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.