Western Expansion

Regional chapters
working together more closely

By Amy Florence Fischbach
Immediate Past President, Kansas City Chapter
Managing Editor, Fitness Business Pro

Chapter presidents from Texas to California joined a conference call in November to swap ideas, discuss how to promote the ASBPE national conference and awards competition, and brainstorm topics for regional or national webinars.

The six chapters in the western region — Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — are planning conference calls every other month as part of the new Western Regional Presidents’ Council, which was formed at the national board meeting in November.

“The phone conferences are a great way to get everyone together throughout the year rather than just at the ASBPE national events, and it’s a wonderful way to assess the climate of the industry across regions,” said Phaedra Friend, president of the Houston chapter.

Ideas for the new year

During the first conference call, the presidents discussed their plans for 2007 and ideas for boosting membership and revenue on a local level.

To help attract California membership, they voted to change the name of the San Francisco chapter to the Northern California chapter and the name of the new Los Angeles chapter to the Southern California chapter.

Southern California chapter

The Southern California chapter, serving members from Ventura County (northwest of L.A.) to San Diego County, is now running after months of planning by Mary Slepicka, associate publisher/editorial director at Advanstar’s Dealernews, Santa Ana.

Slepicka cleaned up the membership and prospect lists for her chapter because many business-to-business (B2B) magazines recently changed ownership, location, or staffing. Slepicka expects to add 30–40 members in 2007, including board members. A planning meeting was set for January in L.A.

By mid-February, a meeting schedule should be set. The chapter’s first event will take place the day before the Los Angeles Book Fair in late April at UCLA. Due to the geographical expanse of the chapter, she also plans on scheduling three virtual meetings before August 2007.

Northern California chapter

The Northern California chapter, led by Meetings Media editorial director Tyler Davidson, plans to initiate a major outreach program to identify new membership prospects and gauge the preferences of its current membership.

This information will be used to develop more-targeted educational programming and networking events at which business publication editors can learn best-practices skills — with an eye on serving their readership and editors’ positioning themselves as strategic assets.

Dallas/Fort Worth chapter

ASBPE is also active in the Lone Star State. The Dallas/Fort Worth chapter celebrated a Gala Relaunch party in late September.

ASBPE past president Paul Heney helped the chapter’s immediate past president Jyme Mariani, managing editor of GMPro, and new president Tonie Auer, president Penguin Media Consultants, relaunch the five-year-old chapter, which is looking for at-large board members and plans to have its first event this spring.

Houston chapter

Further south, the Houston chapter is planning four meetings for 2007. Ned Kulka, marketing director of publication printer Publishers Press, will address the state of the industry and trends in the business-to-business market February 27.

Roy Harris, ASBPE president and senior editor of CFO, will discuss editorial ethics at the chapter’s May 22 meeting. The August 28 meeting will be dedicated to Web optimization. The topic for the October 23 meeting has yet to be decided.

In 2006, the chapter sponsored meetings of interest to writers, editors, freelancers, copy editors, publishers, sales staff and students, Friend said.

David McHam, professor of journalism at the University of Houston and Philip Page, professor at South Texas College of Law, spoke on the pitfalls of plagiarism. Chuck Wilson of Chuck Wilson Photography and Mark Hiebert of Hiebert Photography discussed magazine photography.

Kansas City chapter

One of ASBPE’s strongest chapters the last four years is Kansas City, in part due to several publishing companies located there who have supported chapter events.

The chapter sponsored five events in 2006 including four continuing education luncheon meetings and one half-day workshop, which was co-sponsored by the Missouri Association of Publications (MAP).

The Kansas City chapter will change leadership in 2007 with Bill King moving into the president role, Spring Suptic becoming the new vice president, Danica Tormohlen remaining as the treasurer, Amy Fischbach moving into the immediate past president position, and Jeff Gelski replacing Jody Shee as the new secretary.

The chapter will also add several new at-large board members to help plan the six meetings scheduled for 2007.

The chapter’s first event, set for January 17, will feature a panel discussing the trends in B2B publishing. On March 7, an editor and art director will offer ways to design a great-looking magazine on a tight art budget. On May 15, the chapter will co-sponsor the third annual Magazine Boot Camp with MAP, and on July 18, attendees will learn 10 ideas for the Web that they can implement immediately. The final events of 2007 will be a September 19 meeting on copyright law and plagiarism and a November 7 Web Workshop.

Denver chapter

West of Kansas City, the Denver chapter had two events in 2006 and is looking for ways to revitalize the board, said Frank Slejko, immediate past president.

Two editors from the American Water Works Association’s Opflow magazine discussed the process of relaunching a magazine at the chapter’s September meeting (see article, page 4 of newsletter — members can download a 528K PDFof the issue), and at the December meeting at the Denver Press Club, the speakers shared ideas on successful Web publishing.