Weekly Wrap-up

As promised, we'll begin this post with the things we didn't have time to tell you about last week. On October 13th "The Western Mass Democrat" host Joe Gochinski recorded an hour long interview with Massachusetts Congressional Representative John Olver. The first half of this session will air on Cable Channel 15 in December followed by part two in January. On the 15th, Genevieve Fraser sat down with Dr. Andrew Blais to film the second in a three-part series of "Local Bias" episodes featuring the candidates running in the 2nd Franklin District State Representative race. Her program, as well as the first installment with Steve Adam, is running on GCTV and is available to watch online at GCTV.org as part of our Video on Demand Player (in the "Local Bias" category). Denise Andrews came in to our studio today to round out this group of shows and we hope to have hers online on Monday.

After the "Local Bias" crew was finished for today our studio was filled with youngsters and their parents for a taping of a new "Kid Trivia" episode by our youngest producer. Incidentally, the GCTV staff would like to send her our warmest birthday wishes! You go girl!

When we weren't assisting producers in our TV studio, the staff spent a lot of time this week prepping for next week's debate, FRCOG & Greenfield School Committee meetings, Greenfield's Rag Shag Parade, and of course our Masquerade Party. Producer Brent Eaton donated his time and talent to our cause by, once again, airbrushing the backdrop we'll be using at the Rag Shag when we take pictures for our website. If you're participating in the parade be sure to stop by our tents in front of Town Hall and get your picture taken. Then, make sure to check our homepage right after the parade for pictures of this year's winners.

GCTV in the News: The work of one of our producers was recognized recently by a major New Hampshire newspaper. Check out this article in the Keene Sentinel on the documentary "Sy's Fund".

Finally, we'd like to announce that GCTV has a job opening. To find out more check out the new "Opportunities" page on our website.

Busy, busy, busy!

We've been so busy around here that we barely have time to write this post! Many shows have been filmed and edited so be sure to look for new content on Cable Channel 15 and at gctv.org. Check there too for information about our Masquerade Party fundraiser on October 30th!

If you missed the Greenfield Planning Board Meeting on October 7th, don't fret! All four hours and nine minutes of it are available to watch online as part of our Video on Demand Player (in the "Local Government" category). In addition, the State Rep. Candidates Forum from Tuesday night is there (in the "Elections 2010" category).

We will fill you in on much more of the exciting stuff that's been happening around here in next week's wrap-up. In the meantime, enjoy what looks to be a fabulous Fall weekend.

Loads of Good Public Information

This was quite a week for informing the public about important local issues.

At 1PM on Tuesday afternoon Alicia was on location at the Greenfield Town Planning Offices to record the awarding of checks to representatives of Greenfield, Athol, Montague, and Palmer. The towns earned this money by participating in the Green Communities Act Grant Program. Later that same day Mayor Martin brought Greenfield's Director of Economic Development and Marketing, Robert Pyers, into our studio to record a new "Mayor's Memo" in an effort to answer residents' questions about the upcoming parking changes.

More guests were brought into the studio on Wednesday and Thursday when Joe Gochinski, host and producer of "The Western Mass Democrat", interviewed Hampden County Register of Deeds Donald Ashe and Dr. Andrew Blais, guest host of "Local Bias", sat down for a conversation with Republican candidate for state representative in the 2nd Franklin District Steve Adam.

Friday took us back out into the field to cover the Community Coalition for Teens (CCT) Youth Behavior Survey Results Press Conference and a special Greenfield School Committee Meeting.

You can be informed about all the subjects discussed in these programs by checking our Video on Demand Player (Green Grant Presentation, "Mayor's Memo", and the CCT Press Conference) or watching Cable Channel 15 next week ("Local Bias", "The Western Mass Democrat", and the Greenfield School Committee Meeting)

Have You Noticed Our Spiffy New Logo?

First, thank you to everyone who has complimented our logo so far. We're really excited to be rolling out this new design as we haven't had one in about 10 years. Right now the graphic, designed by Fresh Jones, can be seen in our blogger profile, our forum posts on Penrick.com & PowerTowneDistro, and on our page on Facebook. GCTV Board Member Terry Ruggles shepherded our new icon through the process by finding a local company for us to work with and helping us get from ten logo ideas down to one.

We began rolling out the new logo this week and you'll start to see it in more places soon. Keep an eye out for it at the beginning and end of GCTV run productions, on new business cards, and maybe even on your friends' t-shirts.

The Last 2010 Primary Election Post

Hopefully you were as excited about Tuesday as we were. It was a lot of fun (and a lot of work) covering the state primaries and very satisfying to be able to post the results on our homepage around 9:30PM. We're resting up in preparation for all of the interesting events that we'll be covering during the next few months---Rag Shag Parade, Massachusetts General Election, Turkey Day Football, and others. Keep checking back here to learn more about what's coming next.

Franklin County Fair Parade and Election Preparation

As you can probably imagine, most of our focus this week was on yesterday's parade. We have not forgotten, however, that there are Primary Elections coming up on Tuesday.

Alicia spent part of this week communicating with town clerks in the 2nd Franklin District in order to receive preliminary results soon after the polls close. GCTV encourages everyone to exercise their right to vote on September 14th and take advantage of all the resources on gctv.org to help with that process. Tuesday night we will post the Greenfield results on our website, around 9PM, and hope to announce the winner of the 2nd Franklin District State Representative Democratic Primary race not long after.

Speaking of getting things up on our website, due to technical difficulties, the Franklin County Fair Parade will not be available to view online until Monday. In the meantime, you can enjoy the slideshow below of photos we took during the event. The shoot was awesome, btw! Staff, crew, and viewers all enjoyed our coverage and many people told us that this was our best effort yet. Big thank you's go out to our Sponsors (Sandri Oil Company, The Hammond Family, Greenfield Savings Bank, The Bank of Western Massachusetts, Foster's Supermarket, Greenfield Farmers Cooperative Exchange, Greenfield Garden Cinemas, The Longe Family, New Fortune Chinese Restaurant & Sushi Bar, and Tire Warehouse), hosts (Russ Brown of "Dukes of Sports" and Tom Dillon of Dillon Chevrolet), and volunteers (Jimmie Bailey, Shawn Cromack, Faith, Susan Laing, and Sam Pyfrom). Also, the entire crew would like to thank everyone who threw us candy. :)

Weekly Wrap-up

We were busy with election stuff at the beginning of the week, covering the state rep. race education debate at The Greenfield Grille on Monday night and recording the get to know the Democratic Primary Candidates event in our studio on Tuesday night. Both events are available to watch online and you can look at a slideshow of pics, taken prior to Tuesday's, on the right hand side of this blog. (Thanks again to Joe Gochinski for providing GCTV's staff and production volunteers with yummy snacks for the second event!)

Unfortunately, we can't cover every important event that occurs in town but, thankfully, our volunteer producers tend to some of the gaps. Susan Laing recorded last night's planning board meeting and we hope to bring you the footage from it soon.

In other news, this week our board gave final approval to our new logo and you'll be seeing it soon. Finally, Drew Hutchison has produced two new "Local Bias" episodes in which he interviews the men running for Northwestern District Attorney. Drew and the staff worked hard to turn the second episode around in record time so it was recorded late yesterday morning and by 5PM it was available to watch online at gctv.org.

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!

What is Block Scheduling?

The topic came up this week because we are going to be switching time slots for two of our regular programs. Here at GCTV block scheduling means that we try to program certain parts of our lineup so that the same type of programming airs in a regular spot each day.

For instance, if you tune in on any weekday at 1pm you will be watching one of our Polka shows and at 2pm you can check out a variety of historical content. We hope soon to have the 9am weekday position filled with different sports and physical fitness programs. To further that goal we will be swapping the rebroadcasts of "Eaton do Ryu" and "The Greenfield YMCA Presents" beginning next week. The 9am lineup will now be: Monday-"Eaton do Ryu" (martial arts), Tuesday-"Dukes of Sports", Wednesday-"The Greenfield YMCA Presents" (aerobics & other activies), Thursday-"Eaton do Ryu", and Friday "The Greenfield YMCA Presents".

Additional block programming segments include rebroadcasts of recent town meetings, or large public events, on Saturdays at 1pm and a full day of religious and spiritual programs on Sundays. We also focus on bringing you new and ongoing content, from active producers or local sponsors, in our prime time slots from 5pm to 10pm Monday through Friday.

Election Season isn't over yet!

This week we began contacting all the candidates who you'll be voting on in the primaries on September 14th. That may seem like a long time from now but, with five candidates in the State Rep. Race for the Democratic Party and other contested races on both sides of the aisle, voters will need all of that time to make an informed decision. Within the next couple of weeks we'll be debuting a webpage at gctv.org that will feature pictures, bios, links to official campaign websites, and a video statement from each candidate. This is similar to what we did for Greenfield's Town Election on June 8th, that was so well received, but this will include not only Franklin County races but statewide ones as well.

Weekly Wrap-up

A couple of interesting topics were discussed on shows recorded here this week:

On Tuesday, WMCB DJ/Host of "Channeling the Muse" Opeyemi Parham, MD came armed for her show with a book titled, "Lies Men Tell Women and Why Women Believe Them". The episode which will broadcast tonight, and Sunday, at 6PM on 107.9FM, features an interview with the host's significant other and some good music to boot.

The following day we changed gears from love to money when Attorney David Roulston brought in three local businesswomen to discuss Greenfield's participation in the 3/50 project. If you aren't familiar with this campaign, which encourages people to buy local in an easy way, check out the story we did on it awhile back. Then tune into Cable Channel 15 on Monday, July 19th, at 9PM for this episode of "Franklin County Matters".

That's it for this week. Keep checking back here for the inside scoop on GCTV/WMCB!

This was a busy week!

Following up on a terrific end to last week, having the governor here on Friday, we spent this week following local politics, improving our website, and helping several local producers get their message out to the public.

Last Friday afternoon, about 50 people packed into our studio for a taping of “Mayor’s Memo”. Various state & local officials, citizens, and members of the media were on hand not only to watch Mayor Martin interview Governor Patrick, but to take a trolley ride around town with them afterwards. Alicia accompanied them on this trip and had a blast. It was nice for her to see politicians both demonstrating a sense of humor and discussing important issues in a realistic way. She got some great footage that you’ve already seen on our homepage but hopes to get a longer, documentary style, piece from the tour up soon.

Greenfield’s mayor returned to GCTV on Tuesday to record another episode of his show, this time featuring Lisa McGuinness championing our public schools, which will begin airing on July 6th. Other interesting guests here this week included representatives from NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) on “Franklin County Matters” and New England Farmers’ Union (NEFU) President Annie Cheatham on “Local Bias”. Jonathan Mark, of Fly By News, also brought in a couple of experts to discuss Big Pharma.

The last two shoots mentioned above, combined with Jonathan Mirin’s Piti Theatre Company’s production of “28 Feet”, filled our studio for the entire day yesterday. Producers were good about getting in and out on time so all the shows were able to go smoothly. “28 Feet”, Jonathan’s one man comedic play about dealing with his own medical issues, was open to the public and had an audience of about 20 people. You’ll be able to watch all of these shows on Cable Channel 15 soon and some of them at gctv.org as well.

Referencing our Video on Demand Player reminds us that we want to welcome Greenfield YMCA Programming to our online offerings. These episodes join videos of “Healthbeat”, “Local Bias”, “Valley Homegrown”, “Mayor’s Memo” and more. This is also a good time to mention that there is a new look to video content on our website.

We are now able to embed single videos from our Video on Demand Player so you can watch our top community coverage stories without leaving our homepage. This also means that producers will be able to link directly to their shows from, and even embed some of their episodes on, their own webpages.

Wow, we really did a lot this week! Oh, as promised, we also recorded Greenfield’s Inauguration Ceremony on Thursday and you can see it, along with some interviews with newly elected officials, on our homepage. Check it out!