SPEAKERS CORNER..introduction and thanks by Julia

 What is community TV? It is the locally produced programming about community that you can catch on your local cable TV station.  The history is that during the 80's the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission)...made it a condition of licensing that cable TV companies would support Community TV  and so there were community offices with paid staff. Ours was on Kingsway in Port Coquitlam.  The staff helped volunteers to shoot/produce/edit programming with community groups and covered a wide variety of community events and organizations.  Then in the 1990's ..the Federal government decided to deregulate  and the offices began to close.(But not in Quebec where funding continued and they have a well established community tv presence!)
The Tricities office had the distinction of being the first to loose all funding and close its doors. All the volunteers left and any community programming left became  produced by professionals and took on a slicker look. In our community, the current support of our cable company is now the 6 times slots allowed per week on Shaw Cable 4.
 Geoff worked intially in Vancouver and was the producer of a magazine style program called Freestyle but he also did some work in special effects for the film industry and some editing/technical work for CBC and the Knowledge Network.  In 2007 he decided that his career path wasn't fulfiling his pasions and he took a pay cut and a job teaching at Columbia College.
 He was also active(as Board Chair) with the last remaining Community TV office from the old days..in East Vancouver. It had received some transitional funding for 1 year from the cable company and used that time to try to become self sustaining.  
 From there, Geoff made a decision, about 5years ago, to reach out to the TriCities and organized Tricities TV..which now has about 15 to 20 volunteers and has worked with the Golden Spike Days, our SFPP, SHARE, New View Society, and Crossroads to name a few. They have over 180 videos on their Utube channel...really worth checking out! During this time, all of Geoff`s work has been as a volunteer and is driven by his belief in the service to the community. It is also supported by his very understanding wife. 
  Geoff told us that he has had some recent sucess in encouraging the cities to support Community TV financially  and that they have been nominated by the Chamber of Commerce for recognition as a non profit. They expect to be quite involved with the two local Centennary celebrations in 2013...Poco and Pomo.
 Current organizational goals include 1) shifting from doing production himself to training volunteers to do production and 2) seeking new ways to secure ongoing partnerships and funding.  For $500 a year our Club could become an organizational member, use their equipment and explore ways to produce our own programming...with Geoff`s support.
  Geoff showed us some of the videos available on the Utube station and we all watched our own Ron B and Peter C star in a training video for Generous Hearts!  What a great example of the kind of work and service that Community TV can be!  Thank you Geoff for your remarkable dedication and efforts.