HCTV Board Meeting October 29, 2020 Minutes Present: Mike Gray, Rip Keller, Leif Goldberg, Wiz Dow, Rachel Kane, Kurt Bos Absent: Robin Grant Guest: Jim Kelty, formerly of GMATV.
Rachel called the meeting to order at 7:04
Minutes: No additions or corrections. Mike moved and Kurt seconded acceptance. Unanimous approval. Profit &Loss statement: Leif explained the COVID money we got from the state, saying that while the station has not made any major changes, shifting ways of working caused some new expenses and shifted in old expenses. Making the shifts and working in the new ways also took more of his time. All of that the state money paid for. Mike asked for clarification of some of the terms on the report. Kurt moved and Mike seconded acceptance. Unanimous approval. Balance statement: Mike asked for some clarification about the CDs. Leif pointed out that the depreciation numbers haven’t been updated, because the bookkeeper’s eyes have begun to fail. She hasn’t been able to keep up with inputting data. Kurt moved and Kip seconded acceptance. Unanimous approval. Budget: Rachel asked for clarification on the website design proposal. Ours is mounted on WordPress, and Leif discussed some of the limitations of the platform. We discussed how to go about developing a new one, probably not using WordPress, which makes the development a lot more complicated and expensive. Several board members suggested people who could do it, but we made no decision. We discussed the potential need of new cameras or computers and why Leif had budgeted for them, but we made no decisions. Leif also put a line for play-by-play announcers in the budget. He’s convinced that there will be crowd-less sports season at the school this year, and we’ll need announcers. Mike asked about the capital spike payment. Leif explained that it’s a historical line, going back to 2011, and it’s not clear that we’ll ever use it again. Kurt moved and Mike seconded acceptance. Unanimous approval. Station Report: We generally agreed that we should start looking for another bookkeeper/accountant; the current one encourages it. Leif explained that we still do not have a contract with Comcast. VAN and Comcast had fruitful negotiations underway when COVID shut them down. Negotiations will begin again in November. Rachel asked about our line of communication with Comcast. Leif explained that Comcast requires an annual report and a 3-year plan from him with full documentation. After they get all the stuff they request, they review it and get back to us. Otherwise, Leif contacts them if he has questions or problems. Leif reported on our participation in a statewide movie project to remake Castaway. He and a group of community members did two scenes which he said went well. Soccer season has not yet ended, so he’s still shooting sports. Lance is back as an announcer, and James, now at Lyndon, would like to do what he can during basketball season – as will Lance, delighted at being paid. Jim (our guest) offered to run the camera for basketball games. Kurt suggested running two cameras – one on the floor and one in the stands. Leif is feeling the weirdness of the Covid world, but he likes what he’s doing. The trail people asked them to do the witch reading stories in lieu of the pumpkin walk. We discussed the limitations to what we can film because of copyright issues. We use Vimeo as a way of distributing our material, and the company is really touchy about posting copyrighted material. Other business: Rip offered some videos he’s making in his role as music director at the Episcopal Church. Jim offered to join the board. Since he needs to be elected to the board, he agreed to attend meetings until he’s elected in April. Leif raised the issue of the renewal of our workers’ comp insurance. We had a long discussion about the fairly complicated issue. The fact that our “contractors” use station equipment makes it difficult for us to legally call them independent contractors, so we may need to get certificates of insurance for them as employees. The insurance company wants to know who works here and how we insure them. Mike talked about how the Town of Woodbury issues waivers to local tradespeople rather than requiring them to carry workers comp. Leif will talk to other TV stations and ask how they handle insurance. Meeting adjourn at 8:56 Elizabeth H. Dow
Present: Leif Goldberg, Kurt Bos, Kip Keller, Rachel Kane, Elizabeth Dow, Michael Gray Absent: Robin Grant
Rachel opened the meeting at 7:01. Review of the minutes. No additions or corrections. Rachel moved acceptance; Kurt second; unanimous acceptance. Profit and Loss: Kurt asked for a couple clarifications. Nobody saw any problems. Wiz moved acceptance; Michael seconded; unanimous acceptance. Balance Sheet: Leif pointed out that that the extended tax year (July 15 deadline because of the COVID pandemic) means that our taxes went in 2 months later than usual, so he hasn’t seen how the tax preparer has handled some of the increased assets. Rachel moved acceptance; Kurt seconded; unanimous acceptance. Station Report: After the crisis started and the Governor shut down the state, Leif and his daughter, working with the Neighbor to Neighbor group, launched a series of videos about wearing masks. Leif approached Brent and Maya McCoy about doing something under our ‘seed money’ decision from the last meeting. Kurt has also taken advantage of that money. Emmet Avery is working on a story about transitions at the Gazette and interviewing some people in the community. We’re losing our play-by-play guy — going to NVU/Lyndon in the fall. We discussed additional summer projects and how much impact our local productions. We discussed collaborating with the Gazette about adding our videos to their new digital version of the newspaper. No conclusions. Kurt is working with Nancy Schade to get a few more videos. We discussed the fall season — what if soccer and basketball don’t happen? What can we do? We might capture the games and provide the only way people can watch the games. The Drive-in movie project with Neighbor to Neighbor group is about to start. Other business: None. Kurt motion to adjourn; Rip seconded; meeting adjourned at 7:48.
HARDWICK COMMUNITY TELEVISION – ANNUAL MEETING Via ZOOM video conference, May 28, 2020 AT 7:00 P.M.
Present: Leif Goldberg, Rachel Kane, Elizabeth Dow, Michael Gray, Kurt Bos Absent: Rip Keller, Robin Grant, all community members
Rachel called the meeting to order at 7:07.
Kurt moved we approve minutes from July 2019 Annual Mtg.; Rachel seconded. Unanimous approval.
Leif had circulated the annual report ahead of time. Rachel noted happily that the number of local programs has increased. Rachel also noted that the coin drop did not appear in the 2019 report, and that we did fairly well. Rachel liked the fact that the coin drop provided excellent outreach about the station. Wiz reminded the Board that the sign-up for the 2021 coin drop is July 1, 2020. Wiz, Rip, and Robin are up for renewal. Each term is a 2 year term. Michael Gray has agreed to join the board representing Woodbury. Since we have 3 board members up for election this year, we decided to elect Michael for 1 year, so that next year we will have 3 members up for election, instead of 2 in 2021 and 4 in 2022. Kurt moved that we accept the slate of Rip Keller, Robin Grant, and Elizabeth Dow for another 2 years. Rachel seconded. Unanimous approval. Kurt moved Michael Gray for a 1 year term. Rachel seconded. Unanimous approval.
Wiz moved we adjourn; Kurt seconded. Meeting adjourned at 7:23.
HARDWICK COMMUNITY TELEVISION – QUARTERLY MEETING Via ZOOM video conference, May 28, 2020 AT 7:25 P.M.
Present: Leif Goldberg, Rachel Kane, Elizabeth Dow, Michael Gray, Kurt Bos Absent: Rip Keller, Robin Grant
Rachel called the meeting to order at 7:25. Kurt moved to approve the minutes of the January meeting; Michael seconded. Discussion: Rachel liked that we re-set the CDs. We had some discussion of the decision not to pay to have our schedule published on the Comcast Program Guide. Leif reported that those who decided to go with publishing it have had nothing but trouble. Leif filled in some background of our relationship with Comcast for Michael. Unanimous approval of the minutes.
In discussion of the Balance Sheets, Rachel asked about some of the discrepancies. Leif covered the details. Wiz moved we accept the Balance sheets. Rachel seconded. Unanimous approval. Kurt moved to accept the Profit and Loss statement. Wiz seconded. Discussion: Rachel asked about the timing of the town appropriation. Wiz explained the town’s fiscal calendar (vote at Town Meeting; pay out upon receipt of a request after July 1, the start of the fiscal year. Leif pointed out that operating with one staff person means a lot more money going to independent contractors. The cost of the two modes of operation is very close. Kurt reminded us that having only Leif on staff and contracting for everything else started as sort of an experiment, and Leif agreed that the system is working. Unanimous approval.
Robin joined the meeting. Sociable chatter followed. 8:00 P.M. Station Report Leif had distributed the station report in advance. Rachel expressed great pleasure at the fact that people are contributing pieces on their own – Emmett Avery on the Gazette; Arthur Hynes on the Food Shelf. Leif is working with Neighbor to Neighbor to make PSAs about “Who Do You Wear a Mask For?” Leif raised the idea of providing small amounts of funds for making small videos. He suggested $150 for a short video. Rachel moved that we approve Leif’s suggested donation of $150 per video. Robin seconded. Unanimous approval. [By an email vote several days later, we raised the price to $200.]
Wiz moved to adjourn. Kurt seconded. Unanimous approval. Meeting adjourned at 8:04. Next meeting July 30.
