Member News/Nouvelles des Membres

The community TV sector has recently lost two much-loved pioneers:

- Ivan Traill, one of the founding board members of both CACTUS and Neepawa Access Community TV in Manitoba

- Sid Tan, a long time activist and community TV producer in Vancouver's downtown east side.

For more information, see:

about Ivan

about Sid

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) Canada is an independent national organization of low- and moderate-income families. ACORN has over 70,000 members organized into twenty neighbourhood chapters in nine cities across Canada. ACORN believes that social and economic justice can best be achieved with a national active membership who are invested in their organization and focused on building power for change!

ACORN joined CACTUS in order to distribute social justice and community-building audio-visual content to CACTUS member community TV channels. It's first two videos to share can be found here:

Digital Divide : https://www.dropbox.com/s/muvicthi4krdgro/%20Starving%20For%20The%20Internet.mpeg?dl=0

Organizing 101: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivgsqk4giuaug5z/Changing%20The%20World%20One%20Knock%20At%20A%20Time.mpeg?dl=0

St. Andrews Community TV in New Brunswick has already aired the "Organizing 101" video created by Operation Maple.

Welcome to ACORN!

CACTUS has been exploring partnerships to host community-media centres, in the wake of the gradual collapse of the cable community television system.

Simultaneously, public libraries across Canada have been re-examining their roles in the digital age. Many, realizing that it's not 'just about books', have been exploring 'maker spaces' to bring families and clients back to libraries. Since the 1990s, libraries have hosted CAP sites or "Community-Access Portals" to enable broadband Internet access but many are taking their roles one step farther now with 'maker spaces'. Instead of offering passive resources, the maker space can be host to puppet-making workshops, hack labs, audio-visual production, or 3D printing.

CACTUS sees an obvious overlap between the traditional media literacy training mandate of community TV channels and public libraries, and so are many libraries, due to outreach CACTUS has been doing thanks to a Trillium Foundation grant. CACTUS was able to meet with many public libraries and explore this convergence at the Ontario Library Association's Superconference in January of 2015, and is excited to welcome Sioulx Lookout as its first public library member. Sioux Lookout has begun streaming community-generated audio-visual content from its web site.

Wawatay Communications was established in 1974 to serve First Nations people and communities of Nishnawbe Aski Nation. It does this through the distribution of a bi-weekly newspaper, daily radio programming (distributed over a network of 17 community-owned towers), television production services (airing on APTN) and a multimedia website that seeks to preserve and enhance indigenous languages and cultures of Aboriginal people in northern Ontario.

Wawatay also provides translation and interpretation services.

Wawatay and CACTUS have signed a memorandum of agreement to help Wawatay add new communications services to its service offering, including broadcast television from its existing network of 17 community-owned towers, and additional towers formerly used by TVO and the CBC. The parties will also investigate the potential to use the tower infrastructure to enhance the availability of broadband Internet in the communities served.

Outreach and ongoing development support to Wawatay are possible thanks to a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

(English below)

La chaîne de programmation locale CCAP.Tv a vu le jour en octobre 2012 et est une division de la CCAP qui compte plus de 17 000 clients. Nous sommes diffusés en numérique standard et en HD. Pour la diffusion nous utilisons WinMedia et la production est donnée 100% en sous-Traitance. CCAP.Tv s’est aussi allié avec d’autres programmations locales du Québec et participe ainsi à un programme d’échange de contenu télévisuel. CCAP.Tv a participé à la création de ce groupe et fière du support que celui-ci apporte aux responsables de ces chaînes. CCAP.Tv s’est démarquée par la qualité et la variété de ses projets.

Babillard, plateforme de terminaux usagés, nouvelles locales, musique et plus encore! Pour en apprendre d'avantage sur CCAP.Tv ou visionner nos émissions, visitez le www.ccap.tv.

Distinction de CCAP.Tv

Meilleure programmation actualités
Prix j’aime mon câblo local 2014
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Meilleure animatrice câblo local
Prix j’aime mon câblo 2014
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Finaliste pour Meilleure nouvelle entreprise
Gala reconnaissance les étoiles de la Jacques-Cartier 2014

Meilleur service d’affichage
Prix j’aime mon câblo local 2013
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Meilleure émission d’intérêt général

Prix j’aime mon câblo local 2013
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

***************************************************

CCAP.tv was launched in October of 2012 and is part of the CCAP community-owned cable network, with 17,000 subscribers. The programming is distributed in both SD and HD. CCAP.tv is proud to have founded a programming sharing network with other local channels around Quebec and for the quality of its productions.

A community bulletin board, a local swap shop, community news... it's all here! To learn more about CCAP.tv or to watch its programming, visit www.ccap.tv.

CCAP.Tv Prizes

Best News Program
I Love My Local Cable Company Awards 2014
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Best Local Host
I Love My Local Cable Company Awards 2014
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Finaliste pour Meilleure nouvelle entreprise
Gala reconnaissance les étoiles de la Jacques-Cartier 2014

Best Bulletin Board
I Love My Local Cable Company Awards 2013
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Best General Interest Program

I Love My Local Cable Company Awards 2013
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance

Pour plus d'informations/For more Information:

Mariève Robichaud
Responsable ressources humaines & CCAP.Tv
20 860 boul. Henri-Bourassa Québec (Qc) G2N 1P7
T 418-849-7125 x7135 | C 418-446-3623 |@ marieve.robichaud@ccap.coop
www.ccapcable.com | www.ccap.tv |Facebook

Geoff Scott is the founder TriCities TV in Port Coquitlam, Port Moodie and Coquitlam, BC. TriCities produces content that airs on Shaw's Vancouver-area cable system. TriCities hopes to be carried by Telus in the near future as well.

A big project for TriCities this year was helping high school students tape 40 interviews with senior citizens recollecting how Coquitlam was in th 1930s through 1960s, as part of the city's "Oral History" project.

Some of TriCities supporters and partners include: The Coquitlam Foundation, Coqitlam Heritage Society, la Société francophone de Maillardville, The Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce, PoCo Heritage, Leigh Square Arts Village (PoCo art centre), the Port Moody Art Centre Society, the Port Moody Historical Society, the Minnekhada Park Association.

(Note from Cathy Edwards, CACTUS' Executive Director: My favorite community TV clip of all time was shot by Geoff Scott as part of a project working with Aboriginal children. In it, the kids are encouraged to write and tape video fantasies. In one scene, a diminutive grade 4 child says, "Let's get the grade 2s to be mice" and then there's a cut to even more diminutive grade 2s saying, "No way. We don't want to be mice. We want to be SuperHeroes" and you see these pint-sized would be SuperHeroes jumping off pic-nic tables with their superheroe capes fluttering in the breeze above them. It has somehow always captured for me the essence of community media in enabling self-representation.)

CACTUS has been pleased to welcome CSUR La Télé as a member. CSUR is the first community production group in Quebec to join CACTUS.

CSUR is available to Videotron and Cogeco cable subscribers in Vaudreuil-Soulanges (the southwestern part of Montreal) as well as live over the Internet.

CSUR's parent organization (organized as a co-op not-for-profit) also offers rural highspeed Internet.

To check out CSUR's programming and activities, click here:

CSUR La Télé.

CSUR sent us the following update in April:

"Fondée depuis le 14 mars 2010, la Coop de solidarité Csur la télé est en opération dans la région de Vaudreuil-Soulanges à l’ouest de Montréal dans la province du Québec.

Notre mission ; produire des émissions POUR PAR et AVEC la communauté. Comme son nom l’indique, Csur la télé est une coopérative de solidarité de télévision communautaire sans but lucratif. Une première au Québec!

Diffusée sur deux canaux; Vidéotron et Cogeco, Csur la télé a parié d’investir dans les nouveaux médias et de prendre d’assaut les réseaux sociaux tels Facebook, YouTube et Twitter et d’être compatible avec Apple Airplay. Vous pouvez voter sur notre site web et y laisser votre appréciation. On compte déjà plus de 400 000 visiteurs!

La région de Vaudreuil-Soulanges vit un boom démographique époustouflant et fait face à plusieurs défis, entre autre reliés à la langue. L’une des particularités de la région est la cohabitation entre francophones et anglophones.

*Nouveauté* Csur la télé a mis sur pied un projet pilote d’un bulletin hebdomadaire bilingue qui traite des nouvelles locales. Les sujets traités sont des exemples authentiques démontrant à quel point la culture vibre sous toutes ses langues.
En effet, le respect mutuel et amical s’étend au-delà de toute plate-forme politique.

We're very pleased to be a member of CACTUS and look forward to sharing with the rest of the country what it's really like for the 'two solitudes' to live together.

www.csur.tv"

Gord Peters is the new station manager for VCTV, Valemount, BC. Most recently in Vancouver, he has been producing television, film, and video since 1997.

A graduate of Vancouver's Columbia Academy, Peters got his start working for BCTV (now Global), as a field producer for a weekly real estate show. He's no stranger to community television either, having volunteered and worked for Rogers TV Vancouver for 4 years on the weekly news/entertainment magazine show, Plugged In, among others. Peters also worked for City TV Vancouver as a news editor.

He went on to work in production in Vancouver, as a producer, director, editor, and director of photography on numerous film, television, and corporate video projects. Seeking a lifestyle change and a move to the mountains, Peters chose the picturesque community of Valemount, BC, located near Mount Robson, about an hour from Jasper, Alberta.

"The opportunity to produce local television and help make a difference in a small community really appealed to me.", said Peters. "Valemount is a beautiful place and the people here are really nice. And now that VCTV is on Bell and Telus satellite, we have an amazing opportunity to show Canada how great Valemount is. I'm looking forward to the challenge."

Peters looks forward to meeting and working with CACTUS members and encourages everyone to drop him a line at: tv@vctv.ca.

(Condensed from original version in St. Croix Courier, March, 2013)

GRAND MANAN ISLAND-For close to twenty-five years the Boys and Girls Club of Grand Manan has operated a community television station, GMTV on cable channel 10. Village Council [stand-alone productions or publications take itallics; articles or segments within a longer production use quotation marks] on Monday, February 4th was the last telecast. Peter Sesplankis, the Boys and Girls Club manager, says the decision [what decision?] is due to lack of cable
subscribers on the island. "Most islanders subscribe to satellite," says Sesplankis. "We had to cancel our TV bingo last summer because we were not selling enough cards."

Rogers cable offers only 33 analogue television services--virtually the same service the company launched on the island in 1984--while satellite
offers hundreds of digital channels, many in high definition (HD). Rogers also failed to contribute funds allocated for community television to the Boys and Girls Club for their programming services.

"All is not lost for local television on the island," says Sesplankis. "We will continue production of local programs on Grand Mansn but we will now broadcast those shows on CHCO-TV."

CHCO-TV, also known as Charlotte County Television, is New Brunswick's only independent community TV broadcaster. CHCO-TV was uplinked by Bell TV (to satellite channel 539) on December 20th, 2012. "It was probably the best Christmas present any small TV station could ask for!", says Patrick Watt, CHCO-TV station manager.

Since 2010, with strong backing from county residents and local elected representatives, CHCO-TV has made repeated requests to Rogers Cable for carriage across Charlotte County. "We still feel it is a loss for cable subscribers to not see their own county channel" says Watt. "Rogers prefers to carry distant' channels from other Canadian cities coast-to-cost instead of an independent channel from right here in the county."

CHCO's partnership with the Boys and Girls Club will provide a greater variety of programs to all Charlotte County. "It is likely the world's smallest broadcast
television merger!" laughed Watt.

David Welch, Chairman of CHCO-TV, says it is these kinds of partnerships that will make the small channel a success. "We are a community channel, and local access for producers and viewers alike is paramount."

GMTV is not the only new partner for CHCO. Ed Christie, of Harvey Station, operated a community channel out of Harvey High School for 18 years. "Rogers Cable pulled the plug on us in 2009", says Christie. "Now with access to CHCO-TV on satellite, we are producing local programming from Harvey."

Welch says CHCO's focus will remain south-western New Brunswick. "Although Harvey is not in Charlotte County we share a federal political riding and many inter-scholastic events like last weekend's high school basketball tournament are being telecast."

TV Bingo has helped the station stay afloat for almost seven years, and has also grown in popularity. "What the public may not know" says Welch "is that CHCO-TV cannot access Canadian or local broadcasting funds like public and private broadcasters. We are left to our own means: direct fundraising, TV bingo and advertising."

"We are happy to help CHCO with TV Bingo here on the Island", says Sespankis. "It's a win-win situation; funds raised with bingo help make local programs. A portion of the bingo proceeds will also go to youth programs at the Boys and Girls Club." CHCO-TV will continue to present the annual Grand Manan Boys and Girls Club telethon in November. "It should be better than ever!" said Sespankis.

CHCO Television is New Brunswick's only locally owned and operated television broadcaster. It is now available province-wide on Bell TV satellite channel 539.