Board Meeting Notes — 2/21/17

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WESU Board Meeting — 2/21/17
Production:

  • Lara is telling everyone to make a promo! We need one now.
  • At the next staff meeting, Lara will point at everyone who doesn’t have a promo and it will be embarrassing so do it before then.

Quick Sexual Harassment Training Update:

  • DC replied to Zazie and will work on a schedule that she will send over sometime later this week. If we don’t hear from her by the end of the week, we will email again, but she said she can come on March 5th and do a 15-20 minute session.
  • Will finalize sexual harassment policy next week.

Public Affairs Standards:

  • Bryan drafted a public affairs code and we will discuss it next week. Will check with Bryan to see if we can share it with everyone, to get rest of the board’s thoughts in.
  • At the meeting, we want to be able to talk about it and say that we are working on it, but not to rush it and have anything finalized. We should maybe present the document as something working and so that we can get their input. Emphasize that it’s not new rules to follow just a clarification of community standards.
  • We could present it as a working draft and invite whoever wants to from a community standards meeting.

Press Release:

  • Spring press release is sent out! Thanks, Beth.

Stranger Danger:

  • Talking about an uncomfortable encounter at the station last week, and we should send an email out to the staff reminding people about being careful during late-night shows.
  • Make sure you walk with a buddy, get a ride if you can, be attentive of the DJs before and after you, never let anyone in the station who shouldn’t be there. We should also have a sign on the door saying “stranger danger” so that people know that people not associated with the station should not come bother late-night DJs.
  • Abby will write the email and send that out.
  • Ben G will put a sign up Thursday.

Training Updates:

  • Training is starting very soon. Interest meeting happened on Sunday and we currently have 38 names on the list. Training will be Sunday at 2pm and Monday at 7pm. If anyone else is interested, please email personnel@wesufm.org.
  • Julia went to the Student Activities Fair but no one was there.
  • Training is starting this Sunday, 2/26.

Program:

  • We have a program guide printed and it’s out so early. This is great. Hadley’s a star.

Designs:

  • We have a ouija board design to start with by EA for T-Shirt. We don’t want to write ouija right on it for copyright purposes. Need to still draw the rest of the border of the ouija board. Could include Connecticut at the bottom of the board.
  • Wyatt designed a bumper sticker and it could be black/white, but we could do two-color designs. Still needs some work. For the first one, we need to make WESU text bigger. We could print one or both, depending on pricing.
  • Are there deadlines for printing these? No hard deadline (other than the pledge drive) but usually we can get T-Shirts within a week and bumper stickers within two weeks. We should aim to get those things done in the next two weeks before spring break starts.
  • Kids from MYRP are going to come and do drawings to main a T-shirt. MYRP is also thinking of doing a bring your parents to the radio event (and could get funding from us, or a donation, or SALD).

Programming Discussion:

  • Thank you to everyone for collecting things on the Google Doc–a few people still need to add a few things.
  • Ben M expressing that it’s unfortunate that there has been a disconnect. We all want to be on the same page with this, and he is excited to see the document/evidence we’ve provided. Just trying to make sure that everyone is being treated fairly, seeing from multiple different perspectives. Striving for better communication, and everyone’s concerns are out of concerns for the station and the communities we serve.
  • Very difficult situation. A goal is to aim to be aspirational and productive rather than closing the doors. Hoping that problems with shows are focused on content not subject-matter.
  • Adam saying we want to always be on the same page with the entire board moving forward.
  • Beth also brings up that we want to focus on transparency with the board and how we are demonstrating to staff and listeners that we are making informed decisions. Making the board accessible to people on various issues that we are making decisions about.
  • WESU is and has always been about transparency.
  • Important to always be able to justify decisions made by the board. Lack of transparency, though, was unintentional and that is important to note.
  • This will come up at the next staff meeting and we should discuss how to organize those conversations. Frame the conversation around public affairs guidelines.
  • Email follow-up to C, draft by Zazie.

Events Update:

  • Wyatt emailed LW as a speaker and waiting to hear back from her. Will then follow-up with the Career Center.
  • Let’s come up with a date for the block party BBQ. April 23rd is the date we’ve chosen.
    • Dunk a board member!
    • Beth is interested in collaborating.
    • Ben M will look into the grilling.
    • The city of Middletown has the ShowMobile. We could ask them about that.
    • The idea is that this will be open to the public.
    • We should get music. Could Bossy play?
    • How could we do this to capitalize with the pledge drive? Food vendors!
    • Wyatt will ask Wesleyan Events about the parking lot.
  • Record Fair date has been set for April 9th.

Staff List:

  • Accidental promotion of shows through staff list. Will mention it at the staff meeting just as a small reminder.

Studio Reservation Limits:

  • The limit for studio reservation is 3 hours so remind people to not book it for any longer. You are feel free to stick around for longer if no one is there but do not book it for longer.

Pledge Drive:

  • Do we need to make a starting time for pledge drive? Maybe think about starting around when we get back from spring break in April.

PSA Project:

  • Ben G met with CPE and they are very excited about making PSAs. They will write a script, as with Ben G, and they want to come down and record those.
  • Most PSAs should end with “This message is brought to you by…” with mentions of WESU and the name of the organization.
  • Abby is talking to Active Minds, they are very excited, and are meeting on Sunday.
  • Beth wants to do something with the phone bank that includes senator’s numbers.
  • Adam wants to come down and record PSAs about town hall locations.
  • New PSA about climate change.

Published by Benjamin Goldberg