From other access stations

Being an advanced SMI student and a youth trainer, I think having two positions brings a whole different level to SMI. Last week, the first week of SMI the advanced group didn’t have to have any ice breaker games since we had all known each other from last years SMI or at school. So it was straight off to business, we sat down as a group and discussed our first project. Which has been assigned to us by the SMI staff, to make a documentary on the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program. So far we have gotten an interview with a Leigh Hardy, a counselor, and George Hinds, MSYEP Coordinator. read more...

• SMI 2008

Save the date for CCTV’s Annual Backyard BBQ! As always, the BBQ, scheduled for September 18th at 5:30 p.m., will feature food grilled by local chefs in CCTV's 'backyard' in Central Square, live music, and an auction. This year’s BBQ will be an extra special one-- a celebration of CCTV’s 20th Anniversary. For more information about the BBQ, click here.

Save the date for CCTV’s Annual Backyard BBQ! As always, the BBQ, scheduled for September 18th at 5:30 p.m., will feature food grilled by local chefs in CCTV's 'backyard' in Central Square, live music, and an auction. This year’s BBQ will be an extra special one-- a celebration of CCTV’s 20th Anniversary. For more information about the BBQ, click here.

The Summer Media Institute, aka the SMI, is off to a great start. The program, a six week media production and work experience program for Cambridge teens, started last Monday, July 7th. Jordy Brazo, a 17 year old student at CRLS who is the group's documentarian, created a logo for the SMI and even started a blog about the program. Keep updated by checking it out here.

 In these times of media consolidation, alienation, and isolation, it is nice to know there is a TV station where everyone knows your street. Somerville Community Access Television has been Somerville’s local media “Cheers” for twenty-five years, and to celebrate that anniversary, as well as the presence of many great artists and musicians in Somerville, we will be producing the Somerville Creative Arts Telethon.

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CCTV staff attended the annual Alliance for Community Media conference, held this year in Washington DC, from July 10-12. Thursday night featured the Hometown Video Festival, and we had to repeatedly return to the stage to collect CCTV members' awards: Laura Asherman's SMI 2007 Documentary, Quentin James and Zach Martin for The Quiet Generation, Amy Mertl for her mini-doc on the CRLS photography program, and two for Max Lewontin for City in Motion and Nobody Knows Us. And then, for the grand finale, CCTV collected the top prize, Overall Excellence in Public Access Programming!

It wasn't all play though; CCTV staff presented in a number of workshops: Clodagh Rule moderated "Launching a Youth-Focused Media Program at Your PEG Center," Colin Rhinesmith taught vlogging in "Vlogging 101," Sean Effel talked about Drupal in "updates in Drupal development for CMC's," and Susan Fleischmann sat on the panel "Learning New Technologies to Save Money and Deliver Better PEG Access Services."

Link to Boston Globe article published July 15, 2008

I met with David Rabkin at the museum of Science on Wednesday 7/9/2008 to learn about the wind energy project that they want to start within the next year. It would involve installing an array of small wind turbines made by several manufacturers on the roof of the museum and monitoring them for a year or more. It seems that there is a major lack of hard data on the performance of small scale wind energy equipment. They would like to help change that. Right now the main source of information is from the manufactures themselves. read more...

• NeighborMedia

Come to CCTV on July 16 to learn how individuals and organizations are using the virtual world Second Life.

During the event, we will provide an overview of virtual worlds and present our proposal to create an historical re-creation of a physical location in Cambridge using Second Life in 2008-2009.

The goal is to present our project - created by you! - at the grand re-opening of the new Cambridge Main Library set for Fall 2009.

Join our CCTV online group for updates.

This event is sponsored by Cambridge Public Library and CCTV.

(Photo above by Pathfinder Linden available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

• Launching into Second Life

Beginning July 18, CCTV members may receive help with online media projects, such as blogging, podcasting, or uploading video to the web, every Friday 3-6PM in computerCENTRAL.

During these hours, members may learn how to create and share audio, video, photos and text online using our website at cctvcambridge.org or on popular websites such as YouTube, blip.tv and Miro.

Do you have a digital camera but don't know how to upload photos or video to the web? Bring it to Web Media Help and we'll show you how! read more...

 Somerville's fabulous arts festival, ArtBeat, will take place on Saturday, July 19 in Davis Square. SCAT will have a table at the fair to distribute promotional materials and will have several cameras available to record the goings-on for a short program on the channel. We are looking for SCAT producers who can take a shift of shooting and doing person-on-the-street interviews. Please call 617-628-8826 for more information and/or to sign up for a shift.

Summer Media Institute (SMI) 2008 kicked off yesterday at 9:30 in CCTV's studio. Twenty-three youth from the ages of 14 to 18 began their six week journey, but who will remain? ... everyone. The day started off with introductions followed by awkward silences as new and returning faces filed into the door and into the studio for an orientation. SMI was explained by the CCTV staff working as instructors and questions were answered about what working here would be like this summer.

The instructors explained that we were going to be split into three groups for the summer (or more like two and a half): beginners, advanced, and documentarians. The placements were made by prior experience or participation in the program, or for the two documentarians Julie Pan and myself, by the amount of time we are going to miss this summer. After the groups were explained and people found the right one, they split off to go talk about what was to come project-wise this summer. read more...

• SMI 2008

We rolled out our shiny new website today! Lots of thought and effort went into this redesign, with the purpose of making it easier to find local stories and content made by people who live here in Cambridge. We've worked hard to bring all the locally produced blogs, videos, and special programs up to the surface of the site.

Our users get a few extra features with this new website release as well. Bigger and better user profiles make it easier to create an online personality and easier for you to identify and recognize the people using our site. We've strengthened our use of RSS feeds all across the board, and we're listing our full, search-and-sortable class schedule on the site as well. read more...

Unfortunately, I was sick this past weekend and couldn’t make it to our Boston Action Tank workshop, “Strategies for Shaping the Media/Tech Future: Policy, Funding & Organizing,” at the Grassroots Use of Technology conference in Lowell, MA.  However, I am looking forward to presenting at the Alliance for Community Media conference in D.C. next week with Ivettza Sanchez of Manhattan Neighborhood Network.

Ivettza and I are running the “Training the Trainers: Vlogging 101″ workshop on Thursday, July 10 from 1:30-3:00PM. Here’s the description from the conference brochure:

“Vlogging (AKA Video Blogging) is a short form of video strictly created to upload to the Internet. This workshop will equip you with the tools and materials you’ll need to teach videoblogging back at your CMC. It will also provide you with tips on how to help your producers navigate the myriad of ways to get their videos watched on the web from videoblogs to wikipedia, to social networking sites.”

If you’re coming to the conference next week, I look forward to seeing you there.

These events are FREE and open to the public.
Children are welcome in the company of an adult.

Sunday, July 6
7:30 to 9:30 am
Neville Place Driveway, 650 Concord Avenue

In the summertime, early morning is the best time to look for birds. They are most active when the air is cool and they are hungry. Adults may be feeding babies, and fledglings will be following their parents and chirping for food. Beginning birders are welcome. Binoculars can be provided if you need them.

Monday, July 7
6:00 to 8:30 pm
Walter J. Sullivan Water Purification Facility
250 Fresh Pond Parkway read more...

• NeighborMedia

The hard-working CCTV staff traded desks and edit suites for a day of work at George's Island in Boston Harbor. Between developing a capital plan for the next ten years, analyzing facilties' usage patterns, and discussing membership development and outreach, there was frisbee, sandwiches and cookies, and dodging lightning. Look for a newly invigorated group at the station on Sunday night.

As people celebrate the 4th on the Charles, they may be happy to find trash receptacles to help them depart with their waste. But if you are a resident in 02141, you know that these receptacles are only temporary. What you see for the rest of the year will shock you. There are only three receptacles between the Museum of Science and the Mass Ave bridge. If you call the DCR and ask why, they will tell you they will look into it. They have been telling me for this for the past three years. People often put the trash where the barrels should be. VERY SAD

• NeighborMedia

Check out the latest LTC Producer's forum. This hour long show features a cross section of LTC's producers in a lively, free and open discussion of topics of concern. Also featured during the hour is incoming LTC Executive Director Ellie Pye. Special thanks to Rob Rivas for taping the show. Click here to view the show.

<---- This is me thinking hard. Thanks to flickr user Regalore for the image.

Last night was a full agenda for CCTV's June Board Meeting! It was a night full of teaching and learning. Our Treasurer Steve did a great job teaching us a bit about financing, Steve Shultz and Rika contributed their knowledge about and experience with franchise negotiations, Amy brought us up to date on the MAC, Sean Eiffel, Associate Director of CCTV, shared with us all the hard work that goes into submitting to the Hometown Video Festival, in which CCTV won TWO Overall Excellence awards (Congrats again CCTV!!), and Susan gave us a "Sedentary Tour" of CCTV, generating lots of excitement about exactly HOW MANY THINGS are going on at CCTV!

All in all it made for a very fun meeting! My head is nearly aching from all the new knowledge. Well, either from that or these strange metal wires coming out of my ears. ;)

/aal

• CCTV Board of Directors

This summer, you could be learning how to make media for all of Cambridge to see! Come to CCTV's next public information session and find out how to get involved at the number one public access center in the country.

Where: CCTV, 675 Mass. Ave., entrance off Prospect St. (Central Square)
When: Tuesday, July 1st, 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Check out the video of the Father and Son’s Breakfast - the kick off for the Men’s Health League which occurred on May 31st 2008 at ‘the Elks’ on Bishop Allen Drive in ‘the Port’/Area 4 Cambridge.

Getting a Man to check on his health has always been a challenge and Men of color in particular are at the top of the charts when it comes to statistics on high cholesterol heart disease, and cancer. Yet a solution to those barriers has been found with the new Men’s Health League - a program that “aims to reduce disparities and improve health outcomes for men of color in the city of Cambridge.”

NOW - if you are a man of color and need to get your health in check ahora/now DO call 617-665-3830 and speak to Henry Lewis or Albert Pless - I am sure they can start you on the road to your health success!!!

• NeighborMedia