Board Elects Sean D. Elliot As NPPA President, Passes Budget
DURHAM, NC (January 18, 2011) – The National Press Photographers Association's board of directors ended their three-day meeting Sunday by electing new national officers.
Sean D. Elliot was elected president for a one-year term that begins immediately. Elliot, the chief photographer for The Day in New London, CT, has been NPPA's vice president during Bob Carey's term in office. Elliot has been a long-standing volunteer leader in the organization and has served on the board of directors since January 1999. He served four years (two terms) as NPPA's national secretary, and two years as vice president.
Michael Borland, of WHO-TV in Des Moines, was elected vice president. Borland has been serving as an elected board member, and his election to vice president created an opening on the board. Therefore Scott Mc Kiernan of ZUMA Press, who was the third-place finisher in the most recent board election, will fill the vacancy on the board.
Treasurer Sarah Evans was re-elected to that post for a second term.
Stepping down as president, Carey continues to serve on NPPA's executive committee as the immediate past president. Tony Overman now steps off the board and executive committee as past president. Also during the meeting, J. Bruce Baumann was sworn in as a newly elected board member and Michael P. King took the board oath as a re-elected board member.
Also three NPPA members were appointed by the president to the organization's Judicial Committee: Alicia Wagner Calzada, C. Thomas Hardin, and Jim Veneman. Calzada and Hardin are both NPPA past presidents.
NPPA's proposed $1.245 million budget was passed during the meeting "with a diligent effort to cut spending in daily operations, with deference to the tight economic situation in our industry," national secretary Denise McGill said. "Several resolutions passed that enable cost-cutting measures."
The board also approved a plan for spending some of NPPA's allotment from the Authors Coalition of America (ACA). McGill said $385,500 from the ACA funds will support improvements to NPPA's Web site; extensive scholarships and travel funds to educational events; regional events; creative project grants; creation of a two-day Business Practices workshop that will travel across the country, free to the public; and increased efforts and education for First Amendment rights and advocacy of photographers' rights.
In considering resolutions that were presented to the board, Elliot said that two resolutions about NPPA's Best Of Photojournalism contest were referred to the contest's governing committee. One proposal would change entry limits to 15 for NPPA members and 10 for non-members, and the second would institute a nominal entry fee for members and non-members beyond the 15 free entries.
The board rejected a resolution that required the preservation of all election data, rejected one on national elections candidate endorsements, rejected one on creating an Assistant Regional Chairs Representative, and rejected one mandating regions to hold regional events.
A resolution on requiring NPPA membership for the organization's educational event chairs was approved with an amendment. As passed, it requires that s chairs of event subcommittees "must sign the NPPA conflict of interest disclosure, be an NPPA member in good standing, or have signed the NPPA Code of Ethics."
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