President's Message
May, 2006

Hello Guilders,

Your Executive Committee met in New York a week ago and discussed all business before the Guild. Several issues were of utmost importance to our members and to the Guild.

First, Lisa Shaftel reported on our various Advocacy issues, the Orphan Works issue being the most pressing at this time. We have just received a draft of the House Bill on Orphan Works. This is fresh stuff, so the Guild as well as the other interested parties will be going over the wording carefully before we make a statement.

HOUSE INTRODUCES "ORPHAN WORKS" LEGISLATION

The US House of Representatives has just released their draft of
'The Orphan Works Draft of 2006" [H.R. 5439]. This draft incorporates a number of the significant concerns expressed by the representatives from our Coalition on Orphan Works chosen by the House Subcommittee for private meetings earlier this spring (David Trust, PPA; Victor Perlman, ASMP; and Steve Metalitz, PACA).

Although much of this proposed bill is better and significantly different from the Copyright Office's original proposed statute, we are still concerned about the language regarding monetary relief in the event of infringement.

The Graphic Artists Guild will be coordinating a new letter writing campaign with the ASMP and other organizations of the Coalition on Orphan Works (A total of 25 organizations. Names are listed on the web site.) to the House of Representatives. We will contact you soon with the focus of our message to our Representatives. In the meantime, please take a moment to look up your Representatives http://www.house.gov/.

More information about Orphan Works is posted on the Advocacy page.

Lisa Shaftel
Advocacy Chair

Our lease on the National office is coming to an end next February, so we selected a broker to help us find a new space. This is our opportunity to find an office better suited to our needs and hopefully we will be able to reduce our office costs considerably. This is really the last piece in our plan to run the Guild in the most efficient way possible. Your Executive Committee and the office staff have really done a great job in keeping the Guild on track financially, and we plan on keeping on that track in the future.

We are fortunate to have filled the vacant Communications Chair. Dan Kittay from the Albany Chapter has made himself available for the job and he will be working, obviously, on all our materials related to communication. He would like some help on his committee, so if you are so inclined to help, or maybe you think our communication materials could look better, by all means contact Dan at, dan@kittaynewmedia.com.

Hayden Adams, our almost new Membership Chair will be at the HOW conference in Vegas in June along with At Large President, David Veal, so if you are attending, stop by at booth 732 and introduce yourself to Hayden and David, and bring a friend who might, and should be, interested in becoming a Guild member.

Susan Mathews reported on our financial condition, and we are in a good position to press onward with our mission. We were hampered in the past by financial woes, but we are past that and ready to pursue our advocacy issues with vigor. We are also working to find new ways to assist our chapters because our strength is in our members. We at National want you to be informed graphic artists because we know our profession depends on smart practitioners.

If you have thoughts about the Guild or ideas about how the Guild could better serve it's Members, give me a call, or send me an email.

John P. Schmelzer
National President
Graphic Artists Guild

Click here to visit John's Mar 06 President's Message

Click here to visit John's Feb 06 President's Message

Click here to visit John's July 05 President's Message.

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