WBCR-LP 97.7FM, Great Barrington Community Radio

Meeting minutes from July 18 board meeting

Board Meeting July 18, 2007

Board members present: Jan Stefanacci Seward, Asa Hardcastle, Don McGrory, Nick Ring, Phil Tierney, Chris Meyer, Paul Rapp, Ben Shalles

Board members absent: Christopher Pizzichemi

Public: Ananda Timpane, Will Schillinger, Frank Tolopko, Judy Eddy

Minutes taken by Chris Meyer

Adoption of minutes from June 20th.  Motion to approve, motion carries 8-0.

Public comments ֖ none.

Treasurers Report Җ
Revenues are above budget due to strong fund drive.  Expenses below budget primarily due to lower equipment spending.  This puts us well ahead of targets for the year, which is good considering the moving/building expenses.  Motion to approve Treasurers report.  Seconded.  Approved by a vote of 8-0.

Reports from committees Җ
Membership: beginning to track programmer volunteer hours.  Next membership meeting to be the annual meeting in Sept.

Tech: wait for discussion of current tech issues.

Programming (Ananda Timpane): Todd and Ananda will share the chair position.  The committee is working on re-applications for the next session.  The committee received complaints on Taking Aim, for a program had run 3 weeks in a row due to technical errors.  One complaint alleged that it constituted hate speech against Israel.  The Committee reviewed the program and determined that it did not constitute hate speech, but nonetheless improvements to the management of the program could be made.  The committee asked to have Intro and Outro changed and contact info for the show updated.  Committee wants to offer equal time to those who had objected, and Ananda asked Jan if she would moderate such a forum.  Jan agreed. 

Programming Committee has been working on increased openness and communication with programmers.  Jan Seward expressed thanks for all the work of the Programming Committee.

Nominating Committee: Have received two sets of information for board nominations to date.

Fundraising/Publicity Committee: They are working up cost numbers for t-shirts and hats, as they think hats will sell well at events.  Volunteers for staffing at events is a big problem. 

Ananda and Don noted that there is an individual interested in coordinating volunteers. 

Jan asked if we needed a formal process to establish a volunteer coordinator.  Asa notes that it is established and filling the role is the purview of the Membership Committee.  Don is working on this.  Jan suggests we have an agenda item on this at the next committee.

Space Committee:  given that we have found a space, we believe that the Space Committee should be given a new charge, revolving around construction and management of our space, and then becoming responsible for maintenance and upkeep.  Motion: Dissolve the Space Search Committee.  Seconded.  Approved 8-0.  Motion: Create a Facilities Committee to oversee construction, deconstruction and ongoing and future maintenance of station premises.  Seconded.  Approved 8-0.  Ben Shalles will be Chair of the Facilities Committee.

Report related to move:  Not much has happened since our last meeting.  Steve Dietmann has begun the architectural review.  The Chapter 34 review report hasnt been finished by the town, but it should be finished soon.  It will go to the building inspector.

Task: Facilities Committee will investigate getting a sign up at the new space.

Will Schillinger spoke.  He is an audio design engineer and is volunteering his services to help us with the design of our studio.  He has relevant information on construction and equipment.  He also suggested we have release forms available for artists when they are visiting the studio.  Paul Rapp noted that Will had mastered our CD that we have released.  Nick noted that we should have Will meet with Tech and Facilities committees as soon as possible.

Annual Meeting:  Needs to be scheduled.  Tentatively we will plan for September 9th.  Discussion of whether or not it could be held at the Granary Building.  Discussion of whether or not we will have trouble with volunteers given plans for the Gala in October.  Task: Jan will speak to Ann Condon to see if she will be helping coordinate the meeting.

Day Captain work was discussed.  A summary of the roles and responsibilities will be sent to the board.

Space Committee: Some investigation of the vinyl flooring off-gassing issues has been undertaken.  Chris Meyer has spent some time researching the issue.  He said that he spoke with the consultant that was recommended by a member at the last board meeting.  That consultant said that he didnҒt feel the floor was a concern.  The consultant said that the off-gassing decreased substantially after installation, and that a space with a 2 year old floor, with lots of people coming and going, and no one living there, should not be an issue.  He said that using the heating and air conditioning units were planning are good, as well.

Chris noted that much of the concern with vinyl is from its manufacture, where GreenPeace has done a lot of activist work.  Chris reported heҒd spoken with an environmental firm in Pittsfield and they didnt recognize vinyl floor off-gassing as a problem.

Jan said that sheҒd spoken with CET (The Center for Environmental Technology) and they said that the vinyl floor was not a concern.  Nick, Ben, and others discussed the difficulty of removing the floor and the possibility of removing it only in the studio spaces, for acoustic reasons.

This was discussed at length, and a consensus was reached that the floor did not need to be removed.

Motion: Having undertaken some investigation and considering the comments of some members, the board agrees that no action is necessary at this time in terms of removing the floor.  If the Facilities Committee wishes to remove the floor they may do so.  Vote: 6 in favor, 1 opposed, 1 abstention.

Current Tech issues: There were issues with the Automation machine a few weeks ago.  This was due to network addresses being reassigned on our network.  Also our automation software reverted to an old program schedule, causing some problems.  Both of these problems have been fixed, and there were several members who had done a lot of work during the process.  The CD players also both have sticky buttons.  Task: The Tech Committee will get the CD players fixed.  There have also been issues with the ftp process, which have now been fixed.

Meeting adjourned.

→ Posted by Chris Meyer on 07/26/2007 at 09:18 AM. Filed under "minutes".