Combating Underage Drinking

Once again the Northwestern District Attorney's office is making use of our facility to promote a common good. Late last week Jana McClure, the DA's Director of Community Outreach and Education, and Mary Carey, Communications Director for the DA, toured our studio in preparation for a shoot this Wednesday. They are putting together a short piece for use at local college orientations that discourages underage and binge drinking.

The final program will be shown for the first time at UMass in a few weeks so the DA decided to shoot a short open and close for it on location at the college. Thank goodness Wednesday was sunny but not too hot! You can see a picture (taken by the DA, David Sullivan, himself) of the intrepid crew below:
(L to R: Deputy District Attorney Janice Healy, Mary, Alicia, Jana)

The location footage will be combined with the recording made in our studio, and b-roll from various sources, by our current intern. We're happy to have made the connection between the DA's office and our intern because it will give them both a real professional experience and final product. In addition, we appreciate the exposure and recognition we are receiving from the DA's office.

We'll let you know when you can watch this public service announcement for yourself, either on Cable Channel 15 or as part of our Video on Demand Player, so keep checking back.

Ta Dah!

As promised, here are some before & after shots of last week's office renovations. We're not quite done, our station manager and a volunteer will soon be installing sound panels to help limit echoing in the studio, but the new carpet looks and feels great. We also have new curtains in the tv studio (black-standard, blue-for special effects blue/greenscreen work), and red-for variety) and we'll be moving the live radio studio into the new recording space in the back room while moving the pre-production computers into the smaller space the live studio now occupies. The staff worked really hard on these facility improvements, doing all the moving, demolition, and painting themselves. The only thing they couldn't do was the carpet. These pictures really don't do the renovation, and the need for it, justice. If you want to see more, stop by for a visit.

Our entry way before the renovations, as we were in the process of clearing things out:

A close up of the rug and 20 year old carpet. Note the circled rip, there were more like that in other parts of the office.

The new entry way!

The studio before (with the old town council set that was falling apart):

The studio wall after:

The renovations also allowed us to move some staffers around to better workspaces and different duties. Our new media producer now has her own office, formerly the copy room, so that she can concentrate on getting our new website up and running and expanding our web presence. By the way, the new website is coming along nicely with a lot of content added and a second training attended by both our new media producer and our station manager.

Philippe has taken over the receptionist duties which gives him the front desk and his own computer. If you need to schedule something, this is the guy to see!

The back room will now be able to serve its intended functions as conference room, break area, and supply & copy room.

In other news, we'd like to welcome a new, part-time, staff member to our ranks. Elijah Rottenberg, who's been volunteering on "Valley Homegrown" and producing content for us for years, has come on board to assist producers and you'll find him in the office three days a week if you need help.

Finally, we'd like to let you know that our July board meeting has been cancelled.

A Week of Renovations

Even though we were open on Monday, the staff spent the day getting ready for being closed the rest of the week. All rooms, and closets, with carpet were emptied and their contents moved upstairs or into the studio and control room. Staff members who worked at home this week organized what was coming home with them, in between toting items and answering the phone. Producers who stopped in had a very different view of the premises than they did normally. Zydeco Connection starred on "Valley Homegrown" in the evening and that was our last production before closing down to the public.

First thing Tuesday morning our Station Manager unlocked the door for the carpet installers and they quickly got to work ripping out the old and putting in the new. As rooms were finished, furniture was moved back in. There were some changes however. The next time you're in, you will notice probably notice Philippe at the reception desk instead of Alicia. Our New Media Producer is moving into the old copy room and the copier will go into the rear conference/break room as the pre-production studio for WMCB transfers into what used to be our workshop. Some repainting of walls was also accomplished this week, putting the finishing touches on work that began several months ago to improve the efficiency and image of our space.

We'll post before and after photos here next week so keep checking back.

Progress

It's been a busy week for coverage of local events. We met our goal of putting up a new story on our homepage each day and some of our b-roll may have been featured this morning on WWLP's "MassAppeal". As a result of our coverage of the upcoming Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society's "Rescue Me" fundraiser, chef Mike Collins and artist Tony Palumbo took a DVD of our footage with them when they drove to Springfield to be interviewed. If you missed this, or any of the stories on our homepage this week, be sure to click on over and find out more about the great things that are going on in our community.

Lots of great things are happening here as well. Our computers were kept busy all week as eight producers edited a variety projects in addition to our staff working extra hard to prepare for not having access to much of our equipment next week while the new rugs are being installed and walls are repainted. (Don't forget, this means that our office will be closed Tuesday 7/12 through Friday 7/15 and we will begin to shut some things down on Monday 7/11.) In addition, our Station Manager and New Media Producer went for training related to our new website.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, we are in the process of upgrading our website and transitioning to Drupal instead of continuing with Dreamweaver. If you aren't familiar with those systems for creating and maintaining websites, not to worry. All you need to know is that working with Drupal will make our site easier to use, provide more interactive opportunities for producers and viewers, and increase our staff's efficiency.

We hope you'll get a chance to experience these positive changes in the near future and, if you read this blog regularly, we'll keep you up to date.

Politics, Fireworks, Rain Plans, & News

At Noon today the folks who were elected/re-elected to the Greenfield Town Council, school committee, and various trustee positions will be sworn into office during a ceremony on the town common. Our station manager will be there so that we can bring you the event in its entirety next week. If it rains, though the forecast says it won't, the swearing in will take place in our studio at 393 Main Street, 3rd. Floor.

Immediately following the ceremony, the council and school committee will hold reorganizational meetings to choose their leadership for the coming year. The meetings will take place on the 2nd floor of town hall, in the meeting room, unless it rains. In that case, they too will occur in our studio.

Rain plans have also been made for Greenfield's annual fireworks display on Saturday night. In the event of rain, the celebration will be moved to Sunday. If you want more info. on the festivities, check out the first short piece that our new part-time staffer Ian created for our website. You'll find it at the top of the homepage, simply click on the "Fourth of July" tab.

Another addition to our personnel roster also produced his first news story this week. Please join us in congratulating new intern Dan for his interviews with college students participating in a New England Climate Summer bicycling tour. You can check out his work on our homepage as well.

Finally, we'd like to remind you about two upcoming office closures. We'll be off on Monday, July 4th, for the Independence Day holiday and we'll be closed Tuesday through Friday of the following week for renovations. From July 12th to July 15th new carpeting will be installed throughout the facility while our staff cleans, organizes, and paints. Those of you familiar with the condition of our floors know that this is a very good thing. In addition, all of these improvements will help to free up more space for producers to work in and increase efficiency.