Hardwick Community Television
Minutes of February 9, 2016

Present: board members Kurt Bos, Corrina Colsen, Rachel Kane, Nancy Kellogg and David Mitchell, and Station Manager Leif Goldberg.

Meeting called to order at 7:04.

Minutes of the previous meeting of October 28, 2015 were approved.

Balance Sheet:
Leif reports that some discrepancies seen in the last set of balance and profit/loss reports have been resolved after he made the entries specified by the bookkeeper.

The funds not required by the actual 2015 budget (due primarily due to payroll hours being fewer than planned for) were added as a new line item to the budget.

Rachel has spent some time looking at our Quick Books, and has made some clarifications and clean ups in the chart of accounts. She recommended that we hire a bookkeeper who can come in to carry on with the organization, and to make correcting entries as needed. We have not had a bookkeeper look over the entire system for some time, and it was felt that a person who could come in to the office as needed would be useful to the station. We will need a solid set of books to take to the bank, should we pursue obtaining a loan for the new broadcast system. Rachel will contact Hazel Greaves to see if she can do this, and perhaps also take over the year-end payroll filings this year. The board approved this move. We will plan to do an audit sometime later in the year.

Balance Sheet approved.
Profit and Loss Report approved.
Budget approved. Corrinna made the motion, Kurt seconded.

Station Report:
Jon Pepe has told Leif that he will not be able to work as many hours as originally arranged, due to personal reasons. Leif will try to get more volunteers to film some events. Some volunteers may be paid a stipend for this work, depending on their experience. Corrina asks if we should be looking for a new hire? Leif thinks we should keep this in mind over the next few months.

Jon Lussier and Lance Hall have been doing a fine job calling the school basketball games.

The station employees are strongly recommending that it is time to upgrade our broadcast system to a web-based system, as many other community television stations have done. The current cable system has some components that are giving problems, and some of the equipment will not be repairable or replaceable at some point. An advantage to a web-based system is that it takes much less time and equipment to put shows on the air, and is especially valuable for live feeds. It will save much time in putting shows up. There was discussion about whether or not there is fiber optic cable in the Memorial building, which would affect the setup of the new system. One of the members will find out for sure.
Leif has looked at two different providers, but the proposals are somewhat difficult to compare in their current form. Leif will get more information so that we can compare apples to apples. Leif is continuing to collect information and advice about the systems offered. Kurt thinks he may know of someone with technical advice to help with the choice.
There was some talk of buying into the Montpelier Community TV web system, which would save us some money, but we do not have definite numbers on this yet. The savings may not be large. Leif has spoken with the bank to get information about a bank loan to pay for a new system, in case we go that route. Corrina asks about writing a grant to help pay for it. Leif says we haven’t written for grants in several years, but we could look into it.

Other Business:
There was talk about the survey idea for HCTV subscribers. It would be good to have something ready at Town Meeting. Board members decided to email questions ideas in for Leif to make something with.

Meeting adjourned 8:29 pm.