Rutland Cable Advisory Committee
Meeting Minutes – November 16, 2017
Members present: Chairman Paul Mattson, Jim Kelley, Peter Craine, Christian Santillo.
Members absent: Addison Redfield
No guests present.
Meeting was called to order by chair at 7:30 PM.
Meeting Minutes
Meeting minutes accepted as presented at 7:33 PM. Paul moved; Christian 2nd; vote was unanimous.
Bills and Accounts
Paul presented a Treasurer’s report. Total expenses were $1989.44, including salaries, since the October meeting.
The payment to Union Music was for a Headphones adapter cable.
Paul was reimbursed for his purchase of Print Cartridges.
Charter payment issues have been resolved. Current balance is $0.00.
Financial report was accepted as presented at 7:38 PM. Peter moved; Christian 2nd; vote was unanimous.
Old Business
Job Descriptions:
Cameraman: All changes we discussed at last meeting were made.
Paul has to check with Town Administrator to ensure that “40 pounds” is the best limit to place in the description.
Brief discussion (again) about OAD Steps vs. Levels. Jim says our understanding is correct that “steps” are increases and levels denote position. Agreed that Cameraman should be OAD Level 1 Step 1 and Production Assistant should be OAD Level 2 Step 1.
Job description accepted by committee, subject to weight change based on discussion, at 7:43 PM. Christian moved; Peter 2nd; vote was unanimous.
Production Assistant: All previously discussed changes were made. Paul has to have the same “40 pound” discussion with Town Administrator as the Cameraman description.
Job description accepted by committee, subject to weight change based on discussion, at 7:44 PM (Christian moved; Peter 2nd; vote was unanimous).
New Business
Microphone Replacement and Repair:
Paul has talked more with the Sennheiser’s Area Sales Manager, Michael Cleary. We are waiting for prices on two, maybe three, microphone kits.
The “red mic” malfunctioned during the 2017 Annual Town Meeting has been acting up and was removed from service.
The “yellow mic” started acting up at the Fall Special Town Meeting (in November). That was diagnosed to be a problem with the cable connecting the receiver to the sound board. Paul made it work for that meeting, but something needs to be repaired or replaced.
These are “closed” kits with no real ability to diagnose and repair them ourselves.
The company who had sold us a couple kits only included lavalier (lapel) mics. We had asked for kits that included both lavalier and hand-held microphones to be included in the kits. This is very disappointing. The company has had no good explanation of the differences between our expectation and their delivery.
Sennheiser says they can repair our mics. Paul will continue to work with Sennheiser to repair and replace old mic kits and acquire new kits, as we decide we need them.
Electric Bill:
Each month Paul reads the meter and sends those readings to the library. Our expectation is that the library will bill us for the KiloWatt Hours (KWh) used each month. Paul is trying to contact the Town Accountant to ensure that the correct funds are transferred from our account to the Town’s General Fund. This exchange is being done with email as the hours for the Accountant do not align well with Paul’s hours.
Our electric use averages about 400KWh per month.
There was some confusion with the Library Trustees just after we started operating in the new studio because we omitted a July reading (less than 50KWh) and, instead, combined it with the August reading.
State Bid List
Figures should be in soon for the new computer. Paul is dealing with both the Bid List and the State’s Operational Services Department.
Town IT Support
We are trying to determine which network ports, in the Library’s network infrastructure, we may use. We have been waiting “a long time” for these answers. We must talk to the Town Administrator to either resolve the communications problem or “go our own way.” Jim is trying to determine which ports we now use and which ports are available.
We are concerned with some external event (like a power surge or lightning strike) coming through our systems and damaging the network infrastructure.
There has been a youtube account called “rctv11@townofrutland.org” that the IT group created. That (former) regional IT group posted a video of a 2016 budget meeting and has since done nothing with that account. Paul asked for the password and has gotten no response.
At the meeting we determined that the account name has changed to “Barre and Rutland Regional IT”.
The Town’s web site is hosted by Virtual Town Hall (VTH). VTH offers a video streaming service for small dollars (a couple years ago the equipment was about $400; other costs not discussed). The “upcoming” changes to the Town’s website through the regional IT service caused us to postpone that service. We reviewed the Committee’s history with the IT service and shortcomings that have not been addressed so far. The timeline for any new Town web site is uncertain.
Jim asked if we could hire our own IT guy?
We will have more discussions with the Town Administrator to determine the future disposition of web site and other Internet-based Town services including video streaming.
We believe we can hire our own IT services, but there may be issues integrating into the Town’s other services and web presence.
Discussion about Holden’s web site and services. It looks like a pretty good model, if we, and the Town, wanted to follow that. Paul will discuss this with his HCTV contact to learn more.
Peter asked if we could simply restart talks with VTH about their services? If we start offering video streaming on our web site, any new web site *must* offer the same service before it goes live, right?
Christian asked if there are any benefits to VTH over simply setting up a youtube channel. Peter asked if we could get VTH to explain that to us.
Christian will begin talking to the Town Clerk about our services, VTH abilities and how we might add our own services to the Town web presence.
From the Floor
Meeting Night
Are Thursdays OK? Do they work better than Wednesdays? Thursdays seem fine.
There have been reasons to delay meetings in the past. We’ll see about avoiding those problems in the future.
Next Meeting
The committee’s next meeting will be at 6:00 PM on Thursday, December 14, 2017.
Adjournment
Meeting adjourned, unanimously (motion: Peter; 2nd Paul) at 8:47 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Craine
Peter Craine
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