The Quill and Scroll board meeting gives me the opportunity to see fall leaves and rowers on the Iowa River.

Brightly colored leaves. Temperatures that required de-icing the plane. I knew I wasn’t in Gainesville this weekend.

I was at the University of Iowa for the annual meeting of the Quill & Scroll board of trustees. Q&S, an international high school journalism honorary, strives to promote high caliber publication and individual performance.

Much of our board discussion centered around two issues — the economy and technology.

With school budget cuts, some media advisers are cutting back on entering media evaluation services and nominating students to membership in Q&S, both of which require fees. How can we help promote the value of the organization’s services?

Technology can be used to address some economic issues — developing a more complete membership database, improving the Web site, being able to process credit card charges (moving away from what was the school-system standard of purchase orders).

A challenge is how to maintain standard services AND take on these new tasks.

But such is the challenge for many not-for-profits like Quill & Scroll and for school districts, businesses and organizations.