 We're going to be looking for a few people, and James Giraud is one of them, and yeah, because we've got some awards to give tonight. We've got, well, we've got James Giraud, and we've got Sandy Barrett if she's here. Jessica Tanner would be a great person to find. So welcome here. Thank you to Channel 17, Celeros. We would like to get a shot of the whole party. Demir will help you. You see, that's the good news. Here at Channel 17 and CCTV, we all help each other, and we're having our holiday party, and we're going to be celebrating. We're on live. We've got some new community producers. We're going to be, yeah, I want some people. We're going to be celebrating. Hi. How are you? Hi, Allison. Hi, Allison. Nice to see you. Why are you here tonight? Because I was having a play date with your daughter, and I was having fun. Are there a lot of people? Yes. You want to be a camera person? Yes. Well, here at Channel 17, you can be a camera person. Isn't that pretty exciting? All right, so I'm going to tell people about what we're doing here. Okay. We're having the holiday party. We're starting our 25th anniversary celebration, 25 years. How old are you? I'm eight years old. Oh, my gosh. Eight. Didn't you turn nine? Didn't you? Yeah. So we've been in operation for 25 years, which is kind of exciting. And I would have to say that the first project that I ever really undertook was this CCTV, and then Stella Rose, my daughter, is the second project that I ever undertook. I'm going to interview Jonathan now, because he's usually a community producer. He's usually behind the camera. So would you go ask him, the man in the green shirt, to come on over? One in the green shirt, right there. Now, we're going to be showing some video, and we're going to be giving out some awards. But first, I'd like to interview Jonathan. Come on over, Jonathan. How are you? Happy holidays. Happy holidays. And it's nice to be here, and I hope you all enjoy your new year and all that good stuff. Now, usually on Thursday nights, you're behind the camera, are you? Right, and I run the production booth, and I volunteer on Thursday night for five years on the live TV show. But tonight I'm enjoying the holiday party, and Rob is running the camera instead of helping out in the production booth and everything. And what to you is the five years. I mean, I feel like you've been here absolutely forever. So tell me, why do you keep coming back week after week? Because I like volunteering, and I like looking at the shows. And I like learning about what the Republicans are doing on City Council and different shows. And you, actually, that one of the shows on Thursday nights is the Republican show, right? Right, I do the Republican show, and I like learning about the different challenges of the school and stuff. The Burlington Schools and the hard challenges they face for education and stuff. And so I have fun, and it's nice to be here and see everybody. I'm so glad that you join us. It really makes a huge difference. And if you had one wish for the future of public access, what would it be? I could get a TV that could get hooked up to Burlington telecoms so I could actually watch the nights programming on this TV because I'm not able to get the channel at home and I can't watch it. But pretty soon, Burlington telecoms coming to your house, isn't it? Yeah, we'll be able to sign up. I'm hoping we get the parent owners at the house I live at to sign up for it so I can watch all the nights programming on TV. Well, I'm looking forward to that, too. Thanks for joining me. So one of the things that I just wanted to let folks know is that one of the people that we just gave an award to, but he had to go, was Bill Aswad. And Bill Aswad has been making Rhodes Scholars for many, 14 years. 14 years. But this is not Bill Aswad. This is Rob Chapman. Rob runs VCAM Channel 15. Thanks for joining us. Sure, it's a great pleasure to be here. Thanks for having the party. Now, we had a meeting before this about the future of our communications network. And how was that meeting for you? I enjoy talking about this stuff. I live it every day in trying to figure out what community media means in this world and how we adapt to the changes that are happening in the telecommunications industry. So it was a pleasure to sit and talk for 90 minutes with a group of really talented and wise people as to what we can do to make sure that community media survives past these convergences of all these different technologies and stuff like that. And what's your hope for the future of community access? Well, I hope that it's vibrant. I hope that it is, well, active. I hope that it's never lost. I mean, it's just, there's a real threat, I think, in the regulatory structure being based on certain elements of the fact that, you know, if the cable industry is based on the right of ways of the lines in the telephone poles, the phone companies were regulated in the 30s and 20s and based on, you know, antiquated ideas. So the ability to adapt to that is an important thing and I think that we're going to really need to encourage our leaders in our communities to understand the implications and ensure that every citizen has access to the ability to talk to their other members of their community. And that's an important aspect that we cannot lose and I'm afraid that it might happen. Well, I think you need to be commended because you've kept Channel 15 as an open forum for just about any kind of speech you can imagine. It really is and you can notice that every time you watch it. So I hope people are watching it and I hope people will consider coming down and producing their own public access show and telling their own communities what they think about what's happening in their lives or what's happening in their community. Thank you so much. Happy holidays. So Rob Chapman is one of the real great leaders in our statewide network. And next we have Jodi Harrington. A community leader. A community leader. You are. Thank you. You know that the Winiski City Council was the highest rated program of 2008 on Channel 17. Oh, I'm thrilled to hear that. I'm sure we have been. It's been kind of a wild and woolly ride and I have to say though people have gotten a lot of information and we have a most amazing community of people who have stepped up in our community to work with us on our budget and I think part of that probably is is all the exposure. I mean, sometimes things have to blow up and now we're rebuilding and we have six or seven people who are really qualified helping the City Council create our new budget including the chairman of the school board and our treasurer of the school board and of course George Cross who has been superintendent and representative in Montpelier for a long time is acting city manager and I think we really feel like we're fixing things at a deep level and moving forward and we've really got a transparency and an energy to go forward that's pretty remarkable. It was hard. It's been hard for all of us and whatever one's opinion is it's been a very exhausting and hard work and I certainly getting elected in March right into it from my first meeting was when we found out the police chief had been suspended. I can say that it's probably been the most horrible experience of my life certainly of my political life. Really difficult. Very difficult because it was passions ran very high there was a lot of information that we were privy to that we couldn't share the media, not this media but that media created a sensationalist approach to it and it generated just a lot of ugliness and we're volunteers we're just kind of common folk in the middle of a media storm and of a personnel issue which frankly should have been held all behind closed doors. It was all very private stuff that got out in the public so it was really hard and I'm sure we were sure it was fascinating. I've heard that from a lot of constituents that they watched it on TV but I have great faith that people when given the right information and when they understand the issues make the right decisions and are capable of that so I see now as we're in this budget process and we've got these people in the community helping us working with the city council shows that it's like everybody's like okay now we got to fix it you know you can blame this one you can blame that one you can do whatever but the fact of the matter is we're a little city that grew really fast and we're really complicated and people will be able to watch it all on Channel 17 people can watch it on Channel 17 I hope now that we're fixing it and we're all going to be so boring people will still be interested in watching us I mean that's really the I think that's the good news but we really were the top most rated I'm sure because we can count now on the website hundreds of people watch your meetings this summer so that's also the thing I want to let people know is that you can watch these meetings online and you can watch them agenda item by agenda item clickable agendas and I hope people do people need to continue to do that where everybody knows where we're going through really hard economic times and you know five of your local people don't know the answers any more than anybody else does but I think if we get collectively we're going to be just fine so thank you so much happy holidays so we're going to continue our coverage I've got Oak Low Galbo Oak used to work here at CCTV and now you run your very own Community Access Channel in Richmond well it's not mine but yeah now I do run Community Access Channel in Richmond Jericho Underhill and what kind of programs do you run there well really the whole gam at all sorts of things of course we do meetings town meetings and things we get from the state we have music from the farmers market we have local events the high school concerts we get other programs from other access channels that people have requested some religious program the Catholic Mass you're pretty busy oh yeah and you recently moved your location yes we moved down to Richmond Village because we're much more visible and we have more interaction with the public there and it's better for us who work there to be involved in the community more because we were out at the end in Jonesville for a long time and looking forward what's your hope for public access as we move forward into the future well I certainly hope we continue and to exist one and I would really love it if we could actually be carried in more formats wouldn't it be great if we were actually on the satellite dish as well and on every possible format streaming being able to interact on the internet and maybe even more live remote type of things going on so that we could be out in the community more whenever that's possible well many of us are going into negotiations with Comcast you're in negotiations now with Comcast yes we are people need to know that the more support that they can show for their community access channels the more opportunity we have to continue to operate them as soon as we put on something say there's an election debate there's a big issue around our bridge and we covered all the meetings people are calling and they're thanking us because they can't get to the meetings and I also notice that Richmond Board watches Jericho's board and vice versa and they watch each other from each other and because we're all contiguous towns as well so that's great it's like facilitating some community services and knowledge thank you and thanks for all you do happy holidays congratulations I know 25 years it's hard to imagine so we have Avril here how are you nice to see you so you're a community producer here at channel 17 are you yes and you know we're giving you a special award tonight as a live show producer Avril runs the cameras and gets behind the have you done the directing yet yes I have so what do you like best about working here I really like everything about it it's just so fun to work the cameras and direct it's I just like everything here and tell me a little bit about the school you go to I go to middle school and I it's just like a regular middle school we have how can you be sure well I don't know and how did you find your way to channel 17 well my mom was coming over here to pick something up for I don't know what reason for but she came over here who is she's in somewhere she said that she needed volunteers and my mom knew that I liked camera working and stuff so she she recommended me and then she told me about it and then I thought it was a great idea and yeah I just started joining like a few months ago well we're so glad that you come and help really wonderful and if you were to tell the people out there why they should continue to support public access what would you say to them well I think I would say you should never stop contributing because you don't know if you're going to be like thanks back because I don't know just like stuff yeah thanks so much for your patience thanks a lot so oh we've got Richard Kemp who's actually Mr. February in the upcoming CCTV calendar I need to change my outfit do I have to do this with a bathing suit no actually the picture's already taken it's of you and Will Miller many years ago and under your arm you have stop apartheid we did so I would say that you are an effective community organizer from way back why do you support public access well because I think it just kind of helps with the democracy that people can see what governments are doing with their money and ideas and stuff and it's a very important function that public access plays in the communities in the state of Vermont and probably around the country too I believe right absolutely and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to give a little plug for membership to CCTV and this year we're going to be offering we're starting a new membership campaign which you knew about yes I did know about that and I'm a member I'm not a caring member and Richard is also on the CCTV board and as a benefit for our members we're going to be having this calendar that we're producing of high points from the last 25 years oh that's wonderful it's interesting there's a connection I'm marked after American calendars near the end of the year in the first part of the next year so it'd be a nice calendar to see I'm looking forward to it too so would you do me a favor and maybe tell Rob that that video that is running right now is we're going to need to run here on the air in about 5 minutes so just let Rob know that he's right there in front of that camera okay thank you so much so hi how are you are you coming to be interviewed tell me your name Brooke because my sister volunteers here and I'm just oh my gosh so it looks like she likes it pretty well huh yeah she does what kind of things do you like to do I like to draw I like to um I don't know do you ever watch TV sometimes I do yeah sometimes you do well that's good I'm glad it's in your mix thanks for coming tonight okay bye so Terry how are you doing Terry's one of our community producers too you have a regular show don't you yes I produce Vermont today over on channel 15 VKM and we have a really interesting show that just started this week with Thomas Naylor it's an hour and a half interview and we talk about his new book The Possibility Secession of Vermont An Independent Republic and I also produce a show here on channel 17 called Progressive Thought we had an interesting show last week that people called in and we talked about the upcoming elections in March they're talking about running me for progressive candidate on the city council and so I'm thinking about that now maybe we'll talk about that on our next show until the election guidelines kick in and then you can only talk in a forum well that's on channel 17 but on channel 15 yeah the rules are different why do you think public access is important well for instance the cost of a political campaign is becoming enormous Barack Obama spent something like $50 million on his campaign and to run for the senate in Vermont cost about $5 million actually he spent $500 million okay 10 times as much as I thought so I don't have the $500 million but with public access TV I can get my message out to Burlington and if I run for the city council I'll have an opportunity to reach the voters with my ideas on both channel 17 and channel 15 so I think they're very important thank you so much thanks for your work thank you alright so you know we have a couple of awards here to give out and I'm just going to recognize folks because I'm not sure they're here and they may not be here but they're worth recognizing and one is the Vermont Worker Center and the Vermont Worker Center does a lot with community media this is my camera there you go and they actually produce a lot of programs and are working recently on healthcare they produce a program here at channel 17 and they actually have been showing it in different forums as a way to influence policy so we wanted to applaud the Vermont Worker Center for really using community media in its fullest sense and we're pretty excited about that also another person that we wanted to recognize is Sandy Baird who's been doing commentary here for many years and from the beginning you know more than 20 years she's been doing short commentaries and deserves real recognition for her diligence in getting that done and then Henry Pryne I'm not sure that Henry Pryne is here but Henry Pryne along with Avril are two youngest community producers and they run the live shows on Wednesday nights I think that is and Henry is just an all-purpose person and he's you know ultimately Henry is going to be running channel 17 so he's definitely somebody to keep your eye on and then Jessica Tanner I'm not sure if she's actually still here either hello and she's a community producer and has been working she's just always here editing it's sort of the endless editing job but she's doing some great programs that we wanted to make sure everybody understood about and then James Giro is James Giro here still Rob he left James Giro is does a regular show every week this man comes in and produces something and it's just phenomenal the amount of programming that he puts out and if he were here he would talk about how important and valuable it is for him to be connected to the community through this community media and then we also wanted to recognize two of our two organizations that have been using access a lot and community media quite a bit and that's Mercy Connections and Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity or Community Action and they're both really worth noting in terms of what it is that they do now I'm just going to ask here I think we want to show this video Rob this is what you call sort of a dead zone do we have the video to show we have the video to show so Tui has given me the thumbs up and we're going to show a little compilation that Nat Ayers put together and he put it together from our 15,000 hours of archives and I just wanted folks to know that we're going to be doing a monthly show on Thursday of every month we're going to be doing CCTV rewind and go back into our archives on the 30th of April we're going to have a community screening where we spend two or three hours down at the Main Street Landing Theatre watching our footage and then on the 13th of June we're going to be having a 25th anniversary Extravaganza celebration at the Boathouse so you stay tuned to all of those things we have a calendar it's up on our website cctv.org and we hope that you join us Stella Rose Johnson, the next generation how are you? I'm good why do you think public access TV is important? I don't know. Well there you go why should she, she's my child so we're going to just run to some video and we're going to go from there so stay tuned and thanks for watching and thanks for supporting us for all these many many years can you tell me what you're doing here well we're selling gliders in the whatever this mall is the University Mall we do this, we travel around the different states New England, East Coast areas and sell gliders for 11 day shows so you've been here for 11 days? 10 days, tomorrow is the last day which will be Sunday where are you heading next? Connecticut Enfield, Connecticut so people who didn't get a chance to get one here come right down there Saturday or Sunday, we'll be there how many hours a day do you do this? well, pretty much small hours so from about 10 o'clock in the morning until 9 at night and it gets to be a long day I believe it's just you get used to it, I don't know how but what happens? how long have you been doing this for? I've been doing it since July and he's been doing it for about two and a half years so I'm going to do it up till Christmas and see how that goes Christmas supposed to be a pretty big time to sell so looking forward to that more or less it's a consignment I pay for the goods after they're sold where were you just before you were in Burlington? we were down in Hanover Hanover, Massachusetts it's just south of Boston where are you headed next? we're headed to Enfield, Connecticut where do you end up in the winter time? Key West no, you mean for Christmas? yeah Raleigh, North Carolina is that where you live or that's where you sell? that's where I'm going to be selling these big mall there so where are you guys both from? we're from Iowa how often do you get home? about once or twice a year you go all the way from like Key West, Florida to Iowa? no, we'd probably be closer maybe towards Washington DC before we'd ever think about going home or New York, somewhere we bought a couple of these yesterday and loved them but one did break, so how do I fix it? you can fix it with tape or Elmer's glue either one we tried super glue and that seemed to melt it yeah, that will melt it try to use a softer glue like Elmer's glue but tape is probably your best bet okay and I also noticed they seem to fly a lot better in the mall than they do outside well that's it, I mean most people don't have a mall at home the talk shows start? well that started when I was in Wilmington, Delaware where the guy who originated the telephone talk shows Joe Pine, the late Joe Pine now I remember Joe Pine well Joe Pine was a pal of mine he was from Marcus Hook, Chester, Pennsylvania started the talk show on WIOM in Wilmington, Delaware and then sit in kind of with him some nights and when he went on vacation I did the show and so that's really how I got started with it and I came back here in 1954 when WDOT went on the air and I did a program called It's Your Nickel because it cost a nickel to make a phone call so that was the way people would call and I'd say go ahead, it's your nickel and so I've been doing them ever since Leafy, Peaceful, Vermont where the citizens have more time for life's common courtesies for so we thought I was apologizing to you at all His mission? to improve American public opinion of the increasingly unpopular South African government but soon after he hit the airwaves protestors demonstrating his appearance hit the pavement almost underneath the wheels of the car Duke Kent Brown was driving with one lurch of his Lincoln Kent Brown effectively poured gasoline on the very public opinion Inferno he was supposed to extinguish two people suffered minor injuries but American South African relations in Burlington seem to be dealt another crippling blow this was a legitimate international incident involving a representative of a government from another continent from Africa it was something special a rare treat see how big their jaw gets they can stretch it and dislocate it it's amazing the mouse is dead don't worry I'll look like a cigarette in a second when you dance in the law I guess unbelievable it's an alien invasion but don't panic the Montreal storytellers are coming down on Monday the 13th of July to the Fletcher Free Library at 7.30 p.m. it costs three dollars to see these aliens descending from the wind-blasted frozen tundra of the north they're gonna tell us hyper-modern stories for the first TV age you may be wondering why I'm lying like this why I'm talking to you like this if you come I'll explain everything thank you homeowners is your boiler on the blink does your roof leak the Burlington home improvement program provides low and no interest loans for these and other repairs if you're a low to moderate income a homeowner in the old north end King Street if you're on the side or chase street neighborhoods you can get additional information about the home improvement program by contacting the community and economic development office at City Hall 658-9300 extension 197 he gets boring looking at us you can only look at him he does that very nicely but if you want to film them for a while I'll stop that's right all kinds of all kinds of with the camera on this guy that's a half I didn't film that I mean we're trying to make this video a household word we have