All right. Um, good afternoon. Um, I'll welcome everybody to the Cable Communication Advisory Board meeting for Thursday, April 16th, 2026. First item is roll call and we have a quorum. Um, second item on the agenda is
membership. We have a new member on our board, Jesse Juel. Correct. Is that how you pronounce it? Okay. >> All right. And we'll keep moving along and we'll welcome by the way and we'll keep moving along to election of officers.
Um, currently we have myself, Seth, Seth Visser as chair, uh, Mike FTH as vice chair, and Paula Humbard as uh, secretary. Um, do we see any need for changes? If not, I'll entertain a motion on that.
>> I would make a motion to keep those same people in those positions. >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. Uh, next up is our approval of minutes from our last
meeting, which was July 17th. So, it's been a minute since we've had a a get together. >> Chair and members, I would make a motion to approve those minutes. >> Second. >> All right. Motion in a second. Um, is there any further discussion? If not,
all in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. Now, we get on to some new stuff here. New cat activities. >> All right. So, >> Mr. German before you have our activity reports uh for all of the months leading
back to our last meeting. Uh so for July through um December of 2025, January through March of 2026. Um a couple unique things. Um, you know, before you
have all of our recordings that we have in our studio, council chambers, uh, recordings that we've done in the community, uh, and programs that were submitted to us, as well as DVD sales. Can see most months, uh, this past, uh,
past year have been pretty slow on DVDs, but they've been picking up a little bit lately. Um, there's one more thing. One sec. See, we also attended a um technology show in Eden Prairie. Um
that was in November. Let me see. Uh yes uh new cat staff attended the Forte open house. Uh Forte is a uh they used to be called Avi uh and they're kind of the premier uh technology uh
vendor uh and they invited other vendors uh you know for a vendor showcase and that was in in in Prairie. Um, every month we uh continued assisting with the new middle school class during the school year.
Um, and that's all I think we have for the activity reports. Any questions? >> And more just a general question. I I know that we've got a couple standard live um live meetings. I usually council
PUC and and school board, but >> um >> what dictates you guys going I mean is it a request that if they want to have a live meeting or or drive some of that? >> Um I mean every meeting that we record in this room is live on YouTube.
>> Uh but in terms of going live on the channel, it's difficult to go live for everything because we have pre-scheduled um church programs and other things that we have scheduled. So, it's um I think in terms of the importance of city
council and the uh public utilities meeting and school board, uh those are the ones that we definitely need to take live because uh people are are looking for that information immediately. >> Yeah, just more curiosity. Thank you. >> Every once in a while we'll we'll have
some other special program that we will take live. Um but it's just a kind of a case by case basis. Understood. All right. If there's no questions, I'll entertain a motion on that. >> I would move approval. >> I'll second.
>> All right. Motion and a second. Um, is there any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. Uh, now we've got a programming update. >> All right. So, in the programming update, we have all of the programs that we completed uh from July 25 through
March of 26. Uh, and I have it broken down by, you know, different shows that we've done. Um, so, uh, at the top we have, don't forget to read the instructions. Uh, the board game show that we collaborate with the library on. Um, we only did three new episodes. That
one's always takes a little bit of coll uh, coordination and and finding a good time to record, you know, an hour of playing a board game. So, uh, that show was hosted by um, librarian uh, Leroy. Um,
uh, I forget his last name. Harris. Uh, but he, uh, has since left. But he, uh, so, you know, it's something we would like to continue doing, but, we just kind of need to recoordinate how we, uh, go about putting that show
together. Um, Living United recorded, um, three new episodes, and Living United is a show, uh, produced by the United Way. uh of the Brown County area. Uh something Artsy has continued to record every
month, usually about um 7 to 10 different uh interviews each month. Uh we just recorded uh a new episode today. Uh and you know that was you know all morning long. Um, the new home forum is the show we
produce with the League of Women Voters, and they did about uh seven new uh shows covering different topics such as uh the the food co-op in town, um an organization called TOPS, and it's like a weight loss club. Um they did an
episode on credit unions. Um they interviewed the um author Vicky Paiser. Um they they did did an episode on themselves talking about the work that they do in town as well as uh with their
uh civic engagement director from the state organization of the League of Voters. Uh and they also interviewed the attorney general, the Minnesota attorney general. Um, we also worked with the Brown County Historical Society doing uh a number of
their presentations throughout the year uh including the most recent their um women's history present month presentation uh fertile ground wagonog and the turner roots of freedom. um
did about six uh uh new public library presentations. Um different authors coming in to to do different presentations on different uh topics. Uh we continued doing a uh monthly
update program with the um library as well as um starting to do one monthly with the um parks and wreck department uh as well as the new police uh uh
department. So uh Chief Borer is hosting that. Um this month he hosted alone but last month he he had invited the heart of New Alm to come on and and to talk um did a lot of concerts. Uh we've focused
a lot of attention on that including the concert in the park series. Um there was a fall concert at State Street Theater with the Concord singers uh as well as the New Municipal Band. Uh we
recorded some live music uh at uh you know throughout bars and uh uh coffee shops throughout uh downtown New um another State Street program, the Stars of State Street. Uh as well as their Christmas uh program, Christmas by
Candlelights. Uh, and most recently we started recording the poker concerts uh at the New Alm Franklin inside Benny's Bar uh which they do every every Tuesday. Uh, and we also did the over 60 band at the
community center. Um, we completed one more episode of Tales of the Town. That was the short uh series. I think we had shown an episode in a previous meeting. Um, this episode was uh a nation obsessed
with alcohol. >> Tornado 18. >> It was tornado of 18. Yeah, that was that was incorrect. So um we have our uh movie previews talk show. Uh and that is a u monthly talk show where we talk about upcoming movies.
It's uh hosted by Mike uh McMahon as well as uh Clay Schultz. Um we also started a new series uh called the new ambience. Um these are usually about 10 to 20 minutes long. Uh just
going to a different location in NewM and recording the um some visuals as well as just uh ambient sounds. >> Uh and and that's something we play as interstitial content between other programming. It's kind of meant to be a
peaceful moment of zen. So, we uh we've been to the Minon Park. Um you know, the downtown. We did a Christmas time episode. Uh went to the Brown County Free Fair and did one along
the alleyways of New. Uh we've also been working with the uh League of Women Voters on their meet your local officials series uh where we recorded uh presentations on uh with the city council and mayor uh school board
uh and most recently the Brown County Board of Commissioners um as and then we did the living without limits series. This was presented by the um human rights commission. Uh and so far we've done two of these. Uh both of
these are recorded down in the new studio. Um and we had a panel uh discussing discussing visual impairment and autism spectrum disorder. And then we've just got a variety of other things that we were recorded. Uh
most of these are shorts um or short videos um just uh detailing community events such as spiking in the streets. Um got the mayor making sauerkraut at the Keyasling House.
Um and some sporting events uh such as the Flying Dutchman uh motorcycle hill climb and their flat track races. Um, see if you kind of scroll down a little bit further, you can skip past our submitted
programs. Those are kind of usually the same uh every time, but uh at the YouTube channel reports uh our most recent numbers are uh you know for that period of time uh new got 43,000
views, 1.6,000 6,000 hours of watch time. Uh, and we added 124 subscribers. Uh, so we're sitting at about 927 total subs currently. And the city of New Alms uh channel has
9.1,000 views, 1.2,000 hours of watch time, uh, added 24 subscribers for 322 total subs. Any questions about the
programming update? Uh, chair members and, uh, Stephen, I've maybe got a couple of quick questions if I can. Um, one of them is the middle school video class. Um, can you refresh my memory what that entails? And >> Sure. Uh, Mike is usually the one to go,
but we both do go sometimes. Um, so you go ahead and take it. So, uh, Mike man, production technician. I go down to the middle school for noon, uh, every Wednesday, uh, and I work with the eighth grade media class with Vicky Tamarino, who used to be on the board.
Um, and, uh, we, uh, help the kids put together a little newscast, um, with, uh, they go and record interviews with the sports teams and the theater group and new teachers at the school. Um, and then they make little uh
fake commercials to play between the content. Uh, and they produce about a 30-minute news program every semester that we end up putting on the channel. So, every, you know, three months, >> three semesters per year, trimester, I think. >> Yeah. So, trimester. So, there's So, every 3 months or so, we get a fresh new
old middle school news that we play on the channel. Uh, and it features all the kids from the middle school in the eighth grade media class. Mhm. Um, does District 88 have uh television production equipment and uh facilities? >> Um, so Vicki uh does a great job of
getting uh a lot of grants that she uses to pay for some equipment. They have iPads that they do most of the shooting on. They have the uh little um USB microphone lavalier microphones that they use. Uh and they have tripods and a whole nine yards and they edit on Mac computers right in the lab there. and
the kids all have to do every part of it. So, it's set up so that uh they work through the semester doing one part of each part of the newscast, sort of progressively working towards the commercial at the end where that's kind of the most complicated thing and they have to do the most work on that. Um but
it's also the most fun. So, >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Um and then in addition to that, are there any other schools that have television production uh programs or programming here in our community? >> Not that I know of. Yeah, not that I'm aware of. I mean, we'd be more than
happy to help any of the schools if anybody else is interested in us coming down to to teach the kids how to do anything. That's, you know, we're always looking to to make new connections in the community and and help anybody else out that that wants wants it. So, >> so if the public middle school um does
it, does the high school the public high school do it? >> Uh, we have not had anybody from the high school reach out to us to do anything. >> And they don't have a television production. don't know what the extent of their production. So, as far as I know, >> they do have media classes of some kind, but I don't think it's the same kind of
thing. >> Okay. Mhm. >> Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I'd like to see that expanded if at all possible and feasible with our schools and our youth. >> Yeah, for sure. Definitely would like to have it cuz it's an eighth grade. Uh so,
it'd be great to like develop those skills beyond 8th grade into high school, but it's about finding the right, >> you know, fit and the right person to work with. So Vicki has been a great uh >> person to work with on this. So you know >> uh we started this class about 10 years
ago and kind of I helped her develop the curriculum and um you know it's every year we kind of mix it up a little bit uh based on what's working, what's not working and >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Some classes are better than others.
Have they ever been have they ever come to the our studio? Um in >> We have uh we have had uh well there was one year where she was able to get every class to come to a a tour of the new cat studio and we >> bring out the the studio cameras and and
let them have some experience with uh uh doing a little talk show in in our studio. >> Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. Thank you. My only other question was has to do with programming um right around Christmas Eve. It's kind of an unfortunate time, but it's of course a
special time for um you know our indigenous population and that is the Dakota riders um coming through might be you know annually now it sounds like um we weren't able to record any of that or
be a part of that and maybe they didn't even want any recording. I don't know. It usually falls on I think the holiday. Um >> it's Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve. So I don't know 23rd we would be able to even work on that day technically.
>> But um I know that we have had them on for the new forum to talk about uh I think was uh some of the cooks involved and feeding the the group >> throughout the process. Um, it's definitely something I would be interested in in finding some way to be
involved, but uh in a respectful way and not trying to interrupt >> um you know their um their events. Right. >> Maybe uh maybe you can kind of put it on the possible uh to-do list and reach out
to some of our local uh there's a local volunteer group that really does a lot of the >> the work to host them. >> Yeah. For like two nights, >> they got some time. So, um it's I'll put it on my list. >> Yeah. And then they like uh one time
well two two years ago they stayed in Turner Hall and then this past >> you know Christmas Eve time period they stayed at the community center. >> Oh okay. >> U for two nights. >> I guess I didn't realize they were staying you know in in local places like that. usually the 23rd and 24th that
they come through, you know, 22nd, 23rd. Um because they march into downtown Mano on the 26th, I think it is. >> Yeah. So 25 they're in Mano or near Mano Christmas Day.
>> And then the culmination I think is the 26th >> at Reconciliation Park in downtown Mano. That's the two only two items I had. >> Great. I've got one one comment. I I thought it was pretty interesting. I think you attached the analytics this
time, which would really highlights, you know, our our seasonal activities that we have going on in the community. >> Um, I I think that's fantastic and shows our our viewership and and you know, where the bulk of the watch time comes in, but also I think highlights an opportunity kind of during the lull
where maybe maybe there could be some other opportunities. I'm not quite sure what that could be, but it looks like there's, you know, some room for engagement of possibly more viewers or or items at that time. >> Yeah, definitely. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah. No, that was quite interesting. So, thank you for adding
that on there. >> What else Mike or Jesse? >> Nothing in addition. >> Share maybe one more question. Um, >> so we have two major channels. There's a new cat channel and then there's a city
channel. Is that correct? >> Just for YouTube. Uh we keep it separate for the city of New Alms uh boards, commission meetings. Uh so that's uh kind of one place to find if people are generally looking for just that kind of content, >> official and formal meetings.
>> And uh every once in a while something else might get uploaded there. But for the most part, anything that we produce uh as Newcat in the studio or record in the community, we upload to the uh new uh YouTube channel. >> Sometimes I get confused when I'm on
YouTube. It's like >> I thought I was there, but I got to go over there. >> Thank you very much. >> Yep. >> All right. If there's no further comment, I will take a motion on the programming update. >> Move to approve. Second.
>> All right, we have a motion and a second. Um, is there any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. Last up, is there any comments from the rest of our board? Jesse, Mike, or Tom? I do. >> All right. Um, otherwise, uh, Stephen,
great job. I know you're kind of you get isolated from some of our content once in a while or input, but, uh, keep it up. Thank you. And Mike, thank you. So, all right. Um, I will adjourn the meeting then. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you.