HCTV Annual Meeting 2013
Present, Board members:
Steven Freihofner, President
Jon Lussier, Vice President
David Mitchell, Secretary
Kurt Bos, Treasurer
John Klee, Member At Large
Employees:
Leif Goldberg
Robin Grant
Also attending:
Nora Doyel-Burr, Hardwick Gazette
8 Members being present, the meeting is called to order at 6:35 PM by President Steven Freihofner.
Election of Officers:
The officers whose terms are ending: Kurt Bos, John Klee and Jon Lussier are ending their second term at this meeting.
Jon says that there are a couple people interested in being on the board and he proposes to step down as official board member to be replaced by someone new, but that he’d still come to meetings and support the station. He’d like to be involved in fundraising. Jon made it clear that he is still willing to serve on the board. John Klee says he feels the same
David asks about term limits and Lief says there are NO term limits in the most recent revision of bylaws he had found.
John Klee says he feels the same as Jon regarding serving on the board.
Steven says that we changed the numbers of directors at, he believes, the 2010 meeting, from 7 to 5. Jon says we did that to make it easier to get a quorum.
Steven asks the board about re-expanding. Leif points out that none of the new members meet the requirements for Education of Government. David Mitchell meets the requirement for education, but Steven is no longer the Government rep since he has left the Woodbury Select Board.
Kurt asks about the quorum requirements. Steven says the quorum for the HCTV Annual Meeting has to be seven “Members”, which is anyone from our service territory. Steven says he doesn’t recall any reduction of quorum numbers for regular board meeting. Kurt says he likes having ‘fresh meat.’ David says, the more the merrier. Jon likes having new perspectives.
Steven says this seems a good time to increase the board numbers.
Robin asks if there was a requirement in the bylaws for board members to be present in order to be elected. Leif says there is not. Steven says that he missed one Town Meeting and was elected to three different positions, so he doesn’t believe there is a state-wide requirement.
Nancy Kellogg arrives at 6:52 PM
Motion to amend the bylaws:
David moves to increase the board of directors from 5 to 7 members.
Kurt seconds.
Vote is unanimous.
Steven says there are three terms up and two more positions to fill now. The terms were staggered so that not everyone was up at the same time. The idea was to have three expire in one year, and two in the next. So now, with seven members, it would be 4 in one year and three in the next. So one of the new directors would be one year, the rest for two years.
Jon moves that of the two new directors, one shall be for one year initially and two years thereafter, and the other for two years.
David seconds.
Vote unanimous
David nominates Jon Lussier, John Klee and Kurt Bos to the HCTV board of Directors for a term of two years.
Jon moves to accept the slate of nominees.
Robin seconds.
Vote unanimous.
Two new directors, one for one year and one for two.
Jon Lussier nominates Nancy Kellog to the HCTV board of Directors for a term of one year.
7 PM
Robin moves to accept nancy Kellogg as a Board of Directors for the term on one year.
David seconds.
Vote unanimous.
Nominations for new position of two year term.
Discussion ensues regarding the need for a Government Rep.
Steven says he could step down, have Monty Shatney fill the Government slot and elect Rachel Kane as the open spot.
Lief says she’s been a volunteer at the station for many years, runs Perennial Pleasures, member of the East Hardwick Grange, worked the Town Meeting. Nancy says she’s a member of many local organizations.
Jon points out that since Monty isn’t here and we aren’t sure about his current status of being a board member that we could nominate Rachel, which we know she wants to do, for the 2 years slot, then, at a future meeting, a board member could resign, the board can appoint Monty Shatney. Robin mentions that Hardwick hasn’t had a rep on the board for years, so if Monty is no longer interested, then we could look to Hardwick for a member.
Jon nominates Rachel Kane for the open two-year term of the HCTV Board of Directors.
7:15 PM
Robin moves to elect Rachel Kane to fill the seventh director position for a two year term.
Kurt seconds.
Vote unanimous
Meeting Minutes:
Steven Freihofner reads the minutes from the 2012 Annual Meeting.
Jon points out that officers were elected at the Annual Meeting, not at the following board meeting.
Robin moves to accept the minutes as read, David seconds.
No discussion.
Vote unanimous.
Election of Officers, all terms are for one year:
Jon nominates Steven Freihofner as President.
Leif asks what happens if Steven were to resign. Steven says the board would have to nominate a successor and the VP would run the meeting until then.
Vote to accept was unanimous.
John Klee nominated as Vice President by Jon Lussier.
Vote to accept was unanimous.
Jon nominates Dave Mitchell as Secretary.
Vote to accept was unanimous.
Jon nominates Kurt Bos as Treasurer.
Vote to accept was unanimous.
Station Report:
Sponsorships have slowed tremendously. We shot 4 baseball games and aired one, with two sponsors.
We have not had sponsors for non-sports shows. In previous years we had sponsors for the Spring Festival, but not this year. And there had been discussion of sponsors for other events, such as select board and other meetings. Sterling College has expressed an interest in sponsoring HCTV to record events there. Leif says that he received a call from someone asking if we needed sponsors for the Hardwick Electric meetings. Jon says that getting sponsors for Select Board meetings might cause problems with the town appropriations.
Jon says the budget numbers look good like last year. Lief says we do have the Capital Equipment fund, and says that with increased local programming on our website (through Vimeo) we are a Community ACCESS station, more than just Cable subscribers. We can now access all of the households that have internet, more than just the folks that get cable. Leif says we could look at increasing our town appropriations. We are seeing more and more viewers. Jon says that when we started streaming the basketball games that we could see the viewer count rise throughout the year. We had viewers from Iceland, Italy, Texas, Florida, etc.
Steven recalls his first meeting with a couple hundred cable subscribers and how internet access was some far-off future thing, and here we are now adding almost all locally produced programming online for only $60 a year! It’s a new world!
Robin points out that both Woodbury and Hardwick appropriations really should not be raised this year, as both towns have reported huge tax increases already.
Steven says that compared to last year, the balance sheet has improved, due to the fundraisers and equipment. Numbers look good and operations have been phenomenal. Lief and Robin are keeping their work hours as minimal as possible, we have a good operation and money in the bank.
Robin says that the last time we received a subscriber report was 435, and Comcast refuses to update that number so we don’t know how many subscribers we have today, but at that time our quarterly checks were about $3800, and today, they are over $6000 (Capital and Operating combined). Jon Lussier says his cable bills haven’t gone up drastically in that time, so it is assumed that Comcast has more subscribers than in the past.
Next Board of Directors Meeting will be scheduled for October, date not set yet.
No further business.
David moves to adjourn, Jon seconds.
No Discussion.
Meeting adjourned at 7:55 PM