Winter 2006 ABA Board Meeting Report

The American Booksellers Association Board of Directors, senior staff, and representatives from the regional booksellers associations held meetings from Saturday, January 28, to Monday, January 30, immediately following the Winter Institute at the Long Beach Hilton in Long Beach, California.

Among its activities during the three days of meetings, the Board:

• Selected Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, as ABA President and Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, as ABA Vice President/Secretary for one-year terms, beginning June 2006. Their names and those of director candidates will appear on the Board ballot, which will be mailed in mid-March, for approval by ABA membership.
  
  
• Received and approved the report of the ABA Nominating Committee, chaired by ABA Board member Cathy Langer of Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado. For three-year terms as directors, beginning in June 2006, the committee recommended the nomination of Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands; Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville and Downers Grove, Illinois; and Beth Puffer of Bank Street Bookstore in New York City. Shanks is currently a member of the ABA Board and is eligible for one additional three-year term. In addition to Langer, this year's Nominating Committee included ABA Board member Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis; Fran Keilty of Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot, Connecticut; Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California; and Philip Rafshoon of Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta. (Under ABA's bylaws, in addition to candidates put forth by the Nominating Committee and approved by the Board, any bookstore member may submit a petition for a Director candidate. See related story in this week's issue.)
  
  
• Met with Charlene Laniewski of KPMG LLP, the association's auditor, and received the audited financial statement for the year ending September 30, 2005. The auditors provided a clean report, which stated that "the consolidated financial statements referred to ... present fairly, in all materials respects, the financial position of ABA, Inc. and subsidiaries [as of September 30, 2005] ... and the changes in their net assets and their cash flows for the years then ended in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. And the opinion to the consolidating and other supplement information and the consolidated financial statements -- are fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the consolidated financial statement taken as a whole." (ABA expects to receive a final consolidated statement from KPMG in the coming weeks, and it will be made available to bookstore members through BookWeb. Watch for an announcement in upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week.)
  
  
• Met with William King of Merrill Lynch, the association's financial consultant, who provided the Board with updated information on the association's investments.
  
  
• Heard a report by ABA President Mitchell Kaplan of Book & Books in Miami, Florida, on his activities on behalf of the association.
  
  
• Received a report from ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz about a number of the association's programs and initiatives, including participation in the inaugural Quill Awards; the work of the Education and Spanish Language task forces; the new partnership agreement with Above the Treeline; the LIBRIS insurance program; and his presentation of ABA educational programming at the Frankfurt Book Fair , among other activities.
  
  
• Met with Fraser Tanner, managing director of Batch.Co.UK -- a service of the Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom and Ireland, which is designed to help booksellers reduce overhead in the supply chain by providing a single, consolidated payment solution -- to explore the applicability of this approach in the U.S.
  
  
• Heard a report on the Booksellers Advisory Council meeting held just prior to the Winter Institute, presented by the Board's representative to the BAC Cathy Langer of Tattered Cover.
  
  
• Reviewed departmental reports, provided in advance of the meeting, with ABA staff in attendance for the Winter Institute, including Dan Cullen, information director and editor-in-chief, Book Sense Picks; Mark Nichols, director of Book Sense marketing; Jill Perlstein, director of marketing; Len Vlahos, director of BookSense.com; David Walker, director of special projects; Meg Zelickson Smith, associate director of Book Sense marketing and director of membership marketing and media relations; and Rosemary Hawkins, executive editor.
  
  
• Received an update on the USA Patriot Act and the Campaign for Reader privacy from ABA COO Oren Teicher.
  
  
• Heard reports on the Publisher Focus Group meetings to begin on February 28, which were organized by ABA on behalf of the participating publishers; the Bookseller Relief Fund; and ABA's master education plan, including programming at BookExpo America and the Winter/Spring Booksellers Forums.
  
  
• Met with presidents and executive directors of the regional booksellers associations, including the Great Lakes, Midwest, Mountains & Plains, New Atlantic Independent, New England, Northern California Independent, Pacific Northwest, and Southern California booksellers associations and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.