HCTV Board Meeting : Oct. 26, 2017

HCTV BOARD MEETING
20 EAST CHURCH STREET MEETING ROOM
HARDWICK, VERMONT OCTOBER 26, 2017
Attending:
Rachel Kane, Chair
Wiz Dow, Vice Chair
Kurt Bos, Treasurer
Robin Grant, recording secretary
Leif Goldberg, Executive Director (non-voting)
Called to order at 7PM by Rachel Kane
Motion:
Wiz moves to approve the minutes of the previous meeting, Kurt seconds. No discussion (other than a a few typos)
Minutes accepted unanimously.
Meredith Holch arrives at 7:02PM
Motion:
Robin moves to accept the balance sheet, Kurt seconds. Discussion ensues regarding auditing and auditors. Balance sheet accepted unanimously.
[7:12pm]
Profit/Loss is handed out.
Quickbooks needs to be updated.
Motion:
Wiz moves to accept Profit/Loss, Kurt seconds.
Discussion on fundraising balance and town appropriation. Meredith asks Leif to look into the records going back to 2012 to make sure that one of the town’s $3000 appropriations were not missed.
Profit/Loss accepted unanimously.
[7:22pm]
Station Report:
Leif reports that the station is cruising along, Employees John and Elizabeth are on tasks. It’s been fairly minimal the last few months. Have done 8 soccer games, with Lance doing the announcing. Leif wants to get Lance a git certificate.
Covering some other things as requested, the Historical Society. Wiz is pleased with the week turnaround time to get it on air. Wiz will include it in the Historical Society announcement asking their members to go online and stream it. Leif reports that the health care event at Hazen has a lot of hits. Chip Troiano held an event and Emmet was assigned to record it. Leif did a recording at the Highland Arts, Vermont Arts Council asked HCTV to record that. Wiz asks if that can be sent out state wide [brief discussion
Hardwick Community Television Board Meeting 10/26/2017 Page 1 of 1
about statewide sharing system].
Rachel asks about Elizabeth’s hours. Elizabeth had been getting workers comp from a previous employer, but that has been resolved and she is on here with the usual fluctuating hours. John is doing the two Select Board meetings and that’s about it.
Leif has been working on setting up a new video mixer, mainly for select board, because the last MiniDV deck has finally died. The last few select boards have been one-camera only. Leif has bought a MacBookPro and some video cards and a demo version of a mixer called Wirecast (UStream is a stripped down version of Wirecast). It allows versatility, such as burn-in graphics, and more cameras. It can send to the live feed, the Final Cut computer AND send it to Ustream. One trick is that Wirecast isn’t sending 640×480 to the live feed, but Leif is working in that.
Rachael asks about our agreement with Comcast, and Leif reports that they are in suit with the Vermont Public Service Board, and a big part of that suit has to do with PEG Access. Lauren Glenn Davidian is doing a show next week to educate the people. Meredith reports that this year, nationwide cable TV subscriptions have fallen for the first time this year. Leif received a letter from Comcast about our contract being up in February, but they said that nothing will change until that lawsuit is reconciled. The existing terms of the contract will remain in effect during that time.
[Discussion ensues about how HCTV would exist without Comcast]
[8pm]
Met with Wiz and Rachel about the bylaws. This led to a discussion about policies. There were some good ideas coming out of that. Wiz and Rachel will look at meeting amongst themselves to work on the policies and bylaws. Rachel says that most of the items she has are simple clarifications. Rachel notes that both Conflict of Interest and Conflict and Resolution policies must me written up. Leif will email them a word document.
Leif suggests moving the annual meeting to January or April, and having our budget presented in October. Leif points out that summer is a difficult time to get people to attend meetings. Meredith and Wiz say the annual meeting would be best in late March or early April. [Discussion]
New Business:
Rachel says we would do well to look into recording Craftsbury and Greensboro’s town government meetings. Woodbury was appropriating about $750 a year, and it costs approximately $1200 to record their meetings for a year. [Discussion about adding HCTV directly to town budget rather then appropriation at town meeting]. The board asks Leif to approach the towns of Hardwick and Woodbury to negotiate moving HCTV’s regular appropriations into the respective town’s budgets.
[8:25pm]
To add in overhead, we are saying it’s $20/hour, assuming a 3 hours meeting, plus 30 minutes on each end for setup and breakdown, plus one hour of editing, that’s 5 hours per meeting, which comes to $100 each meeting.
Leif reports that Emily would like to make a video about Armand, who runs the boxing rink in the basement of Hardwick Inn.
Meeting is adjourned at 8:36pm
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