TBABJ Meeting Saturday at Kizmet Cafe in St. Petersburg

TBABJ Members and friends --

We're meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday (Sept. 6) at one of our newer spots: Kizmet cafe in St. Petersburg.

As usual, we have a lot going on. We are considering organizing a reception at the Poynter Institute for Fox News and NPR pundit Juan Williams, who is appearing at the Institute on Sept. 15.

We have also been asked to co-host a public forum featuring Hillsborough Supervisor of elections Buddy Johnson. It's a great opportunity to give people of color in Hillsborough a chance to learn about new voting technology and discuss recent controversies. Currently, we're talking about Sept. 25 for the date, but we have yet to secure the participation of our previous forum partners, the Hillsborough NAACP and CAIR.

We also have to start lining up sponsorships for the Griot Drum Awards banquet, scheduled for Nov. 20. And, of course, the national convention in Tampa is less than a year away.

Here's the address: Kizmet 1101 1st Avenue NORTH, Saint Petersburg, FL 33705 (727) 821-1078.

Hope to see you there!

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

Chapter meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday (Aug. 16) in Tampa

TBABJ Members and friends:

Our next meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. this Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Golden Corrall restaurant, 6942 WEST HILLSBOROUGH AVENUE 33634 (813)882-9805.

We usually meet on the first Saturday of each month, but the UNITY convention was exhausting for many of us and I wanted to give everyone a chance to get back to their lives a bit. Unfortunately, we also have several projects which need to advance soon, so we can't take too much of a breather. Among them:

-- Hillsborough County's bureau of elections wants to co-sponsor a public forum on the new voting machines with us, CAIR, HRC and the NAACP. So we'll need to talk a bit about how that might work.

-- We have extended the deadline for our Griot Drum scholarships because our first go at soliciting applicants didn't yield much response. We'll need to plan a new strategy for spreading the word.

-- We have set Nov. 20 as the date for our Griot Drum awards dinner, so we need to work on organizing that event.

-- The South Florida NABJ chapter needs us to judge its awards contest, in exchange for judging ours. So Camille Spencer is seeking members to help with the judging, and we need to schedule that.

And we need to congratulate each other on a very well done kickoff party presented during UNITY last month.

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