 Welcome to CCTV and Town Meeting Television. We're here at CCTV's 38th anniversary celebration. We are just so blessed to have all our friends here visiting on this beautiful summer day that is turned into actually a pretty nice day. We were going to be in Little Park, but here we are inside, which actually allows us to have a little bit more relaxed time, and we're really glad we're here with some of our neighborhood interns and long-time producers, and it's just a pleasure to be here. I'm Lauren Glendavidian, and I'm going to hand this over to Emily Brewer in a moment, who is my dear colleague who's in charge of our development here and communications at CCTV. But I just wanted to for a moment reflect on the passing of Nat Air. Nat is the founder of CCTV along with a group of us that were here 38 years ago, on the night of the first broadcast, actually it was the 13th of June, and Nat Air passed over on Wednesday, and we are really sad about that and we will miss him. He was ill for a little while and we all have our time, but Nat was just a great force here, and I first met him at a Noam Chomsky event in 1984 or five, and Dan Higgins and I were there videotaping Noam Chomsky's talk, and we looked up in the balcony and there was someone else videotaping Noam Chomsky's talk at a time when people didn't have video cameras and we're recording talks and events, and we said, who's that? We went up and introduced ourselves and it was Nat, and Nat had a video camera and every day he would open the Burlington Free Press and see what was going on, and go out and cover it because he felt that it was a great opportunity for people who couldn't get to events, to be able to get to those events, and we put those programs on CCTV, and he packaged them into a one-hour program with two decks, deck to deck and handwritten titles, and that program was called Burlington This Is You, and we took that to the cable company to run on what was then, the Public Access Channel 8 became Channel 15, and that became the basis of town meeting television, and that one-hour show became a 24-hour TV channel in 1990, and Nat continued to be a leader in our production. He also maintained the archives, which now number 41,000 programs over the past 38 years, and he had such a great and deep love for a community that I can't even really describe it, other than this event, this place, these resources are here because of Nat Air. I just wanted to let everybody know that he had moved on to the next plane and also just to send some love to his family, Linda and Damon and Toby and Zimmy, who are as much a part of CCTV as Nat was. Without further ado, let me introduce Emily Brewer. Emily has started working with us. Hello, come on over here. Come a little closer here, come a little closer. Emily started to work with us in February of this year. You were an intern. Yeah, I interned my last semester at Champlain here with CCTV, doing video production work mainly, and they decided to bring me on full-time as part of the team doing development and communications work, and so far it's been a wonderful experience, and I'm super thankful that I've been given the opportunity. We've always been lucky to be able to work with Shining Lights. You are among the brightest, and we're so glad that you're here. It's just wonderful to be with you and work with you, and we have a small token of our appreciation, a little pin that you can wear proudly, and just to thank you, just a small token, and I know that you're going to give out some other recognitions to the folks, and so I'm going to kind of let you do that. Great, and did you want to give me my work now? Sure, we might as well do it, right? We got you here. I knew that I peaked. So I knew that I had, is there something here? So I'll let you give that to me. All right, we'll trade. Well, Lauren Glenn, we really want to recognize you for 38 amazing years of trailblazing and shepherding us through this community media landscape, and yeah, I'm just, I'm speaking for myself, but I know I'm speaking for a lot of other folks when I say thank you so much for your guidance and your leadership and your dedication, because I know that we wouldn't be where we're at today without you and the work of Nat and all the other folks who helped to found CCTV. So I just want to say thank you so much. You are very deserving of this award and much more, a beautiful pin. So I'm going to put it on in a word currently, and I'm going to go find some more people that we care about and we want to recognize. Perfect. Thank you so much, LG. All right, so as LG finds some more folks that we are going to recognize, I just like to take a moment to say, yeah, that's what we're doing. Democracy is absolutely 100% a community effort. And in that regard, we'd like to take the next 25 minutes or so to recognize some of the hard work that members of our CCTV community have been doing the past months, years, and everything. So I think the first folks that we're going to have and recognize here are two of our MBK, My Brother's Keepers, internship students. Hi, guys. Yeah, thanks for joining me. Of course. So just real quick, I'll have you both introduce yourselves and then we'll go from there. Sure. Hi, I'm Jeremiah. Hi, I am Boniface. Thank you, again, thank you so much for being here. I know it's a busy weekend and whatnot. Yeah, for sure. So you guys have been with us for about two years now doing interviews and learning about the civic landscape. It's been through the pandemic and everything. So it's been a bit of a wild ride. Do you want to just give us a quick overview of your internship program and then ask another question? Over, yeah. I mean, it's been great. We have gotten a lot of chance to talk to a lot of different people. Like, what can I think of? Like the, who is, what's his name? The guy that runs the school district. OK. Yeah, so good, I don't know. Just good opportunity to talk. Yeah, good experience, good opportunity to talk to different people and see things in different ways. Great. I think. Internship here with us at CCTV. Yeah, in the beginning when I was doing the internship, it was pretty, I don't know how to say this, like I couldn't go in front of the commie and start like talking, but now I can. So it's like, I don't have an experience. Hi, how are you? Before I let you guys go and before I give you guys your wonderful awards, you got, yeah, you got some great awards here. What is one thing that you both and separately, of course, what will you take with you from this experience onto your next experience as you move forward? I think mainly just like, well, what I did most was like talk to people, like interview people. So I think I'll definitely take that, not just like interviewing wise, but just talking to people in general for sure. That's great. I think that's one other thing. Awesome. For me, usually, like don't judge a book by its cover because many people, like as we solve them in general, just like walking in the street, we'll be like, oh, look at that person. I don't know him, but like, it seems very annoying. But like, once you know their side, you get to understand where that comes from. So that's a really good insight. Well, thank you both for coming in, being interviewed by me. And I will put this down for a second while. I'll keep holding. I can hold it for you. Here you go. Moment of truth. This was a surprise. I didn't know this was happening. This one's for you. Thank you. This one's for you. Sweet. And then we can trade. All right. Thank you guys so much. We hope you enjoy the rest of your time here at the party. And good luck in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Great. All right. That was wonderful. Again, those were our My Brother's Keepers interns. Next, we're going to keep in the same vein and recognize. Well, first, we'll have Travis Washington here with us. Welcome. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. I'm doing very well. So Travis, before we get into your work with the interns, do you want to just tell folks a little bit about VR and what you do here with CCTV? Yeah, so I'm Travis. I'm a TV field producer. I go out and record local meetings and also community events as well. I also work with the neighborhood media interns. And I basically teach them media literacy, community engagement, and also some production skills as well. And for the last four months or so, we've been working on a few projects. And they have come a long way. And I'm so proud of them. And I will say, I have sat in the room when Travis has worked with these interns. And it's really great to see their journey from the past couple of weeks, or it's been a couple of months now, starting out not having very much experience and seeing them build that confidence. And so do you enjoy getting that opportunity to work with interns and really build that sort of community? Yeah, it's really rewarding. Yesterday, we were actually working on a project where they get to interview themselves about their experience. And it was really interesting to just watch how more comfortable they are using camera equipment, being in front of the camera, and actually interviewing as well. And I don't know. It's just really, really phenomenal. It's really rewarding. And I just enjoy spending my afternoons with them. That's awesome. That's really great to hear. So we are internees. I don't know the correct word here. But really quick, do you want to hear? Let's get a little bit closer and make sure everybody's on camera. Do you want to just introduce yourself really quick? Sure. I am Avery. I'm an intern here. Yeah. So Avery has been working with Travis in the Neighborhood Media Internship with a great group of folks. And I'm curious to know how your experience was with the internship program. It was really fun. We did on-street interviews. We worked on a documentary project, which we also submitted to, what's the word? Yeah, freedom of interview. Editing. We went to, what do you say, it was an event or a protest at the college? Oh yeah, the staff walkout negotiations protest. That was really interesting. Filmed that just yesterday. We did some exit interviews with each other. I'm like, edit those down to like two minutes. I'll attempt it to anyway. Yeah, overall really fun. That's great. And so would you say that this has been a worthwhile internship experience for you? Definitely. I feel like I've learned a lot. Yeah. What's something that you've learned from this experience that you'll take with you going forward in the future? How to be decent at interviews and not just shut down like halfway through. And also editing, definitely. Great, that's awesome. So Travis and Avery, I have a couple of awards for you for your wonderful hard work. Travis overseeing the interns and everything else that you do. And Avery for being such a great, just jumping into it and having those experiences and learning all those things. That's really wonderful. And I'm super happy for you both. So Travis, there's yours. And Avery, there's your super cool pen. Thank you. And yeah, thank you. Generally, thank you so much. And enjoy the rest of the party. Thank you, Emily. So easy. Yeah, of course. Perfect. So we have a couple more interns to recognize, but I'm not sure if any of them are here. And we have a couple community producers and workers to recognize. And I think while we have a moment and while she's right here, if that's possible, Jordan Mitchell, we are recognizing you for an award. So this is perfect. Hello, thank you. She is helping very hard right now with production. And I appreciate that so much. You're doing such a great job. Thank you, Emily. So Jordan Mitchell, thank you for being here with me. You started as an intern here at CCTV. And now you're working full time. You want to tell me a little bit about that? Sure, yeah. Hi. So when I was a sophomore and junior at UVM, I was a volunteer volunteering for studio shows. So coming in usually on Fridays and help out with the Live at 525 show is just what better way to spend a Friday evening. And then through that, now here we are, I've been working here for the last eight months doing archiving work. So as the archivist as well as helping out with other studio shows, field production as needed. So that's been really great. That's awesome. And can you, your work with the archives is huge. So can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do with the archives and why it's so important? Yeah, so our archives are around 41,000 programs total, which is around 5,000 tapes, 5,000 DVDs. So we have the physical archives. And then as well, we still have like foreign digital content. But so our archives date back to 1984 and even a little bit before then. And it's kind of everything. It's Bernie Sanders and it's community events and a little bit of everything, which is really great. That's awesome. And I just have to say that I know that, and again, I said that this was this with Maureen Glenn. I'm speaking for myself, but I know I'm speaking for other people when I say that you are wonderful and you are such an extremely hard worker. And a lot of things that get done over here and in CCTV and Towing TV would not happen without you. So thank you so much for all of your hard work and for being a wonderful co-worker and such a support system for me personally. And I know a lot of other people here. So thank you so much, Jordan. And you are very well deserving of this beautiful TV pen award thing. So thank you so much, Jordan. Back to work. All right. This is great. And rolling right into it, we have Jonathan McCandless. Come right over here, Jonathan. We'll have you stand right here. And today is your birthday. Happy birthday, Jonathan. And thank you for coming to decide to celebrate here with us today. I know that you probably have a lot of other things you'd like to do. But no, no, I enjoy being here. It's nice being at the TV station and seeing everybody and meeting new people. That's great, yeah. So from what I understand and from what we just chatted about, you're a longtime volunteer here. And you used to volunteer a lot before the pandemic. And would you like to tell us a little bit about that? Mostly I covered lots of the live shows and different things. And I enjoy doing it. And I enjoy being here and seeing people again. That's great, yeah. So again, thank you so much for being here. And happy birthday. And we'd love to have you back, helping out. So that's always an option. And for all your hard work and because you're here on your birthday, special gift for you as well. So Jonathan, enjoy the rest of your day. Happy birthday. And thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Of course. All right, moving right along here. This has been wonderful so far. This is as I've been talking during the awards. The room has just totally filled up, which is wonderful. So next, we'll keep it going, keep it rolling. I've got Kate here. We'll have you come right up. Kate Happner. Hi, Kate. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah, totally. So Kate, you can speak for yourself. But you are a field producer as well as you just interned with us. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your experience with that? So being a field producer is really awesome. Definitely the best job that I've ever had. I mostly do the Burlington City Council meetings, and that's just always a surprise no matter what. And yeah, for my internship too, I'm making a little documentary about Vermont's relationship with citizen legislature. So super excited for people to see it. And do you know yet where people will be able to see that when it's finished? Well, I think it will be on Channel 217. So that's awesome. I'm not too sure otherwise, probably on YouTube, I'd assume, on the website. Yeah, keep an eye out for that. And yeah, like you said, you cover the Burlington City Council meetings. Those can be long and grueling, and somebody has to do it. And you've been doing it, which is great. Thank you for showing up, being such a hard worker. We've had classes together in the past at Champlain. So it was super cool coming in, me personally starting to work here full time, and then having Kate working here too. And I'm like, wow, this is real. So we have a special award for you for all of your hard work and for being such a great intern and also co-worker. So Kate, here is your super cool pen, and thank you now. So thanks for joining us. Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you can make it. And enjoy the rest of the party. All right, thank you. You enjoy it too. Thank you, Kate. All right, tripping over the TV over here. Yeah, like I said, the turnout here is pretty amazing. I, like Lauren Glenn mentioned, unfortunately, we couldn't have it in the park today. But the good news is the studio is always open. So here comes Allison Seeger. Hi, Allison. Hello. Thank you for joining us. You're welcome. So, Allison, I will let you introduce your project. And so just tell us a little bit about the Vermont Languages. So I run the Vermont Language Justice Project. It's me and 14, 15 translators. I guess I'm one of them, so 14. And we work with sending out messages around COVID in different languages so that people with limited English proficiency can understand what the heck has been going on. We just got money for a new worker today, which means we're going to be able to expand our messaging on issues other than COVID. So we're going to be working on messaging around health insurance. What is health insurance? What's the best health insurance to have? What's the deductible? How do I deal with medical debt? We're going to be making videos about those subjects in 15 languages. And then we also just got a contract with the Department of Mental Health to produce videos about mental health issues. Five of those in 15 different languages. So we're going to be busy. It sounds like you are going to be busy. But it's really important work. And so I'm curious as to what motivates you to do this work? Because I see how hard you work. And it's great work that you're doing what it's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, I always have considered it a privilege to seek out information. Like, I have access to a good computer. I have access to the internet. I can read and write in English. And if I don't understand something, there's a host of people I can ask. And that privilege isn't the right of everybody in this state, anyway. And again, when COVID hit, you know, and it really felt like it was a matter of life or death, I have some very close friends with limited English proficiency. And I wanted them to have access to the same information as that I was having. So it felt like it was a necessity, really. It didn't feel like it was anything other than this has to happen. Otherwise, even more people are going to die than need to die. So that's where it kind of came from. That's what drives me. Yeah. That's great. And it's great that you've been able to come from the COVID messaging. And now you're getting support to expand that and make more public health information accessible to a much wider range of community members around here. And not even just here, but your work is being seen and recognized across the country, which is really something. Yeah, interestingly, across the world as well. Really? It's like when I go on the analytics of our YouTube channel to see where our videos are being played, they're being played all over the world, which is really fascinating to me. That's fantastic. Yeah. Now, really quick before we hand you your well-deserved award, do you just want to say a few words about how you found your way to be housed and working with CCTV? So when we got a grant through the CDC to do this work full-time, and I say we, I mean me, I was really looking for where I could sit comfortably within what kind of organization to continue to do the work. And I was going to my friend's annual weekend camping trip down, I don't know where it is. Anyway, I was going there, and I suddenly thought, oh, Megan will be there. That's nice. I haven't seen Megan for a year. And then I thought, oh, she works for CCTV. Oh, and like all these kind of bells started ringing. And Megan, sure enough, turned up at this camping event. And I just said, could I, you know, would you consider housing this project, the CCTV? And she was really interested. And literally two days later, she emailed me and she said it's a go. So it was just kind of happenstance, really. But it's a really good fit. You know, I have an office within an office here. And I hope to fully integrate at some point soon when I can sit up and breathe the air. Totally understandable. And we're so glad that you found your way here and that you're here with us. And it's wonderful to work with you. And again, I've said this throughout the whole night. I'm speaking for myself, but I know I'm speaking for everybody else too. So thank you so much, Allison. And here's your lovely recognition and beautiful little pin. And you know, thank you so much. And thanks for joining us and being willing to be interviewed. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Of course. All right. Now we have a special guest. Hi, Bruce. Hi, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Well, thank you. It's great to see you. You too. I'm glad that you were able to join us here. Yeah, here, we'll have you. So everybody can see your beautiful hands and face. Oh, okay, thank you. Bruce, how are you? I'm well, thanks. Thanks for asking. Yeah, of course. So Bruce, you are a very long-term community producer with us, over 20 years. Yes. Tell us, what do you like about it? Why do you keep coming back? Wow, so, you know, you are a community assets channel and all the programs we have are nonprofit. We want people to understand what we're doing and how they can get involved and where we're at in their community. And then since 2002, I think we've been able to use CCTV in town meeting now to get the information out there. And so for us, it's like, how big is that? You know what I'm saying? It really is gigantic, you know? To be able to use these channels and put out a lot of shows and are so wonderful, straight talk with my own service with the United Counties Club. All the shows we've been doing since 2002, I think it is, yeah. And Bruce, I didn't do a very good job introducing you in all the wonderful work you do. So if you want to just take a moment to tell everyone who you are and some of the shows that you do. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I'm Bruce Wilson. I guess I'm one of the producers. In the shows we do, it's Straight Talk For Mine. It's a very pretty famous show in the United Counties Club and Arts So Wonderful shows. And we just have, through our pro, all those names are from a part of our programs. And so we do shows based on what we're doing with the program that we're working on. So it'll seem like the famous ones are Straight Talk For Mine and Arts So Wonderful right now, you know? Cause we have our art gallery and Arts So Wonderful have over 60% of the murals in Burlington and, you know, around some parts around state too. So people love that program. That's really great. Bruce, I just want to say that, you know, 20 years is a very long time. And we're super thankful that you have found worth from us for so long and that you have been able to promote all of your nonprofits through us. And I wish I had an award here for you because you really deserve one. You deserve the Bruce Wilson Award. You know, for me, people say I deserve awards. You know what I mean? The governor just supported me to the Human Rights Commission. I'm a commissioner. City of Winnishka just promoted me to a commissioner for Bologna in an inclusion. I saw a lot of boards, committees, and group members. So people say that I should get an award for all the things I do. But for me, it's to help the people who I serve in the communities to get to systemic needs or whatever they need to meet their goals in life without having to worry about it. And we use our community partners to do that. And just being able to present all of those at information and bring executive directors and CEOs on our show that actually do that work, that people who are interested in systemic needs is very important. And I'm just very happy to be a part of CCTV. It is one of the programs that people who we bring on the show get to express what they do and then people who are listening to our shows get to understand what the resources they can get throughout the community that can help them with their goals and dreams and aspirations. And so for us, I don't feel no better than nobody can say I'm not. If it wasn't for the people who we serve, we would have to do it. So thank you again. Yeah, of course. And we're so honored to be able to give you that platform. And we hope that you'll continue to do your great work here with us. So thank you for being here. We'll watch our next show July 20th. July 20th, you heard him. Well, thank you, Bruce. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here at the party. And it was great to talk to you. You too. Thank you. Of course. Hi, Mike. I'm Emily. Nice to meet you. I'm doing well. Mike is a former board member. And he has a little recollection of Nat, but that's all I'm gonna say. All right, well, I'll hand the mic off to you. Okay. And I'll get out of your way. And you sure? No, you can just stay right here. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, go ahead and tell them, tell them, see which one. Well, I just want to say, for people who knew Nat Eyre, who just passed away the other day, when Bernie was first mayor, he really thought of Nat as his personal cameraman. I'm looking at the camera when I say that. And so he would take Nat out to city parks at six o'clock on a Saturday morning to show how much the parks had improved. And it'd say things like, Nat, put your camera on that basketball hoop. You see, it has the twine on it. The net is there. There was never a net there before I was mayor. I think it's fair to say that the city parks infinitely better than they used to be before I became mayor. And of course, you know, that was Bernie. And at that time, Bernie was trying to get, I was a department head in the city at the time at the housing authority. And that was one of the first shows that CCTV did was the housing show. It was a half an hour show about primarily the housing authority at first, but then it branched into other things. And Bernie was really strong about, you wanted all the city departments to get on CCTV and tell their story. And of course, he told his own story. I mean, there's thousands of hours of Bernie film in your archives, I'm sure, right? So that's just the story I wanted to tell and I'm brokenhearted about Nat. He was in Richard Kemp whose memorial services coming up in a couple of weeks. He was a stalwart of CCTV, a board member for many years, a producer, right at this desk here. Was the name of his program near and far? Yeah. And I did some shows here as well. The housing show many, many years later morphed into the housing communities show. How many episodes did you do? A hundred. A hundred. And it was Nat and his wife that brought a cake for the hundredth show. Nat, Linda. Yeah, Linda did a great job. Yeah, Linda was right there. Yep. Well, we're gonna have a little retrospective. Thank you. I'm so sorry. We're gonna have a retrospective in the fall for that. Yeah, which will be nice. Good. Mike has been a long standing friend and you can get right here, Emily. There you go. Because you're like a new standing friend. Well, it's great to meet you, Mike, and that was a really great story and I'm glad that we had the chance to share it with everyone. Oh, yeah. It's my pleasure. Yeah. Or as Bernie would say, it's my pleasure. That's one of the best Bernie impressions I've ever heard, I'll tell you that. Thank you, Mike. Thank you so much. Well, I think we're just about getting towards time to wrap up here tonight. I really just wanna say thank you again to all of the wonderful folks that we recognized here tonight, but also all of the wonderful folks that showed up here tonight and that are watching on our YouTube. You're all a part of our CCTV community and we've been going strong for 38 years and we're all looking forward to seeing where we go in the next 38 years. So thank you all for tuning in to our 38th anniversary CCTV celebration and enjoy the rest of your night.