ECAT Board Meeting - November 28, 2007

Easthampton Community Access Television
Board Meeting November 28, 2007
All members present
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1.The contract between the station and the City was reviewed with lawyer’s changes and additions. Greg will now send it on to the Mayor for review. Hopefully by next month’s meeting we will have his revisions in hand in order to make a final draft and submit it for signing.
2.Board discussed the possibility of the station slowing down some of it’s outreach to focus more on real estate searching, preparing all materials for the move, digitizing tape library, and a myriad of details like insurance, non profit paperwork for employee contracts, “big picture” plan for station’s future, budget for upcoming year, etc. etc.
Board decided to see where the progress of City contract and real estate search is by next meeting in order to decide when to slow station’s outreach activities. December workshop series will still go on as planned. A decision can be made then about when station will start prepping for move.
1.The van “mobile unit” development will be put off until after everything is settled at the new location. Greg was told that it will need an exhaust manifold. Board suggested Greg get a quote to bring to next meeting, but that any repairs or additions should be put on hold, for the most part. Van will also be helpful for the move, so we shouldn’t add any racks to the inside.
2.A request for board membership from a community member was submitted to the board from the mayor. Since the mayor has one member that he can appoint, the board decided to send the request back to the mayor for consideration to use this community member as his appointed board member. If the mayor does not wish to do this, the Board will have a vote to take on the community member as one of the community board seats.
3.Employment contracts with the city expire in January. Greg and Brian will formulate rough drafts to look at at the next meeting, for contracts to be signed between them and the new nonprofit organization. Nancy will look into insurance and comp. options that other non profits use. If the non-profit contracts cannot be finalized at the next meeting, we will ask for a one month extension to the city contracts.
4.Brian spoke about the new wave of municipal wireless systems being installed around the country. In the future, it may be a good way to be viable to the community by providing wireless to the downtown area and /or schools, and meeting our true goal of complete technology access, and operation as a telecommunications center for the town.
5.Jennifer Delozier officially resigned from the Board, after six and a half years of serving the ECAT station BOD. Thank you, Jennifer, for all of your time and energy! We will miss you.



6.Nancy mentioned hiring a part time administrative/financial assistant in the near future to keep track of all paperwork and finances for the new organization. This was agreed to be a great idea by all members; no official timetable or hiring process was set up.
7.A discussion was held about meeting community needs and wants for programming and community events. Nancy mentioned putting an additional survey into the town census mailer that goes out in January; action would need to be immediate to get something included. The option of putting a cut-out survey in the Gazette or Summit was also discussed. However, the station wouldn’t be able to immediately fulfill any needs that the survey response shows, so it may not be the right time to do this. As so much is transitioning. At the same time, it may be good to know what the town wants as we set up the “big picture” of the station. It was decided not to take action right now on this, but that the Gazette/Summit survey is a good idea in the future, possibly in a few months time.
The van mobile unit will increase involvement in the future because equipment can easily be brought to events. We have spoken about a new outreach position that may be perfect for this kind of work outreach and community involvement increase, as well. Membership drives, in addition to advertising the possibility of using the station as a fiscal sponsor for grants can also be advertised to the broader community.
Becca is going to work on getting already-made video work and video art on the station, by connecting with the arts community in town. Any video producers and/or video artists in town, please contact Rebecca at r_w_rideout@hotmail.com for inclusion in a series of local video work on Channel 5.

Next meeting: Date not decided yet, in December, TBA.

We will bring all documents, bylaws, and contracts created and compile all dates on a master calendar.

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RWR