A Remembrance of Tom MacLean

A memorial celebration and potluck will be held this Sunday, August 29th, at 4PM at Woolman Hill in Deerfield.

Election Season is in Full Swing!

As you probably know, two debates took place in our studio on Tuesday night. The Franklin County Democratic League hosted both forums, one for the 2nd Franklin District State Representative seat and one for the Northwest District Attorney position. While the debate was going on inside, several candidates had supporters out on the street holding signs and waving to passersby. Both formal events were well attended and you can watch them for yourself at gctv.org.

We're very pleased that our recording of recent debates, including those discussed above, piqued the interest of two other media outlets. Masslive.com and Northamptonmedia.com both asked for links to our event footage, which we happily provided.

In other election news, many of you know that we updated our State Primaries page several times this week to include more video candidate statements and greater Franklin County races. If you haven't checked it out yet, now is a good time to do so. In addition, Maureen Winseck, Greenfield's Town Clerk, would like us to remind you that the last day to register to vote, change your political party, or address, for the State Primary Elections to be held on Tuesday, September 14th, is Wednesday, August 25th. The Town Clerk’s Office will be open from 8:30AM to 8PM that day. Regular office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30AM to 5PM. If you have any questions regarding voter registration, please contact the Greenfield Town Clerk's Office at 772-1555 x112.

One final note that has nothing to do with politics: The Franklin County Fair Parade will be here before you know it. If you would like to help us record the event on September 9th please email alicia@gctv.org and let us know.

Announcements, Announcements, Announcements!

After much hard work this week, GCTV staff members set up livestreaming for WMCB-lp 107.9FM. You can now listen to this community radio station twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, on your computer. Head over to wmcb.net/Listen.html to start enjoying Western Massachusetts Community Broadcasting. Be sure to check out the rest of the site while you're there because it has descriptions of each show, answers to frequently asked questions, and the station's schedule. In case you are wondering, the hours between Midnight and Noon (when you can't hear WMCB on your radio) will be filled online by a repeat of the programming that ran from Noon to Midnight.

Keeping our election page up to date also required a lot of time and effort this week. If you go to http://www.gctv.org/StatePrimaries.html you will see that new links to important election websites, the ballot questions, and video of candidate debates and interviews have been added. We've also listed the debates we'll be airing in the future and we will continue adding content to the page as we get it.

Writing about debates reminds me that we still need volunteers to help us shoot many of the events we'll be covering this month. If you would like to run a camera, manage the soundboard, or direct during a debate, town council, or school committee shoot send an email to alicia@gctv.org or call 413-774-4288. Don't forget, we will train you! To see our upcoming volunteer opportunities click here.

All Kinds of Stuff is Going On

It's been pretty busy around here lately. In fact, while our station manager was on vacation last week we partied, I mean worked, really hard. Seriously though, many of the candidates that you will be voting on in September's primary elections have been through our office in the last two weeks and you can see the result by going to http://www.gctv.org/StatePrimaries.html.

Joe Gochinski, host of The Western Mass Democrat, has also been hard at work doing short interviews with Democrats participating in contested races for Northwestern District Attorney (DA), State Representative for the Second Berkshire District, and State Representative for the Second Franklin District. He will be editing those tomorrow and hopes to have them available for viewing soon.

Yesterday the host of Franklin County Matters, Dave Roulston, moderated a debate between the two DA candidates and that is already available to watch online as part of our Video on Demand Player.

Meanwhile, a small group from Community Action Youth Programs has been working diligently for the last few weeks producing some short pieces about racism.

Whew, that's a lot of good, locally produced, television!