Senior Staff Meeting
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Attendees: Jack Gibson, Cheech Calenti, Michael Chihak, Ann-Eve Cunningham, Frank Fregoso, Kimberly Heath, Dana Horner, John Kelley, Ed Kesterson, Peter Michaels, Fran Sherlock, Wendy Erica Werden, Laura McKee
Absent: Pat Callahan, Susie Hernandez
Jack Gibson
· Jack will be issuing a memo about the purpose and rules of the senior staff meetings. We would like to keep it to about three minutes per person and just reporting on information that the group should have to operate effectively.
Susie Hernandez (submitted in advance)
· Mike is out this week.
· Ali is leaving AZPM for school and a new job at UMC. We wish her well. Her last day is Friday.
· Lili will be getting training from Ali and Ed on Radio Underwriting. Starting Monday, Lili will be doing traffic work for Radio Underwriting. Ed will supervise.
· The Hiring Committee for the Traffic Specialist is meeting with select candidates this week.
· Kudos to the On-Air Promotions team and big thanks to Robert Jaime! I’ve been receiving calls and emails from viewers about Robin Hood (weekdays at 2 PM), Hollywood @ Home (Saturdays at 9 PM)and Ready TV (replacing Create in November with hard launch in January 2012). Thank you to Kevin Raubenolt for creating long lead fillers for Robin Hood and to Robert Jaime and Tom Casey for the H@H and Ready TV long lead promos. Kevin created some long lead fillers for Ready TV using Julia Childs that Rose B. will be scheduling soon.
Fran Sherlock
· The Panasonic rep is in the house now; we will have 3 levels of cameras to try out for the week.
· School starts next week; The Production Team will be working with students and their schedules; it will be a week or two to get the schedules set.
· Fran is working out the issues with AR and past bills and trades.
Cheech Calenti
· AP sent an email that they will discontinue their satellite newswire feeds as of end of 2011. All those using AP need to have AP Exchange accounts. If you know of anyone who does not have one, let Cheech know and he will set them up.
· Cheech has a new student employee, Brad Rickle, who will start work tomorrow (8/17)
· Razz is no longer with AZPM.
Ed Kesterson
· The lineup for KUAZ 9/11 programming is set.
· Weekend Edition will run until 11:00 a.m.
· Neil Conan will host a call-in from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
· Sonic Memorial Project will run at 2:00 p.m.
· We Remember Story Corps to follow at 3:00 p.m.
· All Things Considered will run in its normal slot.
Michael Chihak
· Two weeks from today we hope to show the first of azpmnews.org. Michael will send an email with details.
· Political Buzz has gone public and is being promoted.
· We are putting up a 9/11 page driven by an idea from Gisela where we will ask people in the community how 9/11 affected them. We will use the responses that we get on other platforms as well.
· Michael will institute training sessions for journalists that will touch on fundamental mistakes on grammar, punctuation, word usage, etc. Anyone is welcome to attend. Information will be coming soon.
Wendy Erica Werden
· We have selected a UA approved vendor/printer for our letterhead, business cards, etc. We will be placing an order for business cards by the end of this week. The back of the card has a QR code – if you scan with a smart phone it will take to the people page of the AZPM website.
· If you have anyone in needs of cards, let Laura know.
· We hope to have our promotions budget next week.
· Wendy Erica is creating an Infographic for AZPM, and will work with Robert to have it tin time for the CAB meeting and other events.
Kimberly Heath
· The business office is still entering information into accounting software.
· The auditors will be here in the next month
· There is a new University policy that came up which will effect new hires: there is a 90 day wait period for benefits (medical, dental, etc). There are elections employees can make, but all senior staff should be familiar with the policy, especially if you are on a hiring committee.
Frank Fregoso
· Frank spoke with Dielectric regarding our antenna; they are still not sure what is going on with it. They had a 52 person layoff a week or so ago. That has set them back on their workload.
· Channel 13 is doing tower work the week of the 23rd – 27th between the hours of midnight to 5 a.m. They asked us to reduce power on both KUAT CH 30 and Classical KUAT, to 50% during this period
Dana Horner
· Kelly Puchowicz is on vacation this week
· The AdFed has new membership; as a corporate member, we can have as many members as we wish now. If you have people in your area interested in joining, let Dana know.
· We had a meeting with Angel charity this past week.
Peter Michaels
· Peter has submitted the paperwork on behalf of Andrea Kelly to NPR for the healthcare project.
· Peter is working with the Susan B. Koman Foundation to do Teachers’ Voices segments for breast cancer awareness month.
· Next week we are doing an education forum that Children’s Action Alliance is hosting.
· There will be two lobbyists here tomorrow for interviews.
John Kelley
· John will be out of the office from tomorrow, Wednesday, August 17th, through Monday, August 22nd.
· John is still pursuing relationships with outside groups to allow us to meet the FCC’s “substantial educational use” requirements for our EBS (educational broadband service) channels in Casa Grande and Sierra Vista.
Ann-Eve Cunningham
· CPB has declined the sustainability plan for the Fronteras project and decided to not yet release the funds for the second year until it is revised. Each market is expected to boost their participation in designating prospective funders. We will be reviewing our own list for further consideration.
· We have submitted a proposal to a local funder for our online news position and we have identified several donor candidates who may be interested in mental health or medical reporting as well. We will work on proposals for them.
· Ann-Eve has a new intern that will start next week
Jack Gibson
· Jaime Gutierrez has been appointed the new Vice President of External Affairs.
· The next CAB meeting is set for September 15th. The CAB will begin meeting every other month as opposed to every 6 weeks which will lighten the calendar a bit.
· Steve MacCarthy’s luncheon is on Monday. It is a very casual, open buffet per his request. We have a video that Tom Casey has been working on.
· Capital budget priorities are to be set out this week. We will identify the top items on list.
· Thanks to the senior managers for the strategic updates. We may wait until the November CAB meeting to present the updates. Our September Agenda is very full.