TOWN OF BEDFORD
BCTV BOARD MEETING MINUTES
October 2, 2008
BEDFORD MEETING ROOM
Present were: Coleen Richardson (Asst. Station Manager), Bill Jennings (Station Manager), Mike Sills, Chairman Bob Thomas, Chris Bandazian (TC Rep), Eugene Mackie and Lauren Horton.
Chairman Thomas opened the meeting at 7 p.m.
OLD BUSINESS – Approval of Minutes from July 24, 2008
Chairman Thomas said can I have a motion to approve.
MOTION made by Mr. Sills to accept the minutes as presented. Seconded by Ms. Horton. Minutes passed (3-0-2) Mr. Mackie & Mr. Bandazian abstained.
Chairman Thomas said we will start with the subcommittee updates. I know Gene has some work going on with the Volunteer Producer of the Year Award and it looks like you added a third award.
Mr. Mackie said if I had another month I would have probably had a fourth. We had talked previously at least the names of the awards and we had agreed upon those. The first being the Doug Pearson Volunteer of the Year Award and then the Rich Beyer Memorial Producer of the Year Award. I have added a third for conversation sake especially if we wanted to get the viewers involved with this, based upon a proposal that I have here getting the viewers involved with the award process. I have also come up with, my thoughts in terms of the Awards Selection committee and what I have proposed is that the Awards Selection committee be compromised of no less than three individuals, the Chairperson of the BCTV Board, the Vice Chairman of the Board and the Town Councilors primary representative on the
board. Any current board member may volunteer to be added to the subcommittee.
Chairman Thomas asked can I ask why you chose those three. Mr. Mackie replied because it is the Chairman’s board really. Chairman Thomas said yes I understand that. Mr. Mackie said Vice Chair is in case you are not here should be involved. I picked not as an outsider, but the Town Council person to get the input from the Town Government, but anybody else would be more than welcomed to be on the committee should they want to. To me, I was trying to build a core group and that seemed to be something that would work.
Ms. Richardson said we already had committees that were set. Mr. Mackie said I am not talking about the subcommittee. Ms. Richardson said why you would have another committee when you already have a subcommittee. Mr. Mackie said because I would think that the first committee would disappear. Ms. Richardson said I guess it would be my understanding that these were the committees that were voted on at the last meeting that everybody volunteered for so Bob was on that one and now you are removing him.
Chairman Thomas said no I am still the Chair, but as long as I am Chair I am still on it. Mr. Mackie said and Mary Lou is on it and she is Vice Chair. Ms. Richardson said right. Mr. Mackie said I am adding a Town Council member. Ms. Richardson said okay, but I guess I do not understand why you have to change the committee. All of the committees were opened to the board for anyone who wanted to participate.
Mr. Mackie said that was in the design of coming up with these. My feeling is this is what my proposal is. If you have a different proposal then you can come up with whatever you would like. Ms. Richardson said I was just curious why the subcommittee was changing. Chairman Thomas said this is just a discussion to get your input. Mr. Mackie said it really did not change we just added.
Ms. Richardson said I guess the one thing that I wanted to mention about the subcommittees is that I thought that the membership had to be less than a quorum in order for them to be just a subcommittee, so when you keep adding members. Like one of them have too many members already. You do not want to have to have it be a posted meeting is my understanding. So a subcommittee if it is less than a quorum of the board does not have to be posted and doesn’t have to be held in public. If you are defining it with more members that is just something to keep in mind.
Mr. Mackie said okay, I guess I can agree with that on a number of things, but I think it is important that we are recognizing people from this Town and now it is an opportunity for anyone on the board to have input to it. Ms. Richardson said absolutely. Mr. Mackie said that is my feeling, if only three people are involved with it, that is fine, but if all the board members say, hey I want to get involved with this because of the importance of the various awards that was a way of doing it. Again this is just my proposal. Again if anyone has any other ideas great.
Mr. Sills asked how many do we have on the board 7 or 8. Chairman Thomas said we have cut it down and we have some unfilled spots. Mr. Sills said at least 7 so that three would not be a quorum. The problem is when you add in the whole rest of the board.
Ms. Richardson said you get into the whole Right To Know Law and whether there is a meeting posted or not. Chairman Thomas said she is talking about the viewership and the way it appears there are six of you it is truly not because Bob Donahue is the School Bd liaison and Bill Dermody is the TC liaison. Ms. Richardson said they are still voting members of the board, so they count. Chairman Thomas said you are right only three of any subcommittee is suppose to be. Ms. Richardson said we have to define who the actual members are and who just observers. Chairman Thomas said it is really the first three on there and there is almost two committees to separate the different events.
Ms. Richardson said you can have them; we just need to post the meetings. Mr. Bandazian said and keep minutes which can be very basic. Chairman Thomas said we are still struggling to make the subcommittee work and adding another subcommittee I am not in favor of it at this particular time, but that is not the whole criteria as to who votes and how it goes that is the after thought. The first thing I would like to make sure we do is understand what each award does. We need the criteria for the award and then Gene you recommended a third award. If I would recommend let’s take the first Doug Pearson Award and go through that and once we understand what each award is and once we agree on that, then we can go back to how we go about implementing them, because I think it would be
self-explanatory if we do that in steps. Let’s start with the Volunteer Award – Doug Pearson.
Mr. Mackie said that was the award we decided upon that would be given to the person determined or deemed to be during the eligibility period the top volunteer at BCTV. I would in that case say a non-staff member so it is strictly volunteer. Staff members would not be eligible for that. The eligible period would be determined by the BCTV Board for any voting whether it is for an academy award or an Emmy. The process is as I drafted and again these are my feelings and certainly input from anyone is welcome. My feeling is that no one knows the BCTV volunteers better than our Station Mgr and Asst. Station Mgr they work so closely with the volunteers that we have here. They work with the volunteers on a daily basis and under the proposal the BCTV Station Mgr and Asst. Mgr would recommend to the
award selection committee, whatever we want to call that group the names of individuals they feel best exemplify volunteerism at BCTV and why they feel that way. Again they certainly may be people that we have never seen on air that are behind the scenes that Board members would not know. Mr. Jennings said that makes sense.
Mr. Mackie said the award subcommittee again whatever we want to call the subcommittee would review the recommendations made by the Station Mgr and the Asst. Station Mgr and then make its determination of the awards recipient. Basically I would think that Bill and Coleen would provide some background information as to Joe Smith or Eileen Smith or it could be two or three people and certainly we hope we get tons of volunteers and many of them are dynamite as most of our volunteers are. See here is a group and now guys this is what we can tell you about them and now make a decision and that is the best that I think you can do in terms of the volunteers.
Ms. Richardson said what defines a top volunteer? Mr. Mackie said whatever you decide it is going to be. Ms. Richardson said I guess it was my understanding and Gene I am not saying anything against what you have proposed, but I am trying to get clarification. It was my understanding that the subcommittees job was to meet and to come up with criteria as to what defined each award so Bill and I can give you input as to who fits into what category. Mr. Mackie said I think that would vary. Ms. Richardson said that is the hard part. Mr. Mackie said I know it is.
Mr. Jennings said you are 100% correct without our input it is difficult. We are here everyday and we know the individuals that are in here playing one type of volunteer or a producer or a talented person. I think you have defined it well. Doug was in front of the camera. There are people just in front of the camera and then we have people who are executive producers and doing the editing and doing the shooting. So the selection that criteria is how I visualize it and it is something that is not simple. Who is in front of the camera acting as the talent, who is not only in front, but behind? When I say behind not only the camera, but behind the scenes. I guess the thing is from my perspective we can say these are the people that we say are the top five and why we took the
top two and why we are recommending this particular individual and then explain why we picked that one particular individual.
Mr. Mackie said I agree with you. I think it is extremely hard to compare apples and oranges. People behind the scenes say an editor who spends hours and hours on shows and you never see that man or women or young person and it is difficult for our viewers to know much about them unless they see the name on a credit. As a board member watching BCTV I may not have even met that person.
Mr. Jennings said I can put a group of people in those two categories right now. I think in terms of them coming up and saying here are the five things, it is easy for us to say this is how I visualize it because you and I will be making the recommendations. Since this is our first pass, we can say this is how we did it and why we put them in the Pearson Award category.
Ms. Richardson said I wanted to get Gene’s feelings because he had come up with these awards, so I wanted to know from him what he thought the Doug Pearson award exemplified and what the Rich Beyer award exemplified. Did that mean the talent in front of the camera, did that mean the producers that organized it or did it mean the person who did the editing and all the work.
Mr. Mackie said in terms of volunteerism, I do not think that I would put people in any one category. You may have some one who can do these entire things editor, videographer in front of the camera, on a board. Someone who can do all these things.
Mr. Jennings said it can be as simplistic as who spends the most time here? Ms. Horton said yes. Mr. Jennings said again as we go through this as we establish different criteria, but I want to keep this very simple.
Mr. Mackie said especially since you do so much that you do on your own. You are doing so many of the shows where you are doing the taping and the editing. I am sure it makes you feel good when you get someone that you can make a phone call and you have an organization that says Bill I need someone to come over here and you call this man or this woman and they are there and they are the ones you can depend upon. We have people like that that you can depend upon. And I know we have people if you said I need someone to get in front of the camera to interview Russ Marcoux or someone you would have someone there. We do not necessarily know them.
Mr. Jennings said I am not disagreeing with you. I actually look at this; again this is the beginning of the process. The continuation for the subcommittee now is here before the board and as we are throwing it out right now you and I are better suited to come up with two or three line items as to why we are putting individuals in these respective categories.
Mr. Mackie said and these things change. I am a voting member of NARAS and every year the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences seems to add new awards, drop awards, whatever seems to be in, but we are voting on them. There are types of music; I do not even know what is in the category any more. These are my thoughts on this.
Mr. Sills said government does a lot more of these things than any other organization. Does anyone have a problem with it being an open nominations system going to you and Coleen so you are not, pressure pointed?
Ms. Richardson said that is what I thought the subcommittee was for because. Chairman Thomas said 99% of the time Bill and Coleen are going nominate the people there, but I do not see why if Joe Smith from Bedford liked this program and wanted to nominate Mike Robinson or Paul Bordeleau or whoever. They should be allowed to make the nomination.
Mr. Sills said we all work together as editors.
Mr. Mackie said there is nothing in here that would prevent a viewer to call Bill or Coleen and say this person has done a great job.
Mr. Sills said something like a form and it is in the paper, pick the forms up.
Mr. Mackie said that is why the last category that I put in here over the past couple of weeks when I have had time to think about this. That is why it says one word your viewers and people in the community would have a lot of input to it.
Mr. Sills said I am thinking while looking at these first three, theoretically someone like me can say I really like the War Hero producer, even thought I do some, I really like that. So it still fits into the first one.
Mr. Mackie asked Mike how do you do that on a volunteer, I do not see how. Mr. Sills said rather than having only Coleen and Bill doing the list of nominees, make it an open thing. Mr. Mackie said I think it can be, but I am not sure how you do it.
Ms. Horton said I think what I heard Coleen say is that she would like a few criteria to guides us on that and it can be like quantitative criteria and quality. So quantity could probably be like Bill said the number of hours spent, maybe number of programs worked on and that gives you the basis of how involved are they. Then in addition to that, there is a qualitative part. Maybe even the learning process, how much did they grow. When people start as volunteers a lot of time they do not know very much but they are learning the camera and you see them at the end of the program that they have worked on and they have skills that they are proud of and you are proud of them too.
Mr. Sills said there are a lot of volunteer awards in environment and in government and if I can get a sample of the application then I will e-mail it to Gene and he can see what you think. What it does it it keeps it open and no one is pressured.
Mr. Mackie said I am certainly not disagreeing, but I just find that that could be easier to do in terms of the producer award because people are watching programming and they see something. They may say and I will use the show by Bill and Coleen and if it was done by a volunteer. They did one on a boat in Portsmouth and I had never been out on a harbor tour and after I watched that and when it was done, I wanted to be on that boat, I wished that I had been on the boat with them and I want to go do that. When you get shows like Gary Winsel and all of a sudden you are underwater and this is exciting and this is the type of thing that I get excited about with PEG access that you are seeing things that you would not see on PBS and God forbid any other stations. That is what we have to
offer.
Mr. Sills said we are like SAG we are like the actors and actresses in that regard. You are here, I am here and other people are, for that first one. It is just a way to open it up and there is no argument that a small group decided. Maybe no one would nominate anybody.
Mr. Mackie said I just do not know how that would work. I guess if a wife says my husband is over there 10 nights a week. Mr. Sills said I never thought of that. Mr. Mackie said it is up to the Bd to decide what it wants to do. There is a debate on tonight and I want to get home and see that. Mr. Sills said we can start a judge Judy after that.
Chairman Thomas said I agree with Mike that it should be an open nomination. You are right we may not get many, but we should allow the different people in Town to nominate.
Mr. Jennings said here is my reservation about that. My reservation is anything that is going to put administrative work on the limited staff that we have here right now to count votes and tally up is not something that I would like to see happen.
Chairman Thomas said we are not saying they are voting for it. Mr. Jennings said you are asking for their input? Chairman Thomas said we are asking if they would like to nominate. We will list the nominations and we say we have 12 names. Coleen what do you think about these 12 names and we go through each. I am not saying we are tallying votes. We do not have an online survey yet, which is like the third award. I am saying that we advertise in the two newspapers and online saying we are accepting applications from Oct 4 to Oct 10, here is the criteria and get your votes in by Oct 10th. Ms. Richardson said we do not have criteria because no one has given us that yet. Chairman Thomas said I knew you were going to say that. Ms. Richardson said that
is my issue because if you do not have any criteria it is just very subjective, so I will come up with 5 names and Bill will come up with 5 names and we will be going back and forth.
Chairman Thomas said we will get to the criteria next. I think it should be open to anyone and anyone and their grandmother want to nominate. The chance of someone nominating from the outside and you not knowing who they are, I guess they can be nominated, but they are not going to win. I do not see it to be that much of a burden. We put out a list and grandmother calls up because her grandson did a good job and wants to get him an award.
Mr. Bandazian said along with Gene’s line of thinking, the only problem with that is that the public would not know who is behind the camera, who is editing and so forth. They would have some input, but it would be on a limited knowledge base.
Mr. Sills said it would be like SAG all the actors and actresses. Everyone would know the volunteer, but there are other producers and other volunteers that liked the way the person did it, theoretically.
Ms. Horton said is that the Viewers Choice is that what we are talking about? Chairman Thomas said no we have not gotten to that one yet.
Mr. Jennings said that is probably why I got a head of myself in terms of tally because that third one I am not totally excited about because you do need a tally. Mr. Mackie agreed you do.
Chairman Thomas said my personal feeling is that I would like to put a little of Doug Pearson in this his personality and Richie Beyer in the award criteria and that is part of it. I kind of think they are backwards because Richie Beyer I think more of a volunteer and single thing and Doug was kind of a do it all. Did he produce? Mr. Jennings said no I lined everything up for him. I did the same thing for Richie. Doug goes out. They are really both pretty much the same, they are both excellent.
Chairman Thomas said when I think of Doug Pearson, I think of a guy, what does BCTV need, we need to raise money so he set up Friends of BCTV. You need a sports award he got Richie Beyer and he got it. He got anything that BCTV needed to get it going. Whatever we needed he seemed to spearhead that. Mr. Mackie said as far as I am concerned he is Mr. Volunteer.
Mr. Jennings said they both parallel one another. Chairman Thomas said absolutely and from that aspect it is pretty wide open. Richie I think he was fantastic on one thing and did a one thing great and that was promoting youth sports and the youth of our Town and he kept George in line.
Mr. Mackie said I think it is important because Bedford has an ever changing population and it might be good for Bill or Bob who are very familiar with Richie to tell the viewing audience a little about him because a lot of people new to Town would not know who Rich Beyer is and what he meant to BCTV and what he meant to local sports. Both of you guys worked closely with him.
Mr. Jennings said we can do our 5 minute promo that we did before. Mr. Mackie said they also have the scholarship thing that is going on too, I always like to hear what Rich did because he is the type of person who made me want to get involved with BCTV.
Chairman Thomas said the one thing I remember about Richie and I am sure it is well known, but Richie did anything that it took for the youth of this Town. When he was coaching Little League and they went to Williamsport. A lot of the people had jobs and his boss would not let him go and he said tough I am going, it cost him his job to do that. When I think of Rich Beyer I think of the sacrifice he made for the kids of this Town. How many people would give up their well paying job to volunteer coach for 8 weeks it turned out to be and he did that. That was before they got to Williamsport it was even before they went to Bristol. I cannot think of anyone that would do that for the youth of this Town today or any day and I think that is what most summarized what Rich would do for this. Let
alone everyday at 8 a.m. in the morning when I was chairman of the Bedford Basketball League he would volunteer to referee the High School league and not just when his kids were there, but for about 10 years after his kids were in that league he kept doing that. Both him and George in the morning and that was a tough group to referee a bunch of high school kids who wanted to put football pads on and he did that all the time. Those are the things that I think when I think about Richie.
Mr. Jennings said we can talk about the criteria, but I can put them into two classes specifically. Rich was okay Rich this is what we have lined up, great that is supper and he would research the project. If I called up Doug, Doug had a lot of versatility and was available and would do a lot of research, get behind the scenes, he would come in and he was phenomenal. When we get to that quantity aspect, neither one of these guys and we have other people that we can call a third category were really behind the scenes. We are talking about creative input with regards to why don’t we do this, why don’t we set this camera up, we have people like that. We have several production teams here. I do not want to mention any names, but we can name an award after those guys. There
is a lot of close tight parallel between Richie and Doug right now and we are trying to come up with two awards.
Ms. Horton said one award is about volunteering and involvement and the other is about the programming so that is the different.
Mr. Mackie said that to me makes the difference. I doubt that this will happen, at least not right away. There is no reason why someone cannot be a candidate for both awards. They are a tremendous volunteer and they produce a great show. There are a lot of volunteers that need to be recognized that and we know that and we have been trying over the years to come up with something.
Mr. Jennings said it is like when I was the volunteer of the year, back in 19 something. We had one award. My vision of what we have on Volunteer Evening is to recognize everybody and then there is always one that stands above. Something to consider is, rather than giving out several plaques there is always one individual that stands above and I think we wanted to do something for Rich and I know we said something about Doug. Do you know as we are opening discussing this and I have not discussed this since we were together before, is we may want to consider that person who is up there? There does not have to be a second, third or fourth. It is not as if we have the volume of volunteers here that says great three is going to be good so we keep the rest of them. We have good
people that qualify. I guess I look at it is not necessarily the quantity, but the quality that we have. As we continue to evolve, hopefully maybe we go to a second award or a third award. There are certificates of achievement for those that participate on a regular basis and then there is that one major award rather than looking at three different awards.
Mr. Mackie said as we talked about this a few months ago this was a proposal. This is something we can decide upon. We need something to bounce off of if we delay one award or we say there is one award that is fine. My thought was how do you choose, I have worked behind the scenes and I have worked in front of the camera. The same thing in the recording industry. I have also always felt that it is nice when we went from awards from the Grammys and Emmys to the Viewer’s Choice Awards and the People’s Choice Awards were all of a sudden the people who buy theater tickets and watch TV shows have a vote where they do not have for anyone running for an Emmy or a Grammy. That is why I thought another way of getting volunteers is to say, hey the people in the Town who are watching the shows can
say that I should be recognized and a lot of these kids that we have from the high school as they get more involved with programming it is a good way to get them involved.
Chairman Thomas said I have a suggestion, lets not talk about the third award, but the two awards, I suggest that we make the Doug Pearson Volunteer of the Year Award and develop a criteria for that. The Richie Beyer Award, I think you take out the producer all together and say it is the Richie Beyer Memorial Award and it can go to anyone for anything that we would want or we can flip them around.
Mr. Mackie said how do you find criteria for that one?
Chairman Thomas said it is very simple it is people who build the sets who do things and it is a little more broader category or it could be a Phil Bruno or a Paul Bordeleau because we thought this person is here, but they were here, so this year we make it this, the next year it may be the person who donated the sets and did all the stuff in that area. We always have a volunteer top award and we have a second one that is for something different. In some years it could also be the runner up type of thing.
Mr. Jennings said again when you get back to the quantity. When you look at volunteers it is not one that is fleeting, but one that is continuous and you bring Paul up as an example the criteria is he has produced the most shows. He was here the most consistently. I am just throwing Paul out as an example. This sounds like a committee meeting, but it is good we are not throwing it out.
Chairman Thomas said I think if we narrow it down we can easily come up with some criteria especially based on the qualities of Richie and Doug and put that into the criteria. We have not given this award since 2005 that was the last time we gave the award. Mr. Jennings said that was to Richie and Doug.
Chairman Thomas said I am quite certain we can find at least two people since 2005 that deserve these awards and I can think of some of the shows Bill Greiner did on fishing stuff which was cool. I hate fishing, but I liked watching it. Monarchs Hockey etc. I think there is a ton of lists for this year and for years to come; I think we will still have volunteers. I think finding two volunteers is simple and hopefully this will be an incentive. I would suggest making the Rich Beyer Memorial Award more general and making the Doug Pearson more of the Volunteer of the Year the top award. Then the subcommittee can develop a committee on that. The awards selection committee I think is a little over kill since we do have a subcommittee set-up and basically it would be you me and Mary Lou
any way.
Mr. Mackie said I gathered that Mike is interested in some input as well.
Chairman Thomas said Mike is going to give us some input from there the three of us will iron out the rest of the criteria and figure that out.
Ms. Horton said can I make a comment on the third award. I like the idea of the feedback that it would generate so you would be able to hear what the people out there are watching and what do they like. There are online surveys. Chairman Thomas said we are working on it. Ms. Horton said that might be the way to facilitate if you ever did want to do that award just to make it automatic online.
Chairman Thomas said my personal opinion is once we get the online polling working that would be a good idea to try something like that, but it is premature at this point to do that. We are talking about doing online survey which we will grow to. We were hoping to have it in by now, but with the whole room aspect and budget issues we were not going to spend a thousand dollars to figure out at this time when we can wait another month.
Mr. Jennings said I do not think Lauren is aware of what has been going on behind the scenes here with the online survey. Chairman Thomas said we will be doing the online survey and once we get that up and going. To start off with an award right now without having a way of gather it.
Ms. Horton said that is probably the objective of that award. Let’s hear from the people. Chairman Thomas said that does sound good when we get that polling working. Mr. Mackie asked is that a month away, is that what I heard you say. Mr. Jennings said no. Mr. Mackie said that is what I heard and we should talk about it if it is a month away. Chairman Thomas said we will get into the renovations and how we had to make the renovations happen when we get to that point. It should have been a month away, but we have pushed it off.
Ms. Horton said I think a feedback mechanism whether it is an award or not it is a way of people being able to say, I really liked that program or I want to see more of this and that is how you can structure that pole.
Chairman Thomas said once we have the polling capabilities that are a good thing to bring up at that point, but it is to premature right now.
Mr. Jennings said I would like to make a recommendation and as we talk about the polling and the room renovations that we push this recognition meeting to the beginning of the New Year. We just have too much going on in here and too much going on with the election and too much with what we do with the budget and what we need to do meeting the objectives established by the Town Council for budgets for all the Town Departments. January is probably a better time or maybe February, whatever it may be, but at least that will give us time to put the polling software possibly and it will give you an opportunity to brief the board Bob on the whole process so they are not under the impression that it is a Nielsen rating kind of thing.
Chairman Thomas said I understand that this awards thing is a year away it is not a month away. That would be one of the last things that we want on the poling because we want basic questions answered first and understand how it is done and how you can tell if grandma Thomas is writing in 500 times for me to win something. We have a lot to understand about whole polling purposes prior to us doing something like this and there is a whole data base gathering thing that I would like to work on that would make this really mean something rather than just have one person vote 500 times. There is a way of tracking it, but we have to figure all of that out.
Ms. Richardson said does anyone have an objection to pushing it out because if the room is going to be in the middle of renovations we do not know what schedule that will be. Mr. Mackie said I do not see any problem. There was no time frame on here.
Chairman Thomas said the recommendation was that we move the volunteer recognition award from November to some time to be determined later January or February.
Mr. Mackie said have we decided it is going to be one award now or two awards. I do not think anyone has voted on that. Mr. Jennings said Mike said move it to the spring so there is no snow so we do not wipe out a whole night. Mr. Mackie said I like that idea and I hope the budget process is over by then and then we should still think about the producer vs. volunteer. I still like both ideas.
MOTION made by Chairman Thomas to have two awards the Doug Pearson Volunteer Award and the Rich Beyer Memorial Award. The three person subcommittee develop a criteria based on the personalities of each individual and what present that criteria to Coleen and Bill and that we publish it for open nominations through advertising in the paper and the subcommittee will review those nominations and select a winner. Seconded by Mr. Sills.
Mr. Mackie said I know you and Bill are very close to Rich as far as working with him. I knew him strictly from watching him on BCTV and I do not know all of the characteristics that I would have to think about in terms of the type of person he is. He certainly came across as a very unique and generous individual, but beyond that. I do not know. Chris Bandazian you eventually will vote on this and I do not know how well you knew Rich. Mr. Bandazian said I did not know Rich at all. Mr. Mackie said that is what is the problem. Chairman Thomas said I do not understand what the problem is. Mr. Mackie said we have to come up with criteria based upon. Chairman Thomas said that would be the subcommittee. Mr. Mackie said I do not know how as a member of that
subcommittee I do not know him enough to be able to do that. Do you see what I mean? I do not know Rich background.
Ms. Horton said there are two reasons for the awards one is to honor the person and the other one is to honor the volunteer. So you have already defined in here maybe that will change, but the top one is involvement and time and the other one is about programming.
Ms. Richardson said it is kind of taking what you said Gene, but the subcommittee will fine tune it a little bit to give Bill and I a little guideline as to how to help give you some names. That is all that I was asking for. It was not that I was saying anything about that I was asking for a little bit more input.
Mr. Jennings said I can put criteria together as soon as this meeting is oven and we adjourn.
Mr. Mackie said certainly while being on that committee would love you input. Ms. Richardson said maybe Bill and I should be part of the subcommittee meeting and help with that finalizing the criteria.
Ms. Horton said we are trying to off load you. Ms. Richardson said that is what I was hoping. Chairman Thomas said by all means you will be part of that. We will have a subcommittee meeting with you instead of having you review it and getting back to us.
MOTION made by Chairman Thomas making it two awards the Doug Pearson Volunteer of the Year Award and the Rich Beyer Memorial Award and we are going to set the criteria at a subcommittee meeting of which the subcommittee will determine with the help of Coleen and Bill a criteria for each award and solicit nominations from the general public and from the Station Manager and Asst. Station Manager of which the subcommittee will determine the winner on and this will be presented at the Volunteer Recognition Night at a date to be determine. Seconded by Mr. Sills. Vote taken – all in favor. Motion passes 5-0.
Chairman Thomas said the Annual Viewship award would be very good for next year when we have the polling. We will bring that up at that point. We actually took care of two things on that vote, one to have the Volunteer Recognition Night moved to Jan or Feb to be determined.
Chairman Thomas said the next item on the agenda is the Renovations of the Media Room Studio, this room and as you all know from an e-mail that I sent we had a successful presentation with the Town Council and I think Chris and the whole Town Council of their support of the ideas. We ran into a little bit of a problem with the funding on how we wanted to do it. There are some new ordinances on how to move money that is in a fund that we have, so the details of that will be worked out by the next Town Council meeting and once the enterprise funds are freed up we will move forward with that and select a vendor. Basically everything is on hold until we figure out how to property fund it to the Town Council satisfaction.
Mr. Bandazarian said basically there has to be an appropriation before you can spend the money.
Chairman Thomas said we have the money, but it is about getting the approvals and doing things through the proper channels. Hopefully that will get taken care of at the next Town Council meeting and after that we will start moving forward and we will select a vendor. We have three vendors who have put together proposals and we will make a selection and put together a time frame for construction at that point.
Chairman Thomas said that is that and one item that I did not have on the Agenda was the Olde Towne Day, but a quick summary Gene as you were the emcee.
Mr. Mackie said I was in the corner, but Bill and Coleen were out front.
Mr. Jennings said I would strongly recommend to everyone in the community that they turn on channel 16 and see a woman that they may or may not recognize. Coleen made her day as a host and did an outstanding job and we interviewed a number of non-profit organizations and worked with a lot of the departments in Town and it was a great day. It was very successful. Coleen why don’t you talk about it. It is a 30 minute program that she edited and she did an outstanding job.
Ms. Richardson said it was a great day and it was well attended and Gene did a great job emceeing the event and Bill and I walked around and talked to a lot of people and we made a nice half hour show of it. If you were not at Olde Towne Day and did not get to enjoy it, you can watch the show and hopefully attend next year. There was a lot of people.
Mr. Mackie said it is important for the people of Bedford get this community feeling that they want by a center of the Town to get involved with the BOTD. It was a wonderful day. Things worked out good. Unfortunately some organizations backed out on Jane. Jane O’Brien did one heck of a job. To put that together and to see what she was going through the days before and that morning, she did a great job. We need more people in there to see and learn about Bedford and sample the restaurants food and see the different organizations.
Mr. Jennings said we tried not to time date it so this particular show that was done so that organizations that are not only nonprofit those that were there selling their wares. Not that we went into each one of the businesses, but we did talk to several and hopefully vendors will see what they can do to continue to the support of the BOTD. Certainly the nonprofit organizations, the Men’s Club is always there. The Educational Farm again they were there and it was there to help promote Bedford Community Television. It is always nice when you walk through the crowd and you hear the kids say “hey there is BCTV”. We had the kids on as well so people are aware of us and more importantly hopefully with this piece that we did that people are more aware of the fun you can have at
BOTD and all the nonprofit organizations that are out there that you enjoy.
Mr. Mackie said I think it is a shame that they made the Town Council’s life so easy this year with the premade ice cream sundae. Mr. Jennings said the last several years. Mr. Mackie said I didn’t get over there. I remember when they had to scoop ice cream and they had sauce and ice cream. Mr. Jennings said I think the only one left from the old guard where they would scoop was Mike Scanlon.
Mr. Mackie said that was a fun area. Another great place to go meet your Town Councilors and go over and talk to them. They were there and you guys were answering questions and meeting your residents.
Mr. Bandazian said it was a strawberry or chocolate line of conversation.
Chairman Thomas said did you get the consensus of the Town? Mr. Bandazian said it was a pretty fast pace. It was a beautiful day.
Chairman Thomas asked so new business, Bill your Manager’s Report.
Mr. Jennings said I will ask if you have any questions and then I can go into a couple of things. I have to start off by commending both the Republican and Democratic chairs for the Town of Bedford for working with Coleen and I for making it a pleasure to work with the candidates that were running for State and National offices. We have had well over if you take a look at the list that you were sent. You can see how many we had in both parties who were equally represented. Every candidate was offered an opportunity for a 30 minute show and I cannot thank the Board enough for having that policy that we have so it is pretty close to being perfect. Again for those at home the staff here can only participate in a maximum of 30 minutes in an interview type show. What that has done is helped
create volunteer production groups where they are now aware anything above what we did for the primaries and for the general election they are now doing on their own. It was a pleasure the other day to see a gentleman who is running for Congress with a State Rep behind the video switch and another State Rep doing the graphics and another gentleman doing the camera, which was pretty good. The Republican chair in the editing room #3 working on an IMAC editing it himself. This has evolved over time, but we have also gotten enough recognition that we happened to mention to the other communities at one of our NHCCM which is our State Bd the process that we were using and a lot of people said why I didn’t think about it. So we think this is something that will eventually be adopted by other Towns and Cities where you, or we as the station as we try to manage our time here as the staff are not taking individual calls. The other thing that has made it
good for us, although we have not received any calls, is when we revised our policy last year or a couple of years ago that no longer are 25 signatures required if someone wants to bring something in. Certainly not if it is commercial based, but if it is on a candidate and all you need to have is one individual endorse it. This has made our life so much easier. They all ask if we come up with this can you endorse it, so it is great. So people in the community should be aware of that as well. Certainly what a pleasure it was and everyone jumped in line when we had Gov. John Lynch and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the studio at the same time as they were crisscrossing and a lot of pictures were taken. When we talked 3-4 years ago and our goals and objectives and the long-term strategy for the station to bring in some of the more visible politicians, not that our local State Reps are not powerful very popular people, but when Carol Shea-Porter an
the Governor and John Sununu are here it all happens because of the Democratic and Republic Chair, they made it happen. When you are looking at volunteers, they are volunteering for a purpose, but they are in here and they are busting their buns doing it and we are very happy about it. Also the Town, because of some of the things that we have done. Russ is excellent in doing what I call the Reader’s Digest update which is the Town Managers update which a lot of people like and that is taking what is going on in Town and netting it out in a hour with Doug Pearson in terms of what is going on and we have worked with the Dept of Public Works and the Election Procedures with the Moderator and the Town Clerk, again that is all in the report. Of course everyone just recently got their valuation updates and if you watched BCTV we had a representative from the Dept of Revenue as well as Bill Ingalls our Town Assessor talking about and educating people on how
the process is done. Then Bill did another show which prepared folks for the valuation and also talked about the formulas that were used and how he came up with the new assessed values. What can I say about Channel 22, whether you realize it or not we do between 10-13 live broadcasts each month? We did lose three of our college kids who went back to school and we hired 3 more. Two are actually out of Bedford High School and one adult and we are probably looking at another adult to use. It has been fun. We have been busy. There is a lot of editing. You have been looking at some of the other shows that we have been working on a little bit different from the political scene, but refreshing for us. It has been exciting. Thank you again. We got the new cameras in the SAU. We are kind of resetting things down there, but that should be off and running. Yes we are putting in a monitor similar to what we have here,
actually it is better it is an LCD because they wanted to see when they went on live as well. That is the net of it unless there are any specifics. I did that really for the public and I have a microphone.
Chairman Thomas asked Coleen and on Financial?
Ms. Richardson replied we are good. Does anyone have any questions?
Chairman Thomas said the meeting date for our schedule is January 8, 2009 at 7 p.m. Prior to use adjourning I would like to quickly go through our subcommittees and the subcommittee meetings are to not only meet individually.
Ms. Richardson said before you continue on can we go through the dates. We have January 8, 2009 as long as the room is available. Ms. Horton said she may be traveling on that date, but that is only me. Ms. Richardson said last year we did not meet until January 24th because of people’s schedule. January 15th should be booked so we can try January 22nd if that is better. Mr. Mackie said that would be better for me. Ms. Richardson said so should we tentatively say January 22nd. Chairman Thomas said January 22, 2009 it is the day before I go to Florida so I am here. Ms. Richardson said I will see if the room is available. We should be reserved in the calendar for the first Thursday, but since we are changing I will confirm. For April it should be April 2nd which is the first Thursday and the next problem will be July because the first Thursday is July 2nd, so I do not know if you want to push to July 9th or later in the month? Mr. Mackie said it is tougher around the 4th of
July. Ms. Richardson said the only date that month that probably is not available is July 16th. I am basing that on the third Thursday already being reserved. Chairman Thomas said July 2nd would be hard because July 4th is on a Saturday. So you are saying July 9th or July 24th? Ms. Richardson said whatever the Board decides. So everyone is good with July 9th. Okay for the first Thursday in October it would the 1st? Chairman Thomas said that looks good. Ms. Richardson said I will reserve them with the Town and as long as no conflicts those will be the dates.
Chairman Thomas said the subcommittee meetings are not only for us to do work outside of this without the bounds of keeping minutes and getting stuff done, but to also have your resource of Coleen or Bill if they need something like on the political coverage so you didn’t need Mike or myself. If you did we could be a resource for those things. My quick update on the training we have talked about what we have done with the Town meeting room and the web survey is another thing that has just gotten postponed due to the cost and the time involved with what is going on. I will update you in the next month or so on both those items. Gene just updated us on the awards. Mike do you have anything to add on viewership?
Mr. Sills said we tried the concept of doing library functions with the kids and their reading program which was Australia, one with live animals, one with the kids making floats and their parents and then we had a Finale with awards, but it had two extremely good entertainers and I tried to do everything I could to get every ones kid in back and forth and the librarians are looking over the disc now and you can see 10 seconds and 20 seconds there and I would be happy to patch it together so you can put it on your LCD in the library. I am going to get one of those somewhere if that is the last thing I do and that will be a BCTV trailer. That was my viewership concept from a year ago, but they were very appreciative of covering their event. I think I will permanently volunteer for the library.
Chairman Thomas said Mary Lou e-mailed me it is their anniversary and they went away. She said she would start her community involvement at the end of the month because she did not want to do much during the summer because there is no community in Bedford over the summer.
Ms. Richardson said Mary Lou did ask me to share with the board a few of her concepts her ideas of community involvement. She is planning on getting some key members of different organizations in Town like the PTG, maybe someone from the school. She was thinking of a PR Person and what she wants to do is get a subcommittee of their own that would then maybe be PR to recruit different volunteers for different types of events. It sounded more like a networking thing a committee that could network within people that they know so it can keep spreading out. That is what she is trying to do is recruiting of certain key people and she thinks she will be able to do that in October.
Chairman Thomas said I summarized hers way to much. Thanks Coleen. Okay Chris do you have anything? Mr. Bandazian said no.
Chairman Thomas said Gene anything else? Lauren do you have anything. Ms. Horton said no
Chairman Thomas said based on that can I have a motion to adjourn.
MOTION made by Mr. Sills to adjourn. Seconded by Ms. Horton.
Vote taken – all in favor.
Meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m.
Submitted by Jane O’Brien
#24295
| 
