Mendocino Coast Media Volunteer Committee, Wednesday August 19
Meeting Minutes
Mendocino Coast Media Volunteer Committee
Wednesday August 19, 2015 6:00 PM
Mendocino TV Studio
303 N. Main Street Suite B
Meeting Called to Order:
Terrence Vaughn called the meeting to order at 6:07
Roll Call:
Present: Derek Hoyle, Terrence Vaughn, Marianne McGee, Jane Vartanian, Mateo Ortiz Absent: Mike Cimolino, Doug Hammerstrom, Chuck Wilcher, Dan Gjerde
Other Attendees:
Rex Gressett, Elisemarie Stuart Haney
Approval of Minutes:
Derrick Hoyle moved, Terrence Vaughn seconded the approval of the July 15, 2015 minutes, motion carried.
Public Comment on Non-agenda items:
Rex Gressett expressed his concerns regarding the political and economic structure of the existing organization that is working to implement re-creating the public access television station. We had a lively public discussion regarding this issue and the Volunteer Committee fully supports Rex’s mission to create a responsible successor agency to operate the PEG franchise in the future.
Conduct of Business:
- Equipment/physical installation update:
- Terry discussed the status of the physical equipment that’s been built. There was trouble with the activation code that required the replacement of the dongle which was finished yesterday afternoon.
- Volunteer/Program Committee membership:
- Elisemarie Stuart Haney was welcomed as a new volunteer on this Committee. she last taught media to intercity Developmentally Disabled kids. She had worked in the computer hardware industry. While putting technology in schools, she became interested in special education and how students can use technology to excel, building confidence and connections; using video production to reach kids and create.
- School Interns are desired and we are working on plans to accomplish this, and would have them sit on this Committee.
- We were going to discuss upcoming expenditures and future budget items but there were no members of the ad hoc committee present so we believe that needs to be brought to the next ad hoc committee meeting.
- Marianne presented a list of non-profit agencies and ask the committee members to peruse the list and choose any of the agencies that they know of or aware of or have any relationships with and then get back to us with contact information.
- We discussed the discovery of over 1000 MCTV archives on the Internet. We now have quite a lot of content available to us.
- Mendocino tv will email copies of the franchise agreement to members of the committee.
- There was a discussion about underwriting and how it differs from advertising.
- An underwriting spot is an announcement made on public broadcasting outlets, especially in the United States, in exchange for funding. These spots usually mention the name of the sponsor , and can resemble traditional television advertisements in commercial broadcasting to a limited extent; however, under the terms of a public broadcaster’s license from the Federal Communications Commission , such spots are prohibited from making any sort of a “call to action” (a phrase that includes making product claims, announcing prices, or providing an incentive to buy a product or service). In the U.S., these restrictions apply to any television or radio station licensed as a non-commercial educational (NCE) stations, and even for non-sponsoring companies and products.
We talked about the idea of lighting up more remote locations for emergency situations and deemed not of immediate need and was tabled for future discussion.
Matters from Committee/Staff:
● Terry thanked Mateo for being here
● Rex thanked Terry for his efforts.
● Terry said he hopes to have a signal next week, it must run solidly for a week and then make an appointment with Comcast to turn it on.
● Jane is concerned about getting back into motels. Terry told the history of Comcast and the motel issue, with them using Channel 3 for HBO in the past. It will have to be investigated in an individual, motel by motel process. We have to identify the issue and then bring it to Comcasts attention.
● Terry will send links from RN TV and get feedback about it to decide if we will cover it or not. It has a great deal of important health information, but also has details on the Oregon Health Plan, which is different than California.
Mendocino Coast Media logo intro 1a 720p30 from Terrence Vaughn on Vimeo.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 7:27.
The next meeting:
Wednesday (third Wednesday since the seemed to work for everyone) September 17 ,2015 at 6:00PM at Mendocino TV.