MEET
MTN's NEW PROGRAM
MANAGERPROGRAMMING NOTES
MEET
MTN's NEW PROGRAM
MANAGER
By this time - many of you have had the pleasure of meeting our new Program Manager, Kiersten Coon. Kiersten attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and earned a BA in Film Studies. The highlights of her university experience were; when she studied abroad in Spain for a semester, and when she interned at People Serving People as a video production assistant. Kiersten states, "What drew me to MTN were the many opportunities to learn more about video production and public access in general, while gaining some knowledge about our community through interacting with access users and becoming familiar with their individual shows. - The idea of starting my own show on MTN is very exciting!" Before coming to MTN, Kiersten worked at Proex Photo for two years where her interest in photography was spawned. Taking pictures is one of Kiersten's favorite things to do, and she plans on taking additional photography courses in this spring. She also enjoys writing poetry. Occasionally she will go to an open mike event and read something of her own before an audience. For Kiersten- meeting all the different producers has been an interesting and pleasant experience. She encourages MTN members to follow through with program ideas and wants members to know that there are usually plenty of time slots to fill each week and that new voices are always welcome!
NRP - Neighborhood Revitalization Program
By John Akre
There are many great ideas and initiatives that Minneapolis residents are designing and implementing. I've been documenting citizen involvement in the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) since the early 90's, first as a volunteer, then for the NRP, and now as an MTN staff person through a production contract that MTN has with the NRP.
The NRP was set up ten years ago as a plan to reinvest in the neighborhoods of Minneapolis. Citizens organizations recognized by the city develop plans to spend the NRP funds allocated to them. They develop these plans through a citizen participation process and they are encouraged to reach out to the diversity of residents in their neighborhood to ascertain needs and come up with solutions. Once the plans are adopted, residents implement them, strengthening their housing, business districts, playgrounds, and experimenting with reducing the impact of traffic on their streets, to mention just a few of the things neighborhoods have done.
For over eight years I've gone to community meetings and events and videotaped them. I usually try to do a few interviews with residents and then I edit together the program. The programs that I make consist of from three to seven short reports on different neighborhood events or projects. I try to tell the story by editing together the various interviews I've taped, without using any narration other than a paragraph of text that introduces each segment. What I've found is that there is a wonderful spirit of community voluntarism and service in Minneapolis. Many people like to complain about things, but even more people are rolling up their sleeves and writing and carrying out plans that do something. It's been very inspiring to me, and has encouraged me to spend more time volunteering for my neighborhood group. The program I make is called "Minneapolis Neighborhood News" and can be seen at the following times: Channel 32/16 Sundays at 5:00 p.m. Channel 33/17 Fridays at 6:30 p.m. Channel 34/14 Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 9:30 p.m.
You can also find out more about the show and watch some low bandwidth streaming segments at http://producers.mtn.org/mnn. To find out more about the NRP, visit the NRP website, http://www.nrp.org or call them at 673-5140.
Page One: MTN Channels on the Move