Committees Corner – October 2021

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:  Bob Duthaler (Chair) Dave Garb (Vice Chair))

The board is taking a more proactive role in some key areas that JAG will be focusing on over the next year.  This will include increasing JAG’s relationships with state and national legislators, marketing strategy, membership, and value to our members.  The work necessary will be the responsibility of all of JAG’s committees and will need to be coordinated through the Leadership Development Committee.  This is a large undertaking and is only possible because the committees have shown the ability to take on components of these project.  There is also a need for committees to work internally to increase membership involvement and cultivate leadership.

FINANCE COMMITTEE:  Linda Besink (Chair), OPEN (Vice Chair)

The Finance Committee has begun the 2022 budget process.  Thank you for all the membership renewals for 2021!  Looking forward to keeping in touch with JAG members throughout 2022.  JAG Treasurer Linda Besink can always be reached via email at lbesink@gmail.com.

PRODUCTION COMMITTEE:  Lee Beckerman (Chair), Anthony Pagliuco (Vice Chair)

The script for “How to choose a location”, the first in our series on how to shoot a video, has been reworked so that it now uses just one main talent making it easier to produce.  The committee is looking into hiring talent for the main role as that person will have to carry the entire script. We are looking into the committee budget for funds to accomplish this. We plan to ask for proposals from the general membership.

The committee is splitting up the job of looking through the JAG Awards winners looking for segments to use for the JAG booth sizzle reel at the League of municipalities convention.  We hope to have the videos chosen before the end of October and TV 35 will put them together and “Brand” them with the JAG logo.  We will also solicit work for this from other member stations.

The committee feels that we are currently good with the testimonials we have on the JAG and Conference websites.  We will be looking for opportunities to get additional ones from high profile people when the opportunity arises, possibly through the League of Municipalities and the JAG Conference.

The JAG Conference videos have been completed and are available in both the members only section of the JAG website and on the Eastern Video Expo site and will be distributed according to the appropriate schedule.

The YouTube channel is continuing to build momentum and Doug will begin to promote it using other JAG social media outlets.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE:  Geoffrey Belinfante (Chair), Dustin Dumas (Vice Chair)

This month the members of the External Relations Committee are asking you, the members, for help.  As many of you may know, we launched an updated website just last month and one of its main features is a home page gallery that allows us to showcase photos of our crews at work.  In the past it was difficult to change those photos, but our new design makes it much easier to add new pictures.  As a result, we are asking you to contribute any production stills that you might have that show our JAG members at work creating programing that enhances our communities.  They can be sent directly to Doug Siedel at dseidel@piscatawaynj.org.  Any submissions would be greatly appreciated. 

We are also still soliciting Policies and Procedure documents and Franchise Agreements that we can share amongst ourselves.  The Policies and Procedures document are important to those who manage stations and the franchise agreement are extremely useful when you begin to re-negotiate agreements with your local carriers.  These documents will be posted in the password protected “members only” section of the website, and can be sent to me at  geoffbel512@gmail.com.  In addition, we are asking all members to please subscribe to our YouTube channel.  It will give you a chance to see what other members are producing and provides another distribution method to share your work.  Plus, if we get enough subscribers, we can get our own YouTube address.  Finally, I would also like to remind members that all of the recorded sessions from our Conference are now available in the “members only” section of the website.  There’s a lot of great content in those sessions, and now you can see them on demand.  As always, we’re looking for new members so if you’re interested in joining the External Relations team, please let me know—Geoff Belinfante  geofffbel512@gmail.com .

Legislation Committee:  Dave Garb (Chair), Linda Besink (Vice Chair)

The Legislative Committee strives to keep up with new and pending legislation on both the Federal and state levels.

When needed, this committee solicits the aid of legislators who we believe can either help to enact laws favorable to PEG or to fight against those that could hurt us and our cause.

We keep in touch with our elected officials in general – from US Senators and Representatives to local Mayors and Council members to in order to remind them of who JAG is and that we are there for them as well.

We always welcome all of our JAG members to join our committee.  We meet monthly, with possible additional meetings as the need sometimes quickly unfold.

Membership Committee:  Stephanie Gibbons (Chair), Darryl Love (Vice Chair)

We would like to welcome new members of the Cranford team Chris Hoffman and Scott Lieberman.

We want to make sure you are getting the most of your member benefits so please let us know it you are not getting information from the listserv, newsletter, access to the member’s only section of the website and access to the Connect server for sharing content.  Please contact me at: Stgibbons@verizon.net .

Leadership Development Committee:  Dave Garb (Chair), Doug Seidel (Vice Chair)

This LDC Committee focuses on the development and promotion of JAG by reinventing our marketing strategies and social media platforms.  The leadership from JAG’s other committees make up this committee, as well as those individuals that are skilled and knowledgeable in areas that are needed to make this committee shine.

We also aid and work with all of our committees in order for them to achieve their individual goals.

One of our continuing objectives in the Leadership Committee is to reach out to all of our members to discuss the importance of joining one of our other committees by offering your skills to help JAG grow and continue to be the voice of the New Jersey PEG community.

JAG Awards Committee:  George Fairfield (Chairs), Ronni Garrett (Vice Chair)

The JAG Awards Committee has a lot of great news to share.  First up, the committee is proud to announce George Fairfield has agreed to Chair the committee again and they chose Ronni Garrett to be the Vice Chair for the 2021-2022 Awards season.

Now for even better news — at the end of the year, you know how you just want to put everything into archive and start the New Year fresh?  AND NO, you can’t do that because of that awesome program that you must enter into the JAG Awards but submissions don’t open for another month or so. 

Not anymore — the JAG AWARDS will open for submissions beginning on January 1st.  Think about it; by the time you return to work you could have all of your forms completed and entries uploaded.  One less task to keep on your desk. 

Conference Committee:  Bob Duthaler/ Geoffrey Belinfante (Co-Chair) George Fairfield (Vice Chair)

The committee will reconstitute on October 18th at 2pm and begin working on JAG’s Eastern Video Expo 2022.  Officers will be elected and ideas for the structure of the conference – live, virtual or hybrid, will be discussed.