Patrick's blog

Over the last 12 months (starting July 1, 2022), we have broadcast & streamed well over 800 new LOCAL programs. That's more than 16 NEW shows per week, and a large portion of these are provided to us by community members and volunteer producers (yes, you too can have your own show!).
The 2023 Okemo Valley TV Producer Awards were presented at the Annual Meeting on June 20th. Watch the highlight reel here:


And the winners are (shown in the collage below, clockwise from top left)....

1. Producer of the Year- Pat Pullinen & Gary Blodgett, for "Update from Expeditionary School at Black River" (with Executive Director Patrick Cody in the middle of them)

2. Outstanding Achievement- Claire McKey Berkman, for her production of "Cavendish Library shorts" (shown with our Operations Coordinator Rebekah Fontaine)

3. Community Impact- Paula VanGuilder, for "Talk with Paula" (shown with Rebekah).

4. Youth Impact- Heidi Baitz, LES 6th Grade teacher, for her annual class project - this year it was the "Identity Project" (photo credit- Otis Nelson).

We'd like to congratulate this crew for their great over the past year and to thank everyone who contributes all of the local programming!

​Our Board of Directors has kicked off a strategic planning process, which will lead to the creation of a roadmap for the next few years. A lot is changing all around us, from technology, to our whole funding structure, and the development of new partnerships and collaborations. Laying out such a roadmap is a must, so that we can prioritize our goals and come up with a realistic plan to implement them. Stay tuned for more!  Also, we are recruiting candidates for the Board of Directors - Board members are elected each June at our Annual Meeting. This year, the Annual Meeting & Board Election takes place Tuesday, June 20th at 6PM. Do you know someone who would make a good candidate? The nominating process is open now - more information is here.

We're pleased to welcome Peter van Gorder to our staff. The newest member of the team, Peter comes to us with a wide range of skills and a varied background, including media production, software, & audio engineering. We're already putting a lot of his well-honed skills to use; like all of us here, he is already wearing a lot of hats!

Throughout the year, we provide "gavel-to-gavel" coverage of regular monthly meetings & special meetings of several local government bodies. We do this in the Towns of Ludlow, Plymouth, Cavendish, Andover, & Mount Holly. 

And then there's the annual Town Meetings, ahead of the annual Town Meeting Day in Vermont, which falls on the first Tuesday of March. We cover all 5 in the above-mentioned Towns - and 4 of them take place simultaneously on Monday night! 

We show a couple of the meetings live, and record the rest. All of them play in steady rotation as soon as they are done, and through Town Meeting Day.  This requires a lot of coordination & is quite resource-intensive..but we also enjoy our role in this important democratic institution!

Looking to pick up some extra work and have an interest in TV / video production and local / public media?  We are looking to hire a part-time Field Producer & Production Associate, a position that comes with room for growth for the right person. Production experience is definitely helpful, but even more important are excellent communication skills, critical thinking, & dependability. 

Deadline to apply has been extended to February 10th.

Click here for the job description.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW