the AGM (from noon on Friday through to noon on Sunday) would be only £1.75 per pint of selected beer or lager, and £1.75 per glass of house red/white/rosé, with 20% off the normal price of all other drinks.
The Chair was pleased to report that the cost to the BPA of the AGM had decreased each year since the Blackpool AGM in 2010 which had cost £9.2K. This was even though the event had got bigger. The 2014 budget was £6.5K but the forecast spend was only £4.25K. Exhibition income and sponsorship had helped to offset tightly-negotiated costs.
The Committee discussed how to make AGM Day appeal to students. Jack Bradford (BCPA Chair) said BCPA would put out a communication about it.
In response to a question from Craig Poxon about streaming, the Chair said that the same arrangements as last year would apply: Blaby Audio Visual would again be the audio visual contractors. All presentations in the main theatre would be streamed live and recorded.
69/13 BPA Archive Project
Craig Poxon reported that the BPA Archivists, Andrew Hilton and Graham Spicer, had released the online archive of the complete back catalogue of BPA magazines from 1964 to 2010 on the new BPA Archive website bpa-archive.org.uk The BPA had the back catalogue to 2005 on the Mag website skydivethemag.com and this was password protected for members only. The Archivists had asked where the cut-off point should be between open access to back Mags on the BPA Archive Project site, and controlled access through the Mag website.
After discussion, the Committee decided to leave the decision for a couple of months pending consideration of a report on the number of Mag downloads per month from the Mag website. Archant Dialogue was asked kindly to include this data in their report to the February meeting.
Action: Archant Dialogue
The Archivists’ question would therefore be further considered at the February 2014 meeting.
Defer to February 2014 meeting
70/13 Communications Committee 2013
The Chair thanked members of the Communications Committee 2013 for their support and hard work during the year.
71/13 Date of meetings in 2014
Meetings in 2014 would be held at 1300 on the same day as Council meetings. Council meeting dates for 2014 would be confirmed at the inaugural Council meeting on AGM Day.
The meeting closed at 1420.
Ratified by the Council and published on 9 January 2014
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