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.

ANNUAL MEETING, MEMORIAL BUILDING HARDWICK VERMONT JULY, 30 2015

PRESENT:
Monty Shatney, Board President
Kurt Bos, Treasurer
John Klee, Board member
David Mitchell, Board member
Emily Lanxner, Board member
Leif Goldberg, Executive Director
Stephanie Fraser
Diana Peduzzi
Mary Gagnon
Sherrie Olmsted

HCTV Annual Meeting

Annual meeting was opened at 6:33, the minutes from July 2014 were voted on and accepted.

Members voted in for two year terms were John Klee, Kurt Bos, Rachel Kane, and Emily Lanxner.

Leif presented the Annual Station Report, and touched on goals and accomplishments for 2015. Some of these include, creating better space and training for volunteer editing work, increasing collaboration with schools and non-profits, increasing use of social media to share programming, developing a regular program dedicated to birthday wishes, greetings or congratulations.

Community Comment
Diana said she was sad that Robin Grant had been let go, that he had always did a good job for Woodbury, Mary and Cheryl echoed the same feelings, they all thought that Robin should not been let go. Stephanie did not think Robin should have been let go after all of the years he had work at the station, and that he should get a severance package.
Annual meeting was adjourned.

HCTV Regular Meeting

The regular meeting was opened after the annual meeting.

The minutes from April 2015 voted on and accepted

The balance sheet was voted on and accepted

The profit and loss sheet was voted on and accepted

Station updates and personnel. It was voted and passed to advertise for a Production Manager, and to contract with Robin Grant on a as need bases for any IT issues as we need. We will be having a coin drop in August 2016 in Hardwick. Barb Howard had contacted HCTV about setting up an internship at HCTV for Hazen students. Leif had met with OSSU to discuss covering more community forums in the coming school year and indicated interest in covering more school board meetings. Leif had been contacted about the possibility of offering workshops for young people at HCTV and he is excited to work on this.

With no other business to come before the Board, we adjourned at 7:40p.m.

Respectively submitted
Monty Shatney

HARDWICK COMMUNITY TELEVISION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES
MEMORIAL BUILDING, HARDWICK, VERMONT – APRIL 23, 2015

Present:
Monty Shatney, Board President Kurt Bos, Treasurer
Rachel Kane
Jon Lussier
Leif Goldberg, Executive Director
Robin Grant, Technical Director and Recording Secretary

Called to order at 6:18PM by President Monty Shatney
Monty moves the minutes, Kurt second. No discussion. Vote unanimous.
Monty moves the balance sheet as presented by Leif, Rachel seconds. No Discussions, Vote unanimous.
Monty moves the profit and loss sheet, Jon seconds. Monty asks about the increase in gross pay over this time last year. Rachel asks if the number of hours worked has increased. Leif says that is good because this is where our hours should be at this time. Rachel points out that payroll and equipment are higher than before. Leif says we spend about 1/4 of our equipment so far this year because we bought some lights. No further discussion. Vote unanimous.

Station Report:
Leif tallied up all the shows from 2014 for the VAN Annual Report. We’ve made about 10% more local shows than last year. There have been more shows in general, new programming going up a lot more often.
Leif has been working on Facebook, hired a friend for the same rate as Camera Ops, $50-fee. He’s been copying all of our website embedded shows to our FB page. He also looked at our website and got into WordPress, updated it and the theme, fixed some links, added FaceBook box to webpage to cross-pollinate. Another way to get our material out there. It’s just one more added step to changing the programming.
Covered all the basketball games this year, Robin did them all. At one game Robin and Tim tried to get a couple of students but they are all shy. Jon also points out that the rigidly enforced breaks in high school sports don’t give time for a color person to get a word in edgewise.
Monty tells Leif to feel free to get his friend back in if he needs more FaceBook tutoring.
The revenue form the WES and OSSU meetings has created $450 so far, another $400 to be billed, and even more coming. That’s more than $1000 more than last year. There’s one more OSSU to go before the end of that run.
Leif is doing the talent show, “5 Minutes of Fame’. In the past we’ve had volunteers that want to be in front of the camera. We’ve had a couple of calls from people we don’t know.
Leif reports on a meeting with Monty and Robin, the resolution was that Robin and Leif will meet more often. Robin was eager to come in to meet with Leif on Monday, only to forget that
Leif wasn’t there that week. Rachel asks about job descriptions and Leif would like the board to review them. Monty wants Robin and Leif to review the job descriptions and write down what they are actually doing with their time.

Technical Report:
Robin reports that he installed PrintCD on the MiniMac after hearing from Kurt that he had to reboot into OS10.6 in order to do so. The driver/software packages are in the MiniMac Downloads folder and can be put on any 10.7 (or newer) machine. Since Photoshop is now broken, Robin made a New Label Template that has the Meredith Holch logo and “Produced By HCTV” already on the disc when you open it, you then use Print CD to make your label (which sucks because there is not even one level of ‘undo’ on this software). One can still reboot into MacOS10.6 to use Photoshop.
The Office computer is slowly dying. Robin and Leif have had a discussion on merging the Office profile into the VMX computer. To do it ‘right’ the station needs to purchase software: QuickBooks, Office and PhotoShop. Robin and Leif have more to discuss on this front. Robin wants to offer the old 45MHz Dell to a PC vendor in town for parts.
Chad and Wendy Tanner are shooting a video with their daughter on Sexual Assault. This could be a huge thing, given the topic.

Agenda Item: Fundraising
Monty suggests the idea of the raffle like before, but only one prize of $500.
Rachel suggests TV Valentines where someone can out a message on a BBS page at a certain time of day. And Jon says we could do anything and do it year round. Jon also points out that there are dozens of fundraisers during Spring Fest, and we’d be just another one of those. For a small fee they can get a message out. Rachel says there could be a basic version for the set fee, add features for more. Jon would like an on-camera version where people can come to the station and record a message, they might not be so shy then… Birthdays, anniversaries, graduation is coming up. Rachel is starting her busy time, can we get this ready in time for graduation? Leif says we need a name and a set time of day when it’s aired. Robin says the easiest way to do it would be a PPT file exported to a QT file and put on the broadcast computer.

New Business:
Monty is no longer on the Select Board and by-laws state that one board member has to be in town governance. Leif spoke to Sherri Cornish who is on the board of the Town House and the Select Board, but she is really busy. He mentions the live feed down there that we almost never use. [Discussion on who is eligible. By-Laws are not clear, even the Weigher of Coal could be our board member.]
Monty asks if the meetings were to start at 6:30PM, would it be easier to get people there.

Old Business:
None.
Jon moves to adjourn, Rachel seconds, no discussion, vote unanimous. Meeting adjourned at 7:01PM

HARDWICK COMMUNITY TELEVISION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES
MEMORIAL BUILDING, HARDWICK, VERMONT – JANUARY 28, 2015

PRESENT BOARD MEMBERS:
Monty Shatney, Board President; Kurt Bos, Treasurer; David Mitchell, Secretary;
John Klee, Rachel Kane

PRESENT STAFF:
Leif Goldberg, Executive Director; Robin Grant, Technical Director and Recording Secretary

Called to order at 6PM by President Monty Shatney
Monty moves minutes of Nov 3, David seconds. No discussion.
Vote unanimous.
Monty presents the balance sheet. Looks good.
Moves to accept balance sheet as presented, John seconds. No discussion
Vote unanimous.
Monty moves to accept the profit/loss sheet as presented, John seconds. No discussion
Vote unanimous.

6:02PM
Station Report by Leif Goldberg:
There was a training session in January. Originally it was scheduled before the holidays, but there was not much response. So it was pushed into January. There were 8 trainees, a varied group, all ages, and some high school students.

[6:03 Jon Lussier arrives]

The goal was to get people familiar with the camera, and interest them in coming back. A couple of trainees have returned, a home-schooled high school kid joined Robin at the ball game [Robin says he did very well]. Another came in and did a Select Board meeting with Leif, and she was hired as a camera operator for the Woodbury school board productions. Leif wants to schedule a series of editing sessions with Robin. Only about 2 or 3 people per sessions given the number of editing computers we have and the small office space.

[6:05 Rachel Kane arrives]

A Father-Daughter team that was also at the training session in January has expressed an interest in doing the book readings at Galaxy Bookstore as their project.
We recently updated the software on the computers. Our old Final Cut 5 no longer performing certain critical functions has finally forced us to upgrade.

[6:07pm Nancy Kellogg arrives]

The OSSU meetings are in production, they are paying us for this.
Page 1 of 3 HCTV-­‐BOD Meeting Minutes -­‐ 2/2/15
The Woodbury School boards are paid for for the next four months.
Leif doesn’t like dealing with Facebook, would like to get someone else to do it. It is a tool for outreach, so it has it’s importance. It is suggested that we hire someone or go to the high school and have a student volunteer do it.
Leif would like to re-vamp the website this year, we have been talking about doing it, but never have. We use the site to live-stream and present everything the station produces, and also puts up for playback certain of our producers materials.
Rachel says that it would be more desirable to have a consistent person, if we use a high- schooler they would change often.
Nancy suggests Mary Gagnon who is recovering from surgery and spends A LOT of time on Facebook.

6:10pm
Technical report by Robin Grant:
Robin expands on the computer situation: The editing tower died, so we got a newer one, with an upgraded OS, and installed Final Cut 7 on it. Robin and Leif tested it and found that it worked very well and solved all the problems we had with FCP5. Since then Leif and Robin have installed the same OS and FCP7 onto the MiniMac and the VMX iMac. Robin mentions that the Office iMac will also be 10 years old this year and he and Leif intend to replace it as well. David Mitchell was a great help in replacing the BBS computer which also died this year. The equipment is holding up and doing well.
Budget:
There’s a new contractor line, they get $50 per shoot. The last years budgets say ‘assistant’ and has a zero, in the new version that line says ‘Independent Contractor’ and the amount spent last year was $200. For this year Leif put in $400. Monty asks about the revenue for these shoots, and Leif says that is reflected in the Underwriter line. We are getting $80 – $100 and paying the operator $50. Rachel likes the expanded programming because it adds richness to the station and doesn’t drain our resources.
Monty asks why the ‘repairs’ line went down? Leif says we’ve been replacing hardware rather than replacing it.
Jon asks about advertising budget line change. Leif says that it’s actually $500 a year, the twice-annual Gazette ads that we buy are just under $250 each, almost $500 a year and we get that all of that money back from Comcast. But the Gazette never billed us for the second one. Leif called them just at the end of the year to get that, but the checks were not processed until this year, so the second of last year’s ads are shown on this year’s budget.
Jon asks why our surplus is way less than last year? Leif says we were several thousand dollars under our payroll budget last year which provided a lot of that surplus and the proposed budget assumes full payment to the employees. Jon is just a little concerned at such a close- to-even-budget because he does not want have to tap the CD we have on long term deposit. Leif says we bought a lot of stuff this year, more than we had originally budgeted and we have not had to tap that CD, and yet we have even more money available than last year.
Jon moves to pass the budget as presented, David seconds. No discussion.
Vote unanimous.

Leif mentions getting someone to do the Facebooking. Jon says we could provide a stipend out of the web budget. Robin warns against re-allocating too much of the web budget because the site desperately needs to be updated. David says he is sure he can find a motivated student to take on the TV Station’s Facebook because Social Media is a huge part of new jobs and it looks good on resumés.

6:32pm
Fundraising:
Nancy suggests that we solicit donations for a small raffle at the spring fair.
Leif asked for a coin-drop from Hardwick, they said those are filled for this year.
Monty says that he checked in Woodbury about a coin drop and they said no. Apparently there’s no recent history of coin-drops in Woodbury.
Nancy was thinking more of a small raffle, one dollar tickets, on sale for a short period of time. Leif suggests a ’50-50′ raffle. And Leif reminds us all that it requires all of us to really get out there and sell a lot of tickets.
Monty asks about the amount we are trying to raise. Jon says that with the first year’s raffle we made something like $2200. Last year we only made $465, but there were many more give- aways. Jon says that’s an OK amount, but not for months worth of work. Rachel reminds us that, while we are getting more from the town this year, by doing a fundraiser we show the town that we aren’t solely dependent on their appropriation, that there is an active organization behind the station.
Rachel suggests a vote for a TV station animal mascot from one of the townspeople’s pets, where people vote with dollars. Leif likes the idea and mentions the MGM logo concept.
Rachel thinks that this can also bring people into the station, to find out what the latest numbers are.

6:45pm
Monty asks what our viewership is, Robin says that Comcast won’t tell us anymore. The last time we heard was right after Comcast bought Adelphia, and it was 435. He says that we can only guess our viewership by how much our income has increased over the years.
Jon suggests we put on a show at the Town House and split the gate with the performers, broadcast live and live-streamed the show.
Rachel likes the idea of a show. It’s a splash, for sure. But why would an act want to split the money with us? Robin suggests that we’d provide them a recording, as well as attention, but we’d have to have really good sound.
Jon suggests the Craftsbury Vibrations as an act to talk to.
Robin suggests a live telethon like he and Stephanie did last year for the Gagnons.

6:55pm
Other Ideas or Issues:
Rachel asks what our goal is for the fundraising? Jon says it would go to the Capital Fund.
We are a technical business and our stuff only gets older every year. He says the station has been doing more and more in the time he’s been in the board.
Jon mentions that the minutes were not on the site. Leif says that they had not been approved. Monty says that draft minutes can be put up, by all means do so.
Monty adjourns the meeting at 7PM.