 Welcome to the Community Television of Santa Cruz County, regular meeting of the Board of Directors for February 26, 2018. Will the Secretary please call the roll? Chair Gudger? Here. Director Fisher? Here. Director Hall? Here. Director Rand? Here. Director Wade? Here. Director Mannheim? Here. Director Meziars? Here. Director Oedriskel? Here. Director Owen? Thank you. We've got issues not on the agenda. Seeing none, are there any late additions to the agenda or deletions to the consent or regular agendas? All right. Let's move on to the consent agenda. And we seem to have lost the treasure. Because you opened the door to Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom. This is because they are Joe...on the finance committee. Tom was there, Joe was not. So the consent agenda is where we are. We have the minutes to the Board Meeting from the last Board Meeting in January. We had the Finance Committee and the Fund Development Committeeいう minutes from February 22. And we have a recommendation from the Finance Committee to accept the January 2018 financial reports. Tom, would you like to say anything about that, number seven? The only thing I would say is we had a good discussion about finances. We are still in the, for the year in the black for the operation here at satellite, which is a good thing. And we also had a conversation about budgeting for next year sort of trying to anticipate what our revenues will be here. So we're starting to look at budgeting as well. But it's a good report. We're in the black and that continues to be a reassuring thing. And I'm sorry I was late. In the meantime, I've lost two records. I promise I'm not leaving. And there we go. I think we're all coming back. So were there any questions on any of the three minute items? The minutes on the three minutes that are on the agenda. I just wanted to come in. I agree with Tom's comment on the last finance committee about kind of the facilities cash flow. So I thought it was a reasonable comment. It was good to find out the background information on it. Thank you. So if there's no further discussion, do we have a motion for the consent agenda? I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda. I'll go ahead and second that. Okay, so I have a motion and a second. I'll call the vote and the consent agenda. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And opposed or abstentions. Sorry, thank you. Brains lose off. If not, then we'll move on to the regular agenda. The first item is actually the oral report of the executive director. The written report is in the pack. Okay. Well, for February, you've just heard that we're in the block. And we are in profit for February, which is a good thing. Today, I think it was last Thursday. And today when I was here, there were many more people in the co-working area in the open area than usual. Today there were several people working in the office. And there was someone doing a podcast too in our little sound booth. So that was really nice to see. I came here and I had to park in the back. The front was full. So that was very nice. And we did just, I just discovered, sadly, that two people are leaving their offices. So we will be starting to, we'll be starting those up again. So we have what the good thing is we have two nice big offices for teams that are coming available shortly. So if anyone listening is looking for a big office, we have two. At least right now. They go fast. They do because they're very cool. They have lovely windows and they're very nice offices. So as moving on to other paid services that we have, close captioning, it's like a saga, isn't it? So we found the reason that we weren't getting the captioning to appear. We've been captioning, but we've had to do it all in the background. We captioned it and we show it later. We haven't been able to get to caption live. So we got the captions to go live, but they were duplicated. So I was like, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. You're your supervisor. So we could not figure out how to make that stop. So we have figured out why. Well, and we have one more step. So we have several pieces of equipment. They're kind of in a line. And all of them have many menus and a lot of choices in the menu. So it's a menu choice that's not jiving that is the issue. So they've been going through lists and lists and lists. And we have Nick coming this weekend. He's moving to Sacramento, so he's going to come down and see if he can solve the problem. And Lynn is working with ENTO, the place where we got our equipment, to see if they know what might be wrong. They think they're pretty sure it's a switch, but we don't know which one. So we'll get that handled. In the meantime, we're captioning shows for rebroadcast. So we'll get to live thing. It's just a matter of time. And let's see, the government meeting services. We did about 20 meetings in February. And for documentation this month, we did a big project. We do it every year. It's the SCCAL Wrestling Championship. So this was Victor's first chance to take out the nice big mobile tricaster that you guys approved for him a while back. And it was great. He set it up in no time. He said it took us 20 minutes to set up, which is very lucky, because the event was going the, I guess, what is it? The early rounds where people get knocked out. We don't shoot those. We just shoot the end. And so the early rounds went long, but the end ones had to start on time. So they actually only had 30 minutes to set up. So he was able to pull that off because of this equipment. And we were able to do the job we were hired to do, which was good. And it looked very good. I saw it today. So we're happy about that. And the equipment rentals are picking up. We had in kind of, depends on where you mark this off, but between January and February, kind of those weeks, the center of the end of January, the beginning of February, we had about $1,000 worth of rentals from professionals. So that was good. We usually have a lot of rentals by our own membership, but the professionals actually pay a real price. So that's much better for us. And it looks like that's really picking up. So that's a good thing. We are renewing our, oh, under the peg, part of our financials, we are renewing our contract with the county of Santa Cruz this year and the city as well. We got a three-year contract in 2015, which was good because the year before it had been a year of contract. So we were really happy to get that three. And it went zipped by. Now it's time to renegotiate it. And we're going to have a new contract. We've already done a pre-meeting about that with Kevin Bowling, who's kind of our point person at the county and his team. And it was a good meeting. It was very positive. And we just touched base on where we are and what the steps of this process that we go through. We actually create quite a bit of content for them before as that happens. So we expect the process to go pretty smoothly. It was a very nice meeting. And they're very happy with what we're doing. Under equipment and facilities, we purchased a few new pieces of equipment. Keith and Matilda had an idea that people might be interested in doing their own videos with their own kind of equipment that they can have. And the camera of choice these days is a phone or a tablet. So we bought some fun pieces of equipment that can be added to these things to get a more quality product if you want to use your phone. Because certainly, my phone has like a 256 gigabyte chip in it. So you could put definitely a lot of video in there. So we got some tripods, tripod adapters, a little kind of pre-amp thing so you can plug in a real XLR professional mic to your phone, and parts to hold that on, and several other little things. We also got some lenses for phones that are really fun. They come on this giant clothes pin looking thing. And you just clip it right over the thing. And you have a fisheye lens and a close-up lens so you don't have to get it close on your phone. You can just shoot from here. So those are fun things. We're going to do a class. We're having one of my staff from CMAP is coming to teach that class on how to make phones. And Keith and Matilda did a, sorry? A March 8th. Oh, yeah, March 8th. Save the date. And so that'll be a great class for people. It's like a two-hour class for people who can see how to make a little more professional video with their phone. And Keith and Matilda will probably tell you all about the class that they did. And they did a brief introduction to this. And so we're excited about that. It's kind of a different, you know, we always focus on being professional and having the best and the cutting-edge stuff. So people who learn here go out in the real world and find what they expect. But this is a whole other group of people who are doing stuff on their own and they're making YouTube videos and, you know, they have an audience so we can help them just do a little bit better. On our building, we're continuing to improve the look and feel because you haven't seen anything yet. You're probably wondering last week they said they were doing something and it still looks the same. But by the conference room, you will see a test of a mural that we're putting on the wall. You can take a look at that. It's what we're doing is an ID-covered wall and I've been working with a wallpaper specialist to see what kind of mural we can put on that wall with the texture that's on it that works and that will go all the way to the ceiling to the floor and a couple other things. So I got a great sample from him and we're real excited about that. So before we proceed, we're gonna repaint the windows and doors, the window sashes and doors. And then we'll go ahead. So probably by next month when you come back, you'll see that. And we're working to make the kitchen a little more fun. Boy, the county building has a fun kitchen. That was great. We went in there on our visit and that was just really lovely. So and what they were doing, it was kind of fun to see it because some of the ideas they had or the ideas that I was given by our experts. So that makes sense. And we're working on getting a couple of things going in there that'll be interesting. We're looking to adding an island to the kitchen so that there's extra seating and more storage. Storage is a problem. If you go in the kitchen, there's just stuff everywhere and everybody uses that stuff. So we can't really put it away but we need a place where it can be accessible so that everybody can use it because we share our kitchen with another business and they like to use the toaster oven and stuff like that. So we think the island will work that we can have things that pull out and you can use the toaster and then put it back in. So the idea is to make it useful and still neat and then that would provide also more seating. So we're looking into a couple of options for that and we're also researching patio furniture for the front door. There are two little nooks on our front porch where people could sit outside and work if we had tables there. So Alana is looking into those. We have patio tables on the back patio and it would be sort of like that but smaller so they'd be bolted to the cement but they would be kind of bench table connected things that you could slide in. But a lot of people have asked if they can go sit outside and lots of people make phone calls from out there. It's really nice to sit in the sun and it's warm out there but right now you have to pace around so tables might be nice. Now I'm moving on to communications. Keith alerted me to a really a great event that was Google partners, Google partners with an ad agency in Aptos and so they came to talk about their program and they do a Google rates ad agencies and they can see what they're doing. So they try to see how successful they are and if they are successful over the long term they like to partner with them and then they offer them a lot of special deals and special information and information and programs that are not available to everybody else and research that they have that's not available to others and so right in Aptos is an organization that they partner with so the two of them came to a conference center and talked about what it means to be certified and that they will take that certification away and they have in the past so it's not like you work your way up to it and then you're good forever. Google keeps an eye on them and it was very interesting to hear from the Google people how they do advertising, how it works and why it works and then I heard from the ad agency and I had two meetings with them since I've met with them kind of on the spot to talk about what we do and whether it's applicable because they had a specialist with them that works on nonprofit grants so nonprofits can get grants in Google ad dollars so you can get, we could qualify for $10,000 a month in advertising via Google if well all nonprofits are eligible and so I talked to them about if we could qualify and if what we offer is something that makes sense to work with ads and they all thought yes so I had a second meeting with them to see what we would need to do to qualify for that and there are things we will wanna change on our website that are no big deal really, just different language and so I think it all looks like we can do it. I spoke with them just before I left for New York last week and they promised to have something to me this week because I told them we needed to make a difference by the end of our fiscal year so they are, they are hurrying so we will, I'll meet with them again soon and I'll let you know how it goes but it looks very good I think it could be a great thing if we had, gosh, we had $10,000 a month to advertise with that would make a heck of a difference so we'll be looking for a plan from them next week to review and speaking of grants we were able to award an equipment grant to Aftos High School and we delivered those things just a couple weeks ago and there's a picture in your report about that and that is John Joel Donhoff getting all that equipment and it's going to be very exciting I think for that school in particular because they do a lot of creative things in video already so giving them this equipment I think it's gonna launch them is to really raise the bar for them and they'll be able to do some great programming for us and it'll be a great learning experience for them so that is my report for February Just a quick question when you mentioned that you were able to rent $1,000 of equipment to professionals is that kind of due to the outreach you've been doing to the professional communities and their various groups and things like that? I think it is that and they're talking to each other and that's one of the reasons we're gonna do the Google thing because we can target those guys we can say we're looking for video people in our zip code if we want to I mean that's they're kind of hard to find because they don't have a there's no hub for them so that's one of the reasons I'm looking to the Google thing but yeah other like people like I don't know if you know Ian Slattery but he used to be my director of programming and senior producer in Gilroy and he left that job in his freelancing in town now and he rents equipment from us and I can see people he I was just curious because it was nice to see Yeah I think it's people he knows and then we have a couple other producers who rent equipment here and that's picked up since they've come so it's probably people that they know people are just like learning about it Yeah I looked at the names in particular and packed out all the members so I could tell how much actually was written by people who aren't members and that was really exciting that's a lot of that I look over you know every once in a while like I have to do it's kind of hard to get that information out of that report so I can't do it always but I thought it was worthwhile to take a look because I saw the number it jumped up and sure enough it was a lot of professionals I'd like to also point out that the people that rented equipment this last month were people that came from our coworking space so they found out about it by being in here using the coworking space that's a nice little cross between them Yeah it is and that's really it'd be great if we could energize that we could have a lot of different people in this discipline working here and using our things and making connections amongst each other Okay, any more questions Rebecca? That's great Let's move on to the bid for the floor so I can get a background or you can get a background as you can see the floor in our studio is terrible You know that? Not to put too fine a point on it And we have been trying for a long time to find concrete contractors that can fix it for us clearly the people that were part of the original bid that were supposed to have fixed this floor for us didn't succeed so we know it's not a simple job Becca says we've talked to five companies I mean I've tried to call a dozen companies at least and most of them say I don't do jobs that small I don't do that kind of work they don't return their calls They don't want to repair someone else's floor they've got a million of them Yeah So a while back let's see if there's a date on this yeah it was back in June of 2017 we did get one bid from a company out of San Jose that does this kind of stuff all over the state and if you see that bid that's the first one in the packet that came in at $20,632 and we decided not to bring that one to the board at that time because we didn't feel it was a we didn't feel it was a price that we were willing to pay I think that's a fair statement So we continued to search for companies that could do it and we had lots of failures and finding anyone who would come in but the person on camera one, Jebrusso mentioned the company that gave us the second bid he knows a person there they came in he seemed very knowledgeable he immediately got out his meter measured the moisture all over the floor took measurements and right away gave me a bid and that's the second bid you see here which is a little more than half of the first bid Becca has checked into the company also they're local the Better Business Bureau rates them A plus they're certified by two trade organizations the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a client like I say Jim knows the guy if any has any questions about them Jim is prepared to go to the mic and answer any questions if anyone wants to ask about that They're award winning concrete guys they compete in competitions and they have done some really fabulous things at hotels and out in front of the aquarium and it's just concrete as they clearly have a passion for it I actually know who they are Oh, okay for various reasons No, not bad it's just all around It was interesting the way you said it It was interesting No, but my one thought was is if anybody's watching this this floor looks really flat to me Oh, but it's not flat I know, but you might want to just explain a minute so if there is anybody they understand why it's really important to have the floor in a proper working order So this floor is actually poured in two pieces right underneath where we're sitting right where I'm sitting is a seam and Becca and I were in here with tables and levels and Long sticks Long sticks and we measured this part of the floor is level and this part of the floor is level but when they meet that's where the previous company tried to grind them and so where they meet they sort of come together but it's really the swoop up out of a peak to the other one Now the reason that's an issue besides the fact that when you roll a camera over it, it bumps and if you want to do trucking and have a nice smooth shot we have tried to do it with that camera many times you go over that bump and we lost it but the big issue that pushes it for us is because we have the black curtain here you can't see the green screen panels we have behind us but the green screen panels can be level and they should meet there seems to need to meet perfectly or if you have a gap then you don't get green screen coverage you can't key it So for professionals and even our public access producers that like to use the green screen we need those panels to meet and so the panels that go right over here where the seam is, never meet and you have to spend a lot of time twirling these dials on them to try and get them to meet and if you have to move anything then it's all off and once they don't meet everything else doesn't meet down the line so you have all of these things sitting like this and there's holes, like dark holes I was just kind of curious I know enough about this to know I don't know very much so do we know if you see they're both level are they also on the same level no that's the problem so in other words one side is going to have to be raised up to the other side well it turns out for our needs it doesn't have to be level but it needs to be a very smooth thing and so when we talked to this kind of company I was here, we were very clear it doesn't have to be perfectly level but it has to be perfectly smooth and gradual it has to be a plain, a single plain and were they confident that they could deliver that? yes and so I did notice that the big difference between the two was that the first company was talking about bringing in leveling, submit and the second company doesn't believe that's necessary to get the job done is that correct? we're not going to level the whole floor so they were going to put they were going to be in 20 bags that's the difference in the quote as far as the pricing for sure well also for us it would be difficult because the minute you're going to put something in don't get it all wrong oh yeah you have these bumps but they feel like they can get it done without that right, okay and another key of course besides the leveling is making the floor black it's important to be flat black so it doesn't reflect the lights and it blooms into everything and since the key to professional productions using the space and paying us to use it one of the big draws I believe is the green screen from what I hear a lot of the productions and what I see a lot of productions we get are green screen productions I think it's important for us to have green screen that works and that's why we put in all these extra lights along here so we can use this wall here and this using this wall gets away from that but it doesn't give you a corner so this corner for this corner to work we've got to fix the floor otherwise you can't get to this now you've got more information than you want well I just thought if somebody was sitting here like me they would wonder if flat floor is a flat floor and they're never perfect but why not being perfect here is important now we know great thanks for that so that's it so you're looking for a motion I would love it even 11,000 is over Becker's limit by 1000 I would move approval of this expenditure in the $11,000 quote the second quote that we've been providing nice second okay doesn't include tax and everything doesn't say it's a good total yeah it's all labor one thing now that the motion's second I hate to bring this up but construction always is full of surprises would you mind giving I'm just as a thought a 10% contingency for the executive director in consultation with the chair that way if suddenly something's missed we're not back here and they're in the middle of the project and there's a problem I don't want to go over 10 because it sounds like they know what they're doing but some things times they change so that's fine with me if it's fine with the second yes great okay so we have a first and second and a number of questions I guess so I'll call for the motion all those in favor say aye aye opposed for extensions seeing none we'll go on to the oral report of the volunteer advisory community exactly and that's me so a couple of things first of all we had a VAC meeting a volunteer advisory committee meeting it was very energetic we actually talked about how to use more of Facebook and get people to know more about community television but also some interesting things about how to use Facebook for streaming programs and all that that was really, really interesting a lot of us learned a lot about it we also because we had been talking about it we discussed that we needed some more testimonials so people came up with you know we could have a crew you know a crew comes to the studio they could say why they like you know and why they like doing this kind of work or you could have all audio people or you know all people who are doing camera you know doing something together so we'll be working on that and then we also approved a new system of requesting the studio and getting studio supervisors you know we've been really working our volunteer coordinator Tutti Bolton I mean she's been working extremely hard and now that everyone is kind of getting used to how things work and since we have some computer savvy people with Keith and Michael who are on the volunteer advisory committee we can set up a computer system so people can you know get a studio supervisor then sign up for the studio on their own and take care of business that way that would really help time saving for our volunteer coordinator then our producers and director coordinator led us to a green screen workshop two people, Ron and Daniel showed people how to set up the green screen and David and Keith and Linda worked on how to work on the tricaster directing part of it so it was a very good thing and we'll probably repeat that at some point so our producers and directors had a good time and then of course we are still doing PSAs and I think they're becoming more and more popular with people I think we now have to kind of limit the amount because we've had you know seven or eight people wanting to come and that's kind of a little bit much so but we have successful every second Friday of the month we still have public service announcements in here you know everybody gets about 30 minutes and people can do a lot with the green screen and whatever pictures they bring in some you know, rehearse and other stones but it's a very interesting process and then I'm going to hand it over to Keith because we also did a orientation for nonprofit organizations for the first time and he has some show and tell oh, okay so is it okay if I move to item 11 or report to the board chair that's exactly what I'm doing okay so last Friday we had the nonprofit orientation which is a cool picture here which I don't know if Linda can get it or not but I have the packet here and any board member wants to see it when we're done or now I can hand it around of the things we covered at the orientation and it's very interesting for us to have done this first off we did is things you can do today so we made a point of the nonprofits know these are things right now you can use community TV's resources to do upload videos, schedule a PSA day send in a calendar slide for the community calendar because we wanted people when they left to know that they had something they could use our resources to help them go right away and then we ended we went through a lot of the stuff that's available here but we ended up with helping nonprofits to write an effective PSA so we had everyone get together and form small groups and work on that and then we came in here and showed them how to use a smartphone to tape a one minute PSA how to upload it to YouTube and trim it and even on a smartphone you can trim your PSA so we showed them how to do that and we did three here though most of the group stayed and did that and watched the three people be getting pigs for it it worked out really well and then we just trimmed off the front so we could do the three, two, one to start it and then we could just trim that off and then they handed they could, if they went off and did something else, we could cut that part off and I think that went pretty well Oh, they absolutely loved it I mean, they couldn't say enough about how wonderful and of course Karen wasn't, I don't know she put herself in charge and it was really nice you had bagels and cream cheese it just is a really pleasant atmosphere and people were actually I mean, a lot of these people didn't know each other they came from different nonprofits and some organizations only sent one and others sent three but we had like 15 people here and so we ended up first in the conference room and he did the presentation and we talked with people and then they wrote in different groups and then they came in here and we used those tools to hold your phone and put it on the tripod and we didn't show the lenses because they're gonna get to see that in the classroom Well, they wouldn't need them in here they're more like for fun Right, so shooting a whole movie or something I mean, honestly, I mean a lot of people stayed the whole time I think maybe one or two people had to leave a little early because obviously it was a work day for them but they just kept thinking that stuff and we were very pleased Karen, Keith and I, you know, led it and Keith did most of the work and it was really, really pleasant and informative A surprising thing that came out of it it was clear that they got a lot out of the networking and so we asked them would they like to just have a nonprofit networking event and they're, oh, yes so I'm not sure that's I'm sure it's not within our mission but it's something they would we could get them here and sort of See, we could do that again We could, yeah I think we'd all leave with something They were thrilled I was kind of concerned that when we turned them loose to help each other write a one-minute PSA less than 140 words that they would go, oh, you know, we don't want to do this but they really loved it They worked well together But they were serious I mean, one group wanted to have it printed out so they could really read what they said and another person practiced for a while That's right, you can't have the prompter there We didn't have the prompter because, you know you do it in the field So some people said, can we use that teleprompter? They said, yeah, well, we're in the studio now but bring it out in the field and you want to do things But if you had two phones, you could or an iPad and a phone the iPad could be the prompter You could just use I meant to bring my tablet and show how you could use a tablet Yeah, you could use a tablet I did, but anyway, it was okay So if people watching from other nonprofits if you suddenly start getting in and out of calls for another workshop That's fine, we love that Now, where should they call? Well, they should email info at communitytv.org And emails are preferred to phone calls Yeah, and if you do another one, I'd love to come to it Oh, okay We'll send another one Do you want to say that one more time, slowly? I-N-F-O, info at communitytv.org is the best place to contact us Info about what we're doing Well, you know, and the thing also is that this was really an event where we fulfilled our mission 100% I mean, we retighted the community We brought them here We showed them the resources We taught them some stuff and we helped them to continue, you know, to communicate We made some So, we were pleased We had a result Keith, you might want to mention our meeting with Bettina Shull, the assistant city manager Yes, I have that Oh, you do I was wondering whether I should or not No, go ahead I think it's important that everybody knows we're reaching out to every element of our community So, our contract, which is coming up is with the city and county of Santa Cruz And Becca mentioned our meeting with the IT director who is responsible for the contract at the county And so, thanks to Joe We also met with Tina Shull who is the assistant city manager of Santa Cruz to discuss that kind of contract And she's seeing Well, I think the important thing is we just communicated all the things that have gone positive here, the buildings in place the volunteer network is in place the finances are turning around And I think that's important because generally, all people hear as things go wrong and they have to jump in In this case, it was just an update that things have gone better and they were getting better And I thought also it should be also to thank all the people who are making it better And so I was a short meeting We didn't, you know, spend a lot of time but compared to other times I thought it was a good point to do it and it was good to talk to the county because you kind of get busy in your world and forget to reach out to other people sometimes Thank you And one other thing I was going to mention is Becca showed a picture of delivering the equipment to Aptos High School Mr. Domov came in here and we gave him some training on the tricaster until the, all right And that was very interesting It was fun playing around with the tricaster many I hadn't used the little many before It has a few differences but it's a pretty nice little piece of gear It's fun in that, kid, isn't it? You just open it up and it's all there ready to work and you only have to plug anything in except the camera Everything's there Have you gotten any programming yet from Watsonville High? No, well, not that I know of I have to check with Victor and see if they uploaded something this quarter I know they were, oh, they did shoot something They sent me an email So we should see it soon Because when I was listening to the tragedy in Florida at the high school it was amazing how much they were able to reach out to the world with their digital equipment and digital facilities at the school and I think it may make a difference in some people's hearts about what needs to be done or what may be done It's very impressive just to see how they were able to use that facility It's very uplifting and impressive to see a lot of those students speak cogently on their own, without any notes or anything and a lot of those are journalism students It's really great to see them be so competent at their age and under that pressure Okay, any other questions? So we'll move on to board member or staff requests for specific items to appear on the next meeting agenda Any requests from the board? Seeing none, I will move on to the announcements I would like to at this time thank the volunteers that helped make this production possible Linda Jadakas, Karen Scott, Gene Kratzer Richard Giselle, Jim Russo, and Nick Kirkendall and I think I got everyone Yeah, you got it Good