Present: Kurt Bos, Nancy Kellogg, Rachel Kane, Leif Goldberg, John Pepe, Emily Lanxner and Dave Mitchell, Wiz Dow, Robin Grant, Meredith Holch

Called to order: 7:20 pm

Motion to Approve Minutes
● Clarification of HED mtg recordings
● approved unanimously

Balance Sheet–
● Assets are organized!
● Payroll section is problematic
○ May need to be rebuilt from ground up
○ May need another Quickbooks “expert” to clean up this section

Profit & Loss Statement
● Unemployment Insurance?–we’re exempt
● Will notify Hazel that we don’t need UI
● Approved unanimously

Station Director’s Report
● Leif is working with Hazel Greaves to get QuickBooks set up correctly
● Some frustration here…may need to bring in QuickBooks “expert”…
● Made $435 at coin drop!

Meeting Recessed at 7:51 for Annual meeting

Meeting called back to order 8:46pm

Station Director’s Report cont’d.
● Lance Hall will announce some soccer games
● Local elections may stimulate interest for interviews of candidates
● Mike Reis of GMATV is in talks with HCTV to do technical contracting and moving HCTV to a web-based broadcast system to broadcast remotely…much $$. LG wants to continue to consider this possibility…agreed

Elected Officers:
● President: Rachel Kane
● Treasurer: Kurt Bos
● Vice-Chair: Corrinna Colson
● Secretary: Dave Mitchell

Next meeting: October 27 at 7:00pm

Meeting adjourned 9:11

——————–

HCTV Annual Meeting

called to order: 7:51pm

Election of new officers for two-year terms:

David Mitchell (educational representative)
Wiz Dow (gov’t representative)
Robin Grant
Meredith Holch

Adjourned at 8:46pm

Hardwick Community Television
Minutes of May 10, 2016

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

Meeting called to order at 7:10

Minutes of the previous meeting of February 9, 2016, were approved.

Financial Reports:
Balance Sheet:
Leif reports that Hazel Greaves has been working on clearing up the accounts, but it is not finished yet. The Fixed Assets are now itemized. The accounts are tidy enough now to take to the bank, and the station has been tentatively approved for a loan of up to 15,000 at the Merchants Bank.
Balance Sheet approved by vote.

Profit and Loss Report:
Things are looking pretty good at the moment. Report approved.

Station Report:
Leif attended a meeting of VAN (Vermont Access Network) and found it educational. Some of the discussion at that meeting was that Comcast will need a renewal of the certificate of public good from the Public Service Board. VAN has assembled 2000 pages of testimony to support Comcast, but is inserting some provisos, for example Comcast promised an HD (High Definition) channel to HCTV (and other stations), yet we haven’t heard a peep about that since. Also it was promised that HCTV be listed on the program guide, so that TV customers will be aware of our station and programming. If approved, the next Comcast contract will be for 11 years.

Much new material has been filmed and added to the station roster lately, and more is upcoming. The Kiwanis asked Leif to create a PSA. There are plans to film activities at Atkins Field for CAE, Food Shelf, and NEK Kids on the Move. For Spring Festival John Lussier will again announce the parade, and it will be filmed. Emily reminds us that it is important for our town records to film the parades, and to do it well.
Graduations at both Hazen Union and Hardwick Elementary will be filmed. Eric Remick of the Hardwick Select Board has asked that the Hardwick Electric meetings be filmed. There is talk of looking for a student to film these meeting, at least occasionally, and talk of paying someone $50 to do so. Leif has a young person from Morrisville who might be willing to do this. Dave offers to film the Hardwick Electric meetings, as he is on that board as well.
Emily talks at length about the Education Task Force, recently created in Hardwick. It is looking for ways to integrate school and community, and Emily feels there is great potential in having kids prepare and film shows about their own interests. The task force will be trying to get some grant money to propel this idea along. The board members agree that it is a fine idea, one which we will support as much as possible, once some direction is made clear.

Broadcast System Discussion
The board and staff have previously agreed that the broadcast equipment needs to be updated. Leif has been grappling with details, comparing the offers from 2 different systems, Telvue Hypercaster and Tightrope Cablecast. They have slightly different technology, but the end product is the same. Both will upgrade HCTV to HD, in the event that Comcast gives us HD (and we already have the equipment to put out HD programming). If and when we do upgrade, Comcast will put in a fiberoptic connection, which upgrade the cable signal. However, the discussion is not over. For while the above mentioned upgrade will make our current cable-delivered programming look great, it will not do a whit for the quality of our online content. Some of the board wonder if we should put the money into the unknown, and very local, number of cable customers, or put money into improving the quality of our programs for those who might watch on computers and the like. This begs the question – who are the audiences, and to whom does HCTV devote the programming towards? Leif is tasked with getting more information about how we can improve the internet output, and will bring this information the annual meeting.

Other Business:
Fundraising – We have the go ahead for a coin drop this summer, on Wolcott St, the dates have yet to be set. The Kiwanis will let us have the bottle drop in 2017, for at least a portion of the year. We need some bigger ideas.
Meeting adjourned 8:37 pm

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.

Meeting of Hardwick Community Television
October 28, 2015
Memorial Building, Hardwick, VT

Present:
Monty Shatney, Chair
Kurt Bos, Treasurer
Leif Goldberg, Executive Director
Jon Pepe, Station Assistant
Board Members: Rachel Kane, David Mitchell.
(Board Members not present: Nancy Kellogg, Emily Lanxner)
Corrinna Colson arrived 6:35.

Meeting opened at 6:30 pm.

The minutes of the 7/30/15 meeting were accepted by the board (motion made by Dave, seconded by Rachel)

Financial Reports:
Balance Sheet & Profit and Loss Reports : There was discussion about the setup of the financial reports, as some of the descriptions/columns were unclear, especially in the liabilities. Rachel asks when, if ever, we have our books audited, and by whom. Leif tells the board that the books are dealt with by Marckres Norder in Morrisville –that is, they prepare the year end filings, and the payroll reports. Rachel suggests that we get a review of the setup of our books, and investigate if the bookkeepers can do a thorough audit, and to get a quote for the service. She offers to have a look at the QuickBooks accounts at HCTV after the meeting. Kurt makes a motion to accept the financial reports, Dave seconds.

Station Report:
Jon Pepe is introduced to the board. He is now a month into working at the station, and both he and Leif feel it is going well, that he is comfortable with the equipment and that he is picking up fast.

Robin Grant is now employed by HCTV as an outside contractor to help with technical work and the computers, on an on-call basis, and has worked a little bit, but there has not been much need of his services lately. Leif and Jon are keeping up with work needed at this point.

Discussion of the upcoming basketball season at Hazen, and can Leif and Jon cover the 25 or so live games. We may need to hire camera people from time to time. The board thinks would be ok. Game sponsorships would help to pay any extra stipends.

The HCTV live feed at the Hardwick Town House was used during a recent event with the writer Howard Frank Mosher. The Hardwick Town Meeting may move back to the Town House, which we would then be able to broadcast live, something that has not been possible at recent Town Meetings held at the school.

Corinna asks how many subscribers we have – the answer is that we don’t know, as Comcast does not reveal that number. But the total number of cable customers in Hardwick is around 800.

Leif did a presentation on storyboarding at Hazen for a performing arts class, and the hope is that some students will become interested in the station.

There will be a one-day training in November for middle-schoolers, again to encourage students to get involved.

Leif brought to our attention that a program had been produced and aired on HCTV that received a complaint from a viewer. The program was on a sensitive and personal matter, but anonymous. Leif told the board that it was well crafted, and not sensational or slanderous, but as this was the first time we had received a complaint, he took the program off the air until there was time to discuss it with the board. The board felt that there appeared to be no reason to take it off the air, and that if in future people have a complaint, they should submit a complaint in writing. This program will be put back up on the air. Leif will talk to Orca media or other community tv stations to see what liablilty issues there may be with controversial programs, to be sure that our station and board members are not liable.

Other Business:
Monty reminds the board that we are one member short, after the resignation of Jon Klee. Corrinna Colson is asked if she would serve on the board, and she agrees. The board is unanimous in welcoming her to the HCTV board.

Meeting is Adjourned at 7:33 pm.