Rotary Club of Needham Newsletter July 14th, 2020
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and mandatory social distancing, most of our volunteer opportunities and community support activities have been postponed. In response, we've continued to fund local and international charities. We've continued to meet on Tuesdays at noon. But, to maintain social distancing, our meetings have moved on-line.
In Our Community:
On Saturday, July 18th at 9:00: help shovel the soil into the new, raised planting beds at Needham Housing Authority
Speakers from The Needham Channel: 1) Marc Mandel, Executive Director, 2) Ashley Morin, Director of News and Public Affairs, and 3) Mike Levin, Programming Manager
We had a virtual tour of The Needham Channel's (TNC) capabilities by three of their top executives (see photos, names and titles above). The Needham Community Television Development Corporation is a 501(c) 3, not-for-profit corporation that has served Needham since 1985. Because the cable TV companies needed to build out their networks within the town's public right-of-way, they were required to provide free public access TV for the first 15 years. Now, a portion of cable TV revenues raised in Needham is used to subsidize the station. TNC provides public access, educational and governmental programming for cable television subscribers in the town of Needham, Massachusetts. Their administrative offices and studio are located at 257 Chestnut Street. They operate four TV channels:
- Needham Community Channel (Comcast 9, RCN 15, Verizon 29) features community access programming, including a live newscast at 7:30pm on Thursdays. TNC runs all their programming, except municipal meetings, on this channel.
- Needham Municipal Channel (Comcast 99, RCN 13, Verizon 30) features live municipal meeting coverage for the Select Board, School Committee, Zoning Board and Town Meeting. TNC's website carries an archive of recorded municipal meetings http://www.needhamchannel.org/archives.
- Needham Education Channel (Comcast 8, RCN 3, Verizon 31) features programming of an educational nature, including programs about the administration of the schools and about activities at the schools (like high school sports).
- Needham TNC HD Channel (Verizon 2129) features a high definition signal. All events, except zoning board meetings, are recorded in HD and carried here at the highest definition.
If you want to participate in an existing production or to get a show started, call Marc to set up an appointment. Volunteers and interns keep TNC running. TNC provides training, expert advice and most of the resources needed to get a show up and running. To get coverage of a news story, email news@needhamchannel.org. To post an announcement on TNC's community bulletin board, send an email (two weeks in advance) to: cbb@needhamchannel.org.
Next Week's Speaker: Louise Condon, founder: Louise Condon Realty