Terry Douds, Keith Hanlon, Ryan Van Bibber AES Columbus May 16, 2021
Welcome and Recap
Elections
The group reviewed the elections process outlines in the section guidelines. Tom Boyer and Ryan Van Bibber will be on the Nomination Committee. An Annual Meeting where elections will take place is tentatively scheduled for July 18th to allow the required 60-90 day period for nominees to be determined and their information to be distributed to other members. Tom and Ryan will assemble the nominee information so it is ready to be distributed mid-June.
Nomination Committee will reach out to other full members to gauge interest.
Committees
We went over the list of areas we'd identified where our industry has need.
Diversity & Inclusion
Lesley would like to be one of the leads on developing this subcommittee, and asked for agreement from other members to move forward. Some communication has already happened regarding members of the audio community. Members in attendance were agreed that we should continue working to move that committee forward.
Education
Neal, Ryan, and Josh Antonuccio (not present) were mentioned as possible leaders of this committee. The group revisited the goals of the committee, with a guiding question of "what would we like to see in the community?", and discussed partnerships with institutions and schools. Examples can be taken from the Agenda recently sent to members.
A few institutions were mentioned:
• Capital University
• Fort Hayes
• Ohio University
• Hocking College
• Otterbein University (identify what programs currently exist there.)
The group also discussed the differences in focus of programs such as those focused on music technology or production vs. audio engineering, and mentioned other examples of programs such as those at the Cleveland Career Center.
Section Committee
Membership of the section committee will be explored further as we proceed with elections and other committee work. Rob and Lesley will continue with organizing meetings while elected officers and other committee members are getting established.
News and Other Topics
• Our host location, Secret Studio, is working on an outdoor stage, which with accompanying green space will provide a venue for outdoor shows and a community space. Columbus Pride will be in Franklinton this year and this venue will participate. Stay tuned.
• Discussed MusicMax. Chad Loughrige of Capital University is a freelance product specialist there. MusicMax is US distributors of Elysia, WesAudio, Fredenstein, Audinate, and Que Audio.
• Discussed the current state of audio conferences in comparison to the past. Terry discussed broadcasting association conferences and how the landscape for those has changed because of the pandemic (staffing and funding challenges, physical vs. remote, US vs. European organizations). Lesley talk of ways to help fund a chapter visit to the main AES conference in New York City, once the in-person conference becomes a realistic possibility once more.
• Tom, Lesley, and Ryan will lead the creation of an Industry / Resource Directory. This directory might include:
• Audio Engineers
• Institutions and organizations
• Sources of audio materials and supplies
• Studios and production houses
And could expand to include
• Educational institutions
• Venues for FOH
• Discussed that Cincinnati is working on rebooting their chapter.
• Discussed member benefits
• Neal, Keith, and Rob will work on getting an AES Columbus website operational. Keith will host the site on his server. Neal will work on initial content. Rob and Keith will work together to get the domain name pointed at Keith's hosting, and Neil and Keith will work together to get Wordpress setup and accessible.
• Discussed the need to get more organized as a community in order to raise the profile of the region and attract more significant opportunities for audio (film production, for example).
• Social networking strategy and management for the chapter needs to be addressed. No one in attendance is a fan of Facebook. Finding someone active on social media to lead that charge would be helpful. Wordpress updates auto-posting to other social networking accounts could be helpful.
• Mentioned AES Spring Show, May 25 — 28
• Mentioned Audio Education Conference, Jully 22 - 24
Follow-up for next meeting tentatively scheduled for
July 18th, 2021 at Secret Studio, 3pm
• Details of Apple benefits / discounts
• Nomination Committee slate of nominees