Minutes of Meeting 10-3-05

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When to start meeting - only three people were present at 6:30. We had previously agreed that meetings started on time so we started.

Eventually present: Angel, Jennifer Schmitt, Ann Cowan, Andrew Ott, Buz Owen, Birgit Warner, Jim Barabas.

Angel will chair meeting on 17th - AnnC can't make that meeting. Buz agreed to take minutes for this meeting and the next.

Latecomers arrived and the subject of changing the start time of the meeting was discussed but nothing was resolved.

Positions:

Ann C is new Facilitator per last meeting. Jim B is new EP.

Renato is being hired by CCTV for a staff position - this may mean he is more available as technical director - or not - see "burnout" topic later...

Andrew is very busy with his new job and is willing to give up news director title if someone wants to take it over. Things Andrew has in progress - he may still be able to get his friend Roberta Sachs to talk to us (or teach a course - I forget which). Intern is likely not going to happen this semester.

CCTV is closed next monday for Columbus day. Next meeting will be at Harvest's members meeting room - AnnC is a member. [Update - maybe I got this wrong. It's going to be in the bank.]

Segment ideas and in progress reports.

Jim - Porter Square thing (idea), some protest footage from dc with Cantabridgians interviewed.

Angel - Worlds Fair followup for this show, BLIFF coverage for next. No work put into latter so far.

Birgit - Alewife/zoning issue segment - some work done.

AnnC - idea of covering Green Decade Candidate's forum at senior center (this Weds at 6:30 to 9:00 in case anyone wants this info), but she is busy. No one seemed interested and we eventually decided we will have enough candidate coverage without this.

Getting 30 second statements from rest of candidates. Two more shot. The rest not replying to calls and email. Angel can help pin down Ken Reeves and Robert Hall. Remaining three candidates are a problem.

Sean has offered a Garment District idea for a puff piece story. See his two emails if interested. Some people thought it might be good as part of a halloween themed segment.

Discussion about fairness and cctv's policies on running candidates during the three days before the election. Resolution - we will substitute a truncated version of the next news show without the candidates segment when the time comes.

Announcement - the Christian Science Monitor did run an article on CCTV where they interviewed some news group members.

Burnout and/or Jen's status as member. Jen is now in her first few weeks of as a cctv staffer and needs to pull back as a segment producer both so she can concentrate on her new assignment and so that the news group will be standing on it's own. Resolution, Jen will take a month off from producing for the news show, and continue to help us as liason.

Nobody mentioned it in this context, but Renato will be in the same position soon.

Weather segment. Jen and Angel will chase Steve Solari down so we can shoot a fall weather segment. Buz will help shoot and/or edit as needed.

Ann C has lots of footage of various Cambridge outdoor events - Octoberfest, Danehey Park event, which could be made into a combo piece.

Buz - would like to review Jim B's bicycling footage for interstitial use for this show. Would like to re shoot the you are here walking feet intro with fall footwear and fall light.

AnnC again - there is a City Council piece on the Dance Hall usage issue. She can cover this to give a follow up to her earlier Cambridge Dance Hall piece.

Suggestion bring Cambridge Cronicle (and is there still a Tab?) to future meetings for story ideas.

Jim committed to a 3 minute piece on the unused Porter Square condo that is hanging in limbo because they want a zoning variance instead of putting in the required amount of parking.

Birgit committed to a piece of up to 5 minutes on the Alewife issue.

Ann C estimates 4 minutes for next candidate piece.

I am missing some detail here, but somehow this added up to 23 minutes or so, so we have our next show.

Discussion of previous show.

The new style of credits are well liked. Buz's suggestions for a show credit panel, etc. from email generally approved.

We'd like to get feedback from people. Putting the email back in the credits will help. Buz: we should have a web page. Buz will compose some content for pages, Birgit will design, Jim can put these up on Matt's server or some server.

Ann C - should shows should have themes? Sounds like a good idea - but we may not have the resources to just do this. We generally like the way the show is structured with two halves, leading with a serious story, but would like to have more serious content in each show.

Feadback mention leads to the outreach topic. The web page will be part of this - we'll include a hit count and a "send us a message" part (easier to use than email).

More outreach - use crew call as a way to draw people in. Idea - don't always have business meetings - always have a party for premier of new show, have production meetings next two weeks, etc. People liked the party idea.

Out of time - we should discuss outreach more next meeting.

Next show: finished segments are due the 24th.