TBABJ Membership Meeting at 11 a.m. May 10

TBABJ Members and friends:

Our next meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, May 10, at the Golden Corrall restaurant, 6942 WEST HILLSBOROUGH AVENUE 33634 (813)882-9805.

We usually meet on the first Saturday of each month, but I will be out of town Saturday, and I have lots of information to deliver about our ongoing projects. We'd love to see you atthe meeting because we have several intiatives under development, including:

1) Busch Gardens has come on board as a sponsor of the kickoff party for the 2009 national convention, which is wonderful news. We're hoping to get their help in getting people hyped for the trip to Tampa and we're confident their involvement will convince everyone a good time is waiting for them here in Tampa.

2) We have rescheduled our public forum for May 29, titled Race, Religion and Media: Are We Getting the Coverage We Deserve? The forum is a co-sponsorship with the Council for American Islamic Relations, the Hillsborough NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign and is scheduled for the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College. Currently, panelists include A mentor of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Arthur Jones, local evangelist Bill Keller, former CAIR spokesman Ahmed Bedier and local activist/radio personality Otis Anthony. We're hoping for help getting to a couple more attention-getting panelists and finishing up details.

3) We're also finalizing details for a keynote speaker at our Griot Drum Awards, tentatively scheduled for November of this year. The decision to accept enries for the awards part of the event earlier this year helped, our entries went up a bit, and we're hoping to pull together a wonderful program. We also are still accepting applications for several $1,000 scholarships to be awarded during the banquet.

I'm hoping you'll join us Saturday and lend your sweat equity to our effort.

Here's directions: Obviously, in Tampa, you can just get on 580/Hillsborough Ave. from any major artery and drive west to Town N' Country.Take I-275 to Route 60 north to ext. 4: Hillsborough Ave. turn left (west) on hillsborough and look for the restaurant.

As always, call or email if you need to discuss anything beforehand.

Eric Deggans
President, Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists
Chair, NABJ Media Monitoring Committee
TV/Media Critic, St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times
(727) 893-8521