November 20, 2008 KSDP Board Meeting Minutes

Sand Point Library Conference Room

Thursday, November 20, 2008

7:00 P.M.

MEETING MINUTES

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7:22 p.m. by Chairman Jim Brown.

Roll Call

Board members present: Chairman, Jim Brown, Vice President, Robbe Gilmour; Secretary, Justin Godbehere and Board member, Marta Varga

Board members not present: Treasurer-Joanna Karlsen

KSDP staff present: General Manager, Kells Hetherington; and DJ, Virgil Porter

Approval of Agenda

Justin Godbehere moved to approve the agenda. Marta Varga seconded the motion.

Approval of Minutes

Report from the General Manager

We had a successful technical engineering visit. Mark Delong of B2 Networks visited the station. He installed NewsRoom4.0 – a production room / on-air studio application, addressed printer issues and started the online stream. Two of these items had been on our to-do list for a longtime so it is particularly good to have them checked-off.

Public Interactive and Mark Delong are still working to get the online stream working. As of this afternoon, following several days of server tweaking, it appears to be working. We will be more certain in a few days. You can now hear KSDP online by visiting the website at www.apradio.org. There you will find the radio play buttons on the right hand side of the page.

As was announced last week, Tony Gorman, our news director, has accepted a position in Wrangell, AK where he will be a news reporter. Tony will be with us until almost the end of the month. We are sorry to see him go, while glad that Tony has been selected for what is a good opportunity.

Going forward, I am proposing Virgil Porter have more hours and be made a full-time employee of the station. As a full time employee Virgil, will participate in the prevailing benefits plan as prescribed by Alaska Public Broadcasting, Inc.

Concerning grant applications – I will be coming to you for guidance in order to best insure that we move forward as united front. As such, prior to filing special grant application, as outlined in a proposal you will see in a moment, I will be asking for your approval.

Continuing to think about grant applications – as you know, we applied to the Alaska Community Foundation for $5,000.00 and to the Alaska Humanities Forum for a twelve thousand dollar grant. Unfortunately, neither application was successful. However, this marks the first time that the station has applied for either.

Again, as you know, the station applied to the Rasmussen Foundation for twenty five thousand dollars. If successful, the grant will allow the station to renovate the offices and add a satellite dish outside the station’s studios. This afternoon, I spoke with the Foundation and our application will be considered at the Rasmussen Board Meeting in January. This means, we will have an answer to our request early in 2009.

The station’s alternative energy project is currently the subject of two grant applications. One is requesting a hundred thousand dollars from the Alaska Public Broadcasting Capital Grants Program. The committee funded the wind study that we did, but did not link the funding to a decision on the grant request. The study now complete, interpreted the wind data gathered by TDX at a cost of roughly fifteen hundred dollars. The station paid the invoice and will be reimbursed. The station has also filed a grant application in Round II of the Alaska Renewable Energy Grant Program, which the Alaska Energy Authority is administering in conjunction with a State Legislative Committee. The grant application went in earlier this month. The grant is a request to the state for one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars for a 20kw turbine.

At the last Board meeting, we discussed the station’s using an accountant to help with some of the bookkeeping. Following that meeting with your consent, I spoke with Joanna Ludvick and Karen Foster and have selected Foster & Co. to work with the station on an ongoing basis. The reason for the decision is Foster & Co. can provide us with an online solution.

Programming wise, we have made substantial gains. Literally – thousands of new songs have been loaded into the computer – thanks to Virgil; and we are continuing to get top quality guests for Meet the People.

This brings me to my final item tonight, the budget report.

Report from News Director

Old Business

New Business

Public Comments & Discussion

Next Meeting

The next meeting is Thursday, Thursday, January 15 at 7:00 p.m.

Adjournment

These minutes were typed by Shannon Sommer, Administrative Assistant.