19 June Minutes 1
New Voices Planning Meeting
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Agenda: Make plans for contacting and inviting participants:
1. In different departments at GSU
2. In other Universities
3. English Department Faculty
Present: Shane, Deb, Valerie, Anne, and GEA president Matt Sailor. Three new committee
members were in attendance. (Sorry, I should have captured names on an attendance sheet.)
Old Business
1. Funds and budget: GEA funding has been cut to $2,000 this year, so they will not be able
to support with money from their budget. However, Debbie pointed out that this should
not be a problem, since we already have our gift bags and pens in hand. Also,
 Fountainhead press will be covering our keynote speakers’ expenses. Fountainhead
will also be providing Monsters mugs (to include our logotype and date?) and paying
for our fliers, which will include the Frankenstein image from the book cover.
 Also, we do have our mystery $500 to cover additional expenses.
 Then there’s the book and bake sale for fundraising.
2. We have 250 pens for $40! We have 75 bags, and if we need more due to robust
attendance, we can get more in short order Debbie says.
3. Debbie volunteered to organize the creative writing open mike evening at Java Monkey.
4. Valerie reported that the editors of Fountainhead’s Monsters textbook will be our keynote
speakers, and we will not need to pay for their travel to the conference. They’re covered
by the publisher.
New Business: Marketing the conference
Inviting Panels:
1. Valerie invites us to create panels of our own and expressly invite, hand-pick good
candidates to create panels.
5. Valerie reports that there will be pedagogy panels on how to use the Monsters text for
teaching comp.
6. We are inviting undergraduate panels. Sarah Dine wants to put together an undergrad
panel, and Valerie has encouraged her.
7. We want to invite students and faculty. We especially want to invite English Department
faculty to talk about their own projects at the pre-conference kickoff
19 June Minutes 2
Strategies:
 Put flyers in student and faculty boxes.—In August.
 Ask Jody to email the faculty in addition.
 Consider timing: a mid-summer email may not be optimal. August may be better. Or
we could send it twice, the second being a tickler/reminder.
 Debbie suggested stuffing mailboxes in all relevant departments.
 We decided also to each take responsibility for contacting certain GSU departments
and universities
 Broadcast the CFP to GTA’s so that those using Fountainhead’s Monsters text will
participate. Send via Diana, GTA listserve.
NV committee members committed to getting out the CFP in the following GSU departments:
Communication (including film studies)
History (Deb)
Science
Nursing (Deb)
Philosophy
Sociology, Psychology, and Anthropology (Ben)
Art History
Modern Languages (Anne)
Afro. American Studies
Math
Business (Anne)
Political Science (Valerie)
Education (Valerie)
Women’s Studies (Nick)
Religious Studies (Valerie)
NV committee members committed to stirring up interest through their contacts at the following
universities (in addition to anyone we’ve met at conferences):
University of Arizona (Deb)
Louisville (Anne)
U of Kentucky (Anne)
Alabama – whole state (Valerie)
Birmingham (Shane)
Kennesaw
West Georgia
UGA, English and Comm.
Valdosta
19 June Minutes 3
Asheville (Valerie)
Appalachian State
Vanderbilt
Syracuse University
Ol’ Miss. (Anne)
Georgia Southern (Anne)
We also need to talk to our GSU English faculty friends and mentors about the conference to get
them involved.
The conference calendar includes:
The Kickoff—2-2.5 hours.
 English faculty (hand-picked, invited) presenting their related work (just that which is
relevant to the conference theme?? Hmmm. Like this project was a real monster to
tackle! :-))
 Conferring of Awards, like “best-themed presentation.”
 Distribute conference programs (and speaker gifts?)
The Open Mike night at Java Monkey.
The After Party.
A film showing:
 film yet to be determined.
Thank You for Smoking, Monsters, Inc, Dr. Horrible, other.
 Matt Sailor will check with the campus theater about having it there. Would we have
to pay for the space? If so, how much? If we show a film in the theater, would we
have to pay royalties—even if it’s part of a conference?—even if it’s in a campus
theater? Matt will check.
Next meeting:
Friday, July 27, 1:00 p.m., the Commons Room, 9th Floor GCB
Topic: What marketing to implement when fall orientation starts (including GTA
conference).
Minutes prepared by Anne Melfi