Asian American Journalists Association

Thanks everyone for participating in the Membership Chapter Challenge!
This doesn't end the membership drive for us, but it was a good chance
to build up our numbers again and help National AAJA get back some of its
lost membership dues.

The challenge was for chapters to build up their numbers from the end
of 2009 to March 31, 2010. The winning chapters were the ones that
managed the biggest growth or the smallest decline in the three
categories of small, medium and large. The SF Chapter donated $100 to
each winning chapter and the Asia Chapter donated another $25 to each
chapter.

So without further ado, the winners are:

Small chapter: North Carolina (grew from 15 members to 18 members --
20 percent growth)
Medium chapter: Seattle (grew from 83 members to 87 members -- 5
percent growth)
Large chapter: San Francisco (went from 168 members to 155 members --
8 percent decline)

Also, I want to recognize Arizona growing by 17 percent and Portland
growing by 8 percent, both in the small chapter category.

Ryan Kim
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter president

The Bay Area News Project, a nonprofit news venture launching with $5 million in seed money from financier Willian Hellman and $250,000 from The Knight Foundation, has named an editor to lead its organization. Editor Jonathan Weber intends to hire at least 15 journalists this year as part of his aim for “building a stellar newsroom to cover Bay Area government and politics, the arts, business, entertainment, community news and other topics.”

Here’s your chance to meet Weber, hear about what he envisions and ask questions.

An evening with the editor of the Bay Area News Project
6:30-8 p.m. Wednesday Feb. 24
World Affairs Council
312 Sutter St., Suite 200, San Francisco
Admission is free.

Presented by California Media Workers Guild and sponsored by:
Asian American Journalists Association, SF Bay Area
Bay Area Black Journalists Association
Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism
East Bay Press Club
National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, NorCal
Peninsula Press Club
SF Public Press
Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California

The deadline to apply for the next AAJA Executive Leadership Program
introductory session is Jan. 11.

This year's session is March 10-14 in New York. For the application,
tuition, criteria, speakers and other details, go to the National AAJA
website at www.aaja.org or contact Albert Lee at albertl@aaja.org.

Our SF chapter is offering $500 grants to help offset the cost. We'll
post the grant application to our website soon and will send out
another email blast on the listserv when it's ready. Stay tuned!

ELP is designed to help you better understand the corporate
environment as it applies to newsrooms. Participants can gain valuable
skills in identifying newsroom dynamics and boosting leadership skills
and performance. They also can learn how Asian American and Pacific
Islander values can be assets to excellence, as well as liabilities,
for executive performance.