Thanks to all of you who could attend today’s SPJ general meeting, the last meeting presided over by the 2008 board. I can say on behalf of the board that it has been a privilege to be in leadership for our young chapter and that we’re proud of all the work we accomplished, most importantly, to build chapter relationships and lay the foundation for our school chapter to do great things and continue to be a leader in the SPJ community.

Present: Alesci, Chin, Cinelli, Datta, Levy, Lempiainen, Macht, Shreffler, Simeone and Winfield. Yahair Castro joined us for a portion of the meeting.

Holiday Party: The school has the event under control and it will remain in their realm of party planning. However, each club is encouraged to contribute to festivities. SPJ plans to compile photos for a slideshow to be played during the party, organize an iPod DJ scheme for the music, and will send a possee two hours before the event to help decorate.

Financial Report: The general meeting recieved a final report from the Treasurer. After a time for questions the report was approved and will enter the record.  Total ending balance: $396.85 (less the pizza expense for the final meeting.)

Talk of a departing gift from the ‘08 chapter members was explored. The board will take up this topic and decide before the end of term.

Reporters’ Initiative Fund: In the spirit of supporting future journalists interested in tackling big topics and working together to report, we are trying to establish a fund and will solicit donations from alumni, faculty and school supporters. Carl to firm up plans with Gerry on the accounting system and pass that on to next board. That appeal to be written by Cinelli. Annie to ask current chapter members for early leadership contributions. (stay tuned)

These people have submitted their names as interested in becoming officers of the 2009 chapter. If anyone’s name has been left off, please let Matt Townsend know asap:

Mirva Lempiainen
Indrani Datta
Heather Chin
Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

New members: Matt and Annie briefed some latecomers on the meeting and answered their questions on the reasons they feel it was worthwhile to build up the SPJ chapter and what they got out of it. Encouraged new members to take the chapter to the next level and focus on a Sunshine project or some serious element of reporting that would continue to lead the school and contribute to student life.

To end, our chapter was contacted just tonight by the Columbia chapter of SPJ. They’d like to invite us up for an event before the holidays. That information TK.

The recently founded CUNY chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has almost completed a semester as a full-functioning student chapter. We’ve held a few events already and above are some pictures. The first few photos are of a movie night in which we watched “All the President’s Men.” The final few pictures are of a mixer we had with Columbia J-school students. We hope to do more in our third, and final, semester.

Stay tuned!

CUNY J-School’s news wire, the NYC News Service, won first place in the SPJ Eastern competition for Best All-Around Independent Online Student Publication. Region 1 held its Mark of Excellence awards during the Spring Conference in Maine in April.

Most SPJ Chapter members have contributed stories to the news service from their assigned New York City neighborhood beats.  Students apply their media track and special studies in Urban Politics, Health, Arts & Culture, International or Business to reporting on local stories and sometimes work together on larger pieces. As a final project for the spring, all students will contribute stories on immigration in Queens. Look for many of those to appear soon.