When the Columbia Journalism School’s SPJ chapter records its meeting minutes, it really records its meeting minutes.

Members meet every Sunday from 8 p.m. till damn near midnight so they can do this…

It’s been going on for three months now, and no one outside their SPJ chapter ever knew about it. I stumbled across their Vimeo channel by accident, and I was so impressed and jealous that I emailed the chapter with some questions. Went like this…

Where the hell did you get this crazy idea?

Our chapter president Jake Heller took a look at last year’s Columbia SPJ website and thought that it was fantastic that they were posting all of their minutes online. But the minutes were super boring. And he was sure that nobody read them. So to try to get students interested in what SPJ was doing – and to continue the transparency of past SPJs – he thought it would be fun to make video minutes.

How long does it take to do each one?

We meet every Sunday at 8 p.m. and are usually done somewhere between 11 and 12. The editing can take a few hours as well, but we generally have the videos up by Monday.

What’s the reaction?

It’s fun! People like it. We get great feedback. And it’s a great way to keep people informed about what we’re doing. It didn’t make sense to merely post our written minutes to the site when our generation is used to receiving information across multiple mediums.

We also feel like the entertainment value encourages students to pay attention to the minutes – if the videos weren’t fun, nobody would watch them. Plus, we think that the videos help to set a tone for our class. Columbia is a well-known institution, and it can be quite intimidating for many students. We wanted to make the marble walls a bit more welcoming and let students know that we have fun here!

Would you be willing to judge a video minutes contest if I could convince SPJ to add it to the Mark of Excellence? (Fat chance, but the question stands.)

For sure! But we doubt that other schools’ minutes could top ours…

In all seriousness, though, we would love to, but we would want Nathan Vickers and Andrew Parsons, the two guys in the first video who aren’t Jake, to help us judge. Hopefully this can get off the ground!

Since the purpose of the Blue Sky Committee is to find more creative ways of doing things, I believe we need to first recognize and reward the creativity we’ve already got.

If Columbia doesn’t win Student Chapter of the Year – they also told me, “We’ve been working with underprivileged local high schools, teaching their students journalism; we just sent off some care packages to troops fighting in Iraq” – then they should at least win one of those Circle of Excellence Awards for “chapter communications.”

But more importantly, SPJ needs to communicate this crazy crap to other chapters. Challenge them to be just as fun. Because while I love SPJ – and I know you do, too – we can probably agree that SPJ isn’t known as fun-loving.

In closing, here are the minutes to the chapter’s most recent meeting…
  

“A decision is what a man makes when he can’t find anyone to serve on a committee.”

– Fletcher Knebel, newspaper reporter and author (1911-1993)

Welcome to my new committee.

Anyone who knows me – or just hates me by osmosis – knows I can’t stand committees.

As president of SPJ’s South Florida chapter this year, I’ve spit on Robert’s Rules of Order and replaced them with Koretzky’s Canons of Chaos.

(First entry: “Journalists who cover long, boring government meetings for their jobs probably don’t want to sit through long, boring SPJ meetings for free pizza.”)

But at the SPJ national convention in New Orleans a few weeks ago, newly elected president John Ensslin sidled up to me…

John: Michael, I’d like to create a new ‘Blue Sky” committee and have you chair it.

Me: Uh…what?

John: Imagine you have $10,000. What would you do with that money to improve SPJ? What if you had $50,000? What if that was $100,000?

Me: What’s your definition of “improve”?

John: More members.

Me: And given the title of the committee, I don’t really have any money, right?

John: Right.

Usually, I’m a whore when it comes to committees: Give me cash for my twisted programs, and I’ll entertain your every whim. But what a tease this Blue Sky Committee is – there’s no money, but let’s pretend there is.

Still, I like John Ensslin. I haven’t always been able to say that about SPJ presidents. (Nor them about me.)

So like I said, welcome to my committee.

Apparently, this is quite an honor. SPJ simply adores its committees. No cow that wanders around India is more sacred. I’ve witnessed yelling and tears over committee appointments and dismissals. Yet I doubt SPJ’s rank and file could name more than one committee besides, maybe, the Ethics Committee.

There were 20 committees before Ensslin endowed me with the Blue Sky Committee. (Oddly, Blue Sky isn’t listed on SPJ’s committees page. I feel so slighted.)

There’s one for Digital Media but not for print media. There’s one for Freelance but not for full-timers. Then there are committees for Programming and Professional Development, which I thought were just SPJ’s missions in general, whether you’re a digital media freelancer or a full-time print reporter.

Interestingly, SPJ’s president has total dictatorial control over the committees. Ensslin has the absolute power to dismiss and appoint whoever he wants. Hell, in a moment of streamlined clarity, he could gut all of them.

So I’m only chairman of the Blue Sky Committee while Ensslin is in office. Or until I piss him off. (Maybe this blog post will do it.)

Thus, here’s my first Blue Sky idea for ensnaring more SPJ members…

1. Purge the committees. Then bankroll ’em.

Right now, six SPJ committees are chaired by current national board members. While committees don’t often accomplish much – both in and out of SPJ – they’re great ways to suck newbies into your cult. But when SPJ’s are led by its own board members, that gets incestuous.

There oughta be a rule: No current board members can preside over a committee.

Then there oughta be another rule: Each committee gets some cash.

With newbies leading committees that have, say, $1,000 to spend, shit will get done. At the very least, SPJ’s fair-weather fans might become hardcore fanatics. And we’ll train the next generation of board members. (I’ve served twice on the national board, but only because I ran unopposed both times. Good for me, bad for SPJ.)

2. Trust but verify.

If there are checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution, that should be good enough for SPJ’s bylaws. The national board should confirm the president’s appointments. Even better, the president should submit at least two nominees for the board to vote on.

Hell, the board should be able to submit names of up-and-coming SPJers from back home. Let’s get some genetic diversity into this process.

3. Send SPJers on flights of fancy.

At the end of this post is a photo from Monday’s First Amendment Free Food Festival at the University of Tampa. That’s Gideon Grudo, one of two students on the national board.

The FAFFF is a fun but complicated event, and Gideon drove four hours with SPJ South Florida VP Michele Boyet to help organize the lunch that attracted 360 students on a campus of 6,500 – or more than 5 percent of the student body.

If I had thousands to spend, I’d let SPJers who have designed proven programs fly to other chapters to host them. It’s one thing to offer Programs in a Box. It’s quite another to be on the scene, assisting with the logistics.
 

Those are just three Blue Sky ideas off the top of my skull. If you have some of your own, post them below or email me. Since I can apparently appoint whoever I want to my committee, I hereby nominate you and all the other 8,000 SPJers out there. Let’s see what happens next…