For those who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Melinda Garfield. I am the Executive Director Westwood Media Center, and as of last Friday, your newly-elected President of MassAccess. For the past four years I have served on the Board of MassAccess as Clerk and then Vice President. I have worked in community media for the past six years and prior to that worked for companies such as MTV, NBC, Powderhouse Productions, iDeal Partners Film Finance, and even did a stint of teaching middle school in Revere, MA. I am passionate about the services that community media stations provide to our towns and cities and the innovative means we employ to evolve with the changing technology landscape.
I would like to thank the rest of the MassAccess Board of Directors for their hard work and commitment to their various roles and responsibilities. We’ve worked hard to serve you and I am honored to work with a group of talented individuals who are dedicated and engaged in providing our membership with educational opportunities, guidance, and legislative efforts. I consider myself very fortunate to have this opportunity to represent our members and will work hard to meet your expectations. I am very fortunate to have been able to rely upon the knowledge base of Bill Nay and other past board members to help me along. Bill has made major strides over the past three years as President and I am happy to report that he will remain on our board as the Chair of the Public Policy Committee. I am also glad to have David Gauthier by my side as the new Vice President. David has been part of the board since 2015 and we share a lot of the same work ethic, passion and energy.
Last Friday our board met to take an in-depth look at how we are operating, what we can do better to serve our membership and our mission, as well as to strategize ways to remain financially solvent. We hope that you will notice positive changes as we keep evolving.
We have a lot to be proud of. Over the past six months we have successfully launched phase 1 of our website, held a great conference, and introduced legislation that will give Community Media Centers HD channels and access to Electronic Programming Guide. There is a newly-formed subcommittee focusing on the DOR Strategy for tackling the intricacies of the Enterprise Fund. We have started a public policy conference call the first Friday of every month. We hope you will join us at our Fall Meet and Greet series which will take place this year on October 2, 3, and 4 here we will be tackling the question of alternative revenue and ways to account for it. We are also investigating and confronting cord-cutting issues across the state.
Over the next six months your MassAccess board will focus on engaging our membership, offering activities and initiatives that are more strategic in nature and more reflective of what our membership has requested. We will continue to expand our member services, advocate for our profession on legislative affairs, increase our visibility in the community, be more communicative and accessible to you, and incorporate feedback to better strategize as we enter 2018.
I would appreciate hearing from you and encourage you to reach out to me at melinda@westwoodmediacenter.tv or feel free to give me call!
