Guild Executive Board member Tim Neff is among the current honorees for the Publisher’s Quarterly Award for Excellence.

It is no surprise to his colleagues that Tim does great work, and we are grateful the Times Union recognized him. It just shows that you can take great pride in your work and be active in the union.

Here’s what the company said about Tim:

“During a dramatic downsizing of our staff, Tim has gone above and beyond to make sure that timesunion.com not only succeeds but stands out among all Hearst news sites. During the past few months, our site has seen phenomenal growth, and much of that is due directly to Tim’s efforts.”

Associate editor Mike Spain, one of the newsroom’s top managers, said: “Tim’s knowledge and experience in our newsroom operation combined with his skills in the digital platform have made him one of our biggest assets. The evidence of this is our continued climb in online audience.”

Go Team leader Mike Goodwin, another newsroom manager, said this about Tim: “To understand Tim Neff’s impact on the website, you need to simply look at the traffic numbers from a recent week he was on vacation. Traffic was down on several days. Tim is always easy to work with and suggests plenty of ideas for the Go Team and the newsroom. But he also creates plenty of content on his own, photo galleries and such, that help fatten the numbers.”

As the company wrote: The negative impact when Tim is away was echoed by city editor Teresa Buckley: “I’ve never heard so many people ask when someone is returning from vacation as when Tim took time off over the summer. There is a different air when he is around. It’s not so much his outward energy, but the knowledge that he’s cooking up ways to drive traffic, creating galleries or enhancing packages, and asking the newsroom to put together the key elements that bring in readers.”

Tim works in an area that has seen a sharp reduction in staff, from nine full-time employees to four.

Hearst executives Steve Swartz, Mark Aldam and Lincoln Millstein have praised the website’s outstanding performance, the company said.
Editor Rex Smith, the newsroom’s top manager, said in the company bulletin: “Tim is the very model of a journalist who has adapted to our changing professional environment. What’s admirable is that as he has shifted from a print-based job to a digital role, with all the learning about technology and new modes of content presentation that such a change requires, he has not wavered a bit in his devotion to high standards. He’s a thoughtful journalist and a valued colleague.”

Tim joined the Executive Board this year after his colleague Mark Ramirez left for a job in New Jersey. We’re proud of the work Tim does with the Guild, and we’re especially proud to see his hard work at the Times Union recognized.

We are starting to meet with the company over next year’s health insurance plan, and we need your input.

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The dues refund checks were mailed out on Saturday, Sept. 17. Most if not all people who are eligible for a refund should have received their checks by now. If you haven’t — or if you have any questions about your refund — you can contact the Guild office or a Guild officer.

Also, invoices were sent out for people who are not eligible for a rebate. If you have any questions about your invoice or haven’t received it, you can also contact the Guild office or a Guild officer.

Albany Guild president Tim O’Brien served as a delegate last week at the CWA Convention in Las Vegas. He filed this report upon his return:

Convention delegates agreed to cut one of the CWA’s three top officer positions to save costs, and we also voted to allow some of the money that goes into the Strategic Industry Fund to be used by the locals and the national union for everyday expenses.

CWA secretary-treasurer Jeff Rechenbach retired. Members then eliminated the position of vice president. Annie Hill, who had held that job, ran to succeed Jeff as secretary-treasurer. She faced an opponent who, while a well-regarded leader in his local, ran a single-issue campaign focused on AT&T negotiations.

The CWA’s membership is now so diverse, it includes everyone from health-care workers to flight attendants to those of us in the media. Hill better reflected that diversity. Our local endorsed her, I voted for her, and she won by an overwhelming margin.

CWA president Larry Cohen was re-elected without opposition.

Two regional vice president positions also were combined.

In the convention’s biggest news, delegates agreed to allow a small fraction of the money that flows in for specific projects, called the Strategic Industry Fund, to be used to help the national and locals deal with financial issues caused by job losses. (The union also will switch to conventions every other year as another cost-saving measure.) For our local, it will mean about $20 a member more we get to keep for each of the next two years. Our Executive Board will decide what to do with those funds.

I took time at the convention to meet with Guild International president Bernie Lunzer to discuss our ongoing efforts to get the Hearst Corporation to return to off-the-record negotiations. I also spent a great deal of time talking to Michael Cabanatuan, my counterpart at the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle. (Michael lives in Albany, Calif., and covers transportation, so we have a lot in common.) Michael is very good at sharing what proposals he faces, as what is often proposed in San Francisco eventually makes its way to Albany, N.Y.

At the beginning of the convention, officers in the Newspaper Guild sector were sworn into office. Among the new officers are John Hill of Providence, R.I. He will be the new vice president for Region 1, which includes our local. Martha Waggoner of The Associated Press became the new international chairperson.

Sadly, a week to the day later, the former international chairperson, Connie Knox, passed away at age 68. Her death was a great shock to her friends and colleagues in the Guild.

When I attended my first Newspaper Guild convention in Minnesota in 2001, it was Connie who spotted the newbie and invited me to join her and others for lunch. She made me feel welcome and part of the national organization.

In April, Connie retired as a copy editor at the Baltimore Sun. Anyone who ever watched Connie make sure the language of any resolution was perfect knows she was great at that job, too.

At the Guild Sector Conference in February in Orlando, Fla., it was my great privilege to stand up and call on my fellow delegates to give Connie a round of applause for her service to the union. She received a well-deserved standing ovation. We will truly miss her.

For more about Knox’s life, click here.

Providence Newspaper Guild president John Hill defeated Carl Younger, the chair of The Newspaper Guild’s Human Rights and Equity Committee, 299 to 234 in an election for TNG Region 1 vice president.

Hill will succeed Donna Marks, who did not seek re-election after she was laid off by the Quincy Patriot Ledger.

In our local (CWA 31034), there were 16 votes for Hill and 8 for Younger.

“I know he will represent us well,” local president Tim O’Brien said. “Both candidates ran a positive campaign, and both serve the union well. I am proud to know both of them.”

At a general membership meeting May 19, Jeff Boyer was chosen as our local’s third vice president.

Jeff joined the Times Union in June 2000 as an editorial artist. He graduated with A.A.S. in commercial art from Sullivan County Community College. After working in an aerospace company’s art department for 10 years, he entered the newspaper business in 1990.

His design and illustration work has received numerous awards from The Associated Press, Gannett and Hearst. The Syracuse Press club and Gannett have also honored him for his cartoons.

Jeff has illustrated for several magazines and has exhibited paintings in several galleries within New York state and Maryland, including a one-man show of sports themed art.

“Jeff Boyer’s excellent work has brightened many a page, especially front pages on Sundays,” Guild local president Tim O’Brien said. “We are so proud he is willing to join the board, and we know he’ll be a great voice for his colleagues.”

Tim Neff is the Guild’s newest officer after winning election Wednesday at a membership meeting in the Colonie Public Library.

But just as one seat on the board was filled, another opened up as third vice president Brendan Lyons resigned for personal reasons. The board thanked him for his service, and it is working to schedule a meeting in May to fill that seat.

Neff joined the Times Union as a copy editor in 1998 and became an online producer in February 2009. At the Editorial Awards last week, Editor Rex Smith called Neff “Web producer extraordinaire.”

“As timesunion.com’s web producer for news, Tim Neff makes sure our online audience can take full advantage of our great journalism,” Smith said. “Along with creating the homepage centerpieces and breaking news display, he adds value to our content by seeking deeper links to all that the Times Union produces, as well as other sources. He has been integral in setting up ways for the newsroom to embrace digital, working with Jim White and others to develop systems that make it easier for us to get our work before the public. He also takes the lead online role in many of our news projects, working closely with the newsroom to enhance the readers’ online experience. Tim has become the go-to guy for the Go Team and entire newsroom.”

His colleagues on the Executive Board are thrilled to have Tim join them as the second vice president. He replaces Mark Ramirez, another excellent employee, who has moved to a new job in New Jersey.

Lyons, too, is a highly regarded employee and also won kudos at the awards ceremony for his investigative work. He joined the board in September and thanked the board for its hard work and efforts in a very trying period for the Guild.

“The union has always prided itself on the quality of our work,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “You can’t be an effective Guild leader and an ineffective employee. That’s why we’re so pleased to have a recognized leader in the newsroom and on the Web team join the board. We know Tim will make a great contribution on behalf of his colleagues, and we are thankful to Brendan for his service and his willingness to continue to support the Guild even after he leaves the board.”

Guild President Tim O’Brien served as a delegate to the Sector Conference of the Guild’s International. He was one of 89 delegates from 36 locals that discussed the state of the industry, the future of the union and ways to keep members connected. Read this report here.