Well no one ever decided there should be term limits so I took it upon myself to implement my own after 12 years as chairman of the board. When former ONPA member Doug Oster talked me into this, oh those many years ago, I never thought I would change jobs and move twice before turning over the reins.

Those reins are now in the hands of Karl Kuntz from The Columbus Dispatch. Finances are tight so there will be no inaugural ball, but your welcome to share a beverage with him in the ONPA hospitality suite this weekend.

His job, as was mine, is to build upon the work of those who served before us. While we may be smaller in numbers today, that doesn’t mean we can’t be successful in our mission. This isn’t a job for Kuntz alone. He and the other officers will continue to need your support to continue to improve ONPA.

The number one priority going forward needs to be building a solid membership base. We need to worker harder to retain our members and be more proactive in seeking new members. We haven’t met often enough as a board the last few years to put a plan in place and that was the fault of mine. Not having enough time to devote to the position I felt it best to step aside.

Over the years we’ve gone in cycles with television membership. We are clearly in one of the down cycles now and it is an issue that needs some attention. There are entire stations in the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati markets without an ONPA member working at them.

The apathy has filtered down to the television photographers who are members. While the majority of still photographers who are members enter the year-end and monthly clip contest, the same cannot be said on the television side. This isn’t going to be an easy fix.

I will be proposing several changes for the year-end still contest to the board at the business meeting. Overall entries were down for the second year in a row. The POY category being split into small and large market divisions was well received, but I think the time has come to merge the spot news category into one. Every year the judges question the split and when you look at the shrinking number of entries I think this move makes sense.

The other proposed changes involve sports categories. We need to look at the sports category descriptions to put more clarity on what is action and what is a feature and develop a sports portfolio category.

I’ll continue to administer the ONPA website, others will now be responsible for providing the content. I’d like to tell you I’ll now have lots of free time on my hands, but I think my wife has other plans for me. She is the one with a few IOUs to cash in. For me the time spent working for ONPA was a labor of love. She was the one who made the sacrifices.

Remember if you’ve got any complaints about the last 12 years, it’s all Oster’s fault.

Good luck Karl