Nevada City Community Broadcast Group
Board of Directors Meeting
BriarPatch Community Market
Community Room
290 Sierra College Drive
Grass Valley, California
Monday, September 30, 2013 – 6:30 p.m.
Approved Minutes
CALL TO ORDER
The Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Nevada City
Community Broadcast Group (KVMR) was called to order at 6:31 p.m. on
September 30, 2013 in the BriarPatch Community Room, 290 Sierra
College Drive, Grass Valley, Nevada County, California, by President
Michael Young.
ROLL CALL
The President called the roll:
DIRECTORS PRESENT:President Michael Young, Vice President Mary
Ross, Treasurer Barbara Jicha, Jim Bunnell, ,
Larry Hillberg, Barbara Lowell, Tim Ogburn,
Susan Prince
DIRECTORS ABSENT: John Hensley, Larry Ortiz, Sue Lunsford
STAFF PRESENT:
General Manager David Levin
GUESTS PRESENT:
Phil Ritti, Meri St. Mary, Justin Sternberg
REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF AGENDA
The agenda was approved as submitted, with some procedural discussion
about where on the agenda to place the closed session election of new
Board members. It was agreed that the election would be held during the
Board Development Committee agenda item.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Director Ross requested that in the Minutes of August 12, 2013 her remark
about recognizing donors by putting their names on the CD shelves be
clarified. What she was referring to was the design detail in the new
building that involved a wall of CDs. Those CDs could have labels on
them that recognize donors to the building project. Motion by Director
Ross, seconded by Director Hillberg, and carried unanimously, to approve
the Minutes of August 12, 2013 as amended.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
President Young declined to provide a report.
WELCOME GUESTS
The current Board members each introduced themselves to the guests,
and the guests, all of whom are candidates for election to the Board,
introduced themselves. Phil Ritti is the CEO of a new company and has a
background in the recording tape industry. He has recently moved to the
community and wants to contribute through supporting KVMR.
Meri St. Mary has been a broadcaster since 2007. She is a performer,
published author and longtime volunteer.
Justin Sternberg grew up in this area and moved back in 2011. He is
currently working for a company that retrofits street lights. He did some
broadcasting on KVMR as a teenager.
There was a brief discussion about the Celtic Festival. We won't have
financial information for a couple of weeks. Board members said they
thought the festival felt good and folks seemed to have a good time.
GENERAL MANAGER’S REPORT
There is a URL available for the test version of the new website. David will
forward the URL to the Boar tomorrow. The first phase of testing will
involve a small group and will test links to see if they go where intended.
The second phase will probably begin in three to four weeks. Testing will
take a couple of weeks; fixes will take another couple of weeks. David
hopes the site will be up by the October membership drive.
David provided some background, for the benefit of the guests, on the
recent acquisition of the Woodland translator and the Camino transmitter.
BOARD COMMITTEE REPORTS
STATION DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: Director Ross reported that
there was lots of response to staff on the draft strategic plan to staff
Among other items, staff felt they should have been involved earlier in the
process. Mary will attend the next staff meeting to talk with the staff about
the plan and explain how the process worked. There were some areas
where the staff input will lead to fu4ther edits of the plan. The next step is
to make a draft of the plan available to the broadcaster community and the
general public through the website.
FINANCIAL REVIEW COMMITTEE: Director Jicha reported that the
projected 2012-13 budget deficit has risen to $89,000, due primarily to a
shortfall in membership revenue. There was no February membership
drive, and the May drive was rescheduled to July, which did not do well.
Large membership gifts (over $1,000) have dropped by about a third in the
past couple of years. David believes members are creatures of habit,
expecting drives at the traditional times of year. Successful summer drives
at other stations induced KVMR to try one. Still testing signal strength in
the Woodland area.
The next membership drive begins October 28. There was discussion
about what might be done differently in this drive. David felt that
broadcasters did a fine job, but listeners didn't respond. It’s possible that
the capital campaign is cannibalizing member revenue, but the direct mail
piece for the Capital Campaign was timed to minimize this. David said that
many stations, except those in big cities, have been having difficulties in
on-air fundraising. Staff will pick a theme for the upcoming drive. One
concern is that listeners appeared to be bored with membership drives. We
need to find another way to raise funds for the station; this is a problem
throughout public broadcasting.
Barbara Lowell said that she has examined performance over the past few
years and found that it seems like when broadcasters offer something
unique, like Larry's Backroads CDs, the shows do well. David noted that
the station is trying to move from merchandizing efforts during pledge
drives to a different model for member support, focusing on perennial gifts.
Barbara reported that based on overall funds available, unrestricted funds
are down only a small amount from last year.
Meri St. Mary noted that the Broadcaster Advisory Group is trying to figure
out what they can do better / differently during drives. The Group has
drafted a letter to encourage non-member broadcasters to become
members. It was also suggested that we need to look on the expense side
of the budget, not just the revenue side. David did explain he tries to hold
off on big expenses until at least the third quarter. Director Ross suggested
that David hold off on implementing staff raises until after the October
membership drive.
Compliments to Rick Sharkey and Glen Foley, new staff in development &
underwriting. Things are looking much better there and expectations for
the future are hopeful. There is concern that new staff need to act on
opportunities in areas where signal is strong - e.g. Roseville / Rocklin Hwy
65 corridor. Glen is focusing on the Nevada City area right now. There is
some discussion on perhaps hiring yet another contract underwriting
salesperson if it could be shown to be productive.
The Financial Review Committee is looking at how the station pays for
health care and how changes due to the Affordable Care Act will affect the
station. There is not enough data available to make any decisions now.
BOARD DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: The candidates for election to the
Board were asked to leave the room during the election. There are five
open positions on the Board, three of which are Board-elected and two are
volunteer-elected.
Director Ogburn distributed ballots for the three Board-elected seats, with
Justin Sternberg, Phil Ritti, and Barbara Jicha as the named candidates.
Two of the terms are three-year terms and one is a one-year term, as it is
a term that was vacated before it expired. All members present cast their
ballots. Justin was elected for the one-year term and Phil and Barbara
were elected for two-year terms. According to the bylaws, Justin will be
eligible for two additional three-year terms. All terms begin on October 1,
2013.
Director Ogburn will provide introductory and orientation materials for the
new board members.
There will be an election at the October 15 General Meeting for two
volunteer-elected seats. The candidates are Director Sue Lunsford and
Broadcaster Meri St. Mary.
Director Lowell mentioned that Wesley Robertson may be interested in
serving on the board. The Board thanked Director Lowell for inviting Meri
St. Mary to a recent meeting, which prompted Meri’s interest in serving.
FUND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: Director Prince reported that
committee activities have been suspended temporarily due to active work
on Capital Campaign and Grants committees.
CLOSED SESSION
A closed session to discuss the building project and capital campaign
began at 8:13 p.m. and ended at 8:37 p.m. There were no action items to
report.
RECOGNITION OF RETIRING BOARD MEMBERS
The Board presented Barbara Lowell and Michael Young with tokens of
esteem recognizing their contributions to the board
ADJOURNMENT
Motion by Director Jicha, seconded by Director Ogburn, and carried
unanimously, to adjourn the meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 8:39 p.m.
Next Board Meeting:
October 28, 2013
Briar Patch Community Room
6:30 p.m.