On November 13^th, PMC welcomed to our podcast studio Matthew Greeley, the great-great-great-grandson of Horace Greeley, who founded and edited the New York Tribune and was involved in U.S. politics as a Congressman and Representative in the 1800’s. Like his great-great-great-grandfather, Matthew is also involved in media and flew in from The Big Apple to interview Robert Williams, who wrote a book called, Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom. Matt arrived with a pile of books, papers, pictures, and a list of well-thought-out questions to ask the author which resulted in a lengthy interview and helped to answer such questions as: What was Horace’s personal and professional life like? Why did he lose the presidential election of 1872? And did the gifted Greeley have a predisposition to Asperger’s Syndrome? Matthew and Robert also covered at length many other aspects of Mr. Greeley’s life. PMC was honored to have these two great talents in our studio.  Stay tuned for information on how to listen

On November 26, 2024, the Lighthouse Jubilees will have recorded their last show ever.  For over twenty years Angie Guillette and Pat McLellan, aka the Lighthouse Jubilees, have entertained seniors and others by  touring residential programs, community centers and other places where people enjoy listening to standards of the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s and even 60’s as well as gospel music.  In 2004 they started bringing their music to our Channel 5 viewers by recording new shows every month.  In recent years, they have recorded one half hour show of “oldies” that airs during the week and another half hour of gospel music that airs on Sunday.  The one exception is their December show, which is an hour long Christmas spectacular.  It is fitting that they end their twenty-year television career with PMC with the taping of their Christmas show.

To commemorate this last show of their joyful community service, PMC awarded each lady our first ever Gold Records for “Excellence in Music that Makes People Happy.”  Appropriately, there was a studio audience of family and friends of their PMC career.  Brendon McDonald directed the last show with Joel Glass and Cindy Czubryt on camera.  Also performing with them for their last show were The Greatest Gift, a spiritual singing group consisting of Pastor Wayne Patterson, Krys Patterson, and Mike Biasi with technical support person from Dan Harmon, .

After the taping, a reception was held in their honor, including a cake that read, “Thanks for the Melodies!”  Tearfully we say good-bye know that all good things must come to an end, but PMC will cherish Pat’s and Angie’s friendship for years to come.  They leave us with a treasury of shows that we will continue to broadcast, extending their joy and cheer for years to come.

It’s that time of year for PMC’s Annual Appeal, when we reach out to you to support our mission with your annual contribution.  You may have already received our appeal letter in the mail.  This year we have a goal to increase our individual contributions substantially to support our new Civic IQ initiative.  As you’ve probably read about in previous Airwaves edition, Civic IQ is our initiative to provide more in-depth workshops in media production, immediately followed by involvement in making short segments for our hour-long Civic IQ monthly TV magazine, so that workshop participants can start using the skills they learn right away.  As part of Civic IQ, we are also reaching out to King Middle School to be a model site for a media production curriculum that we can share with other schools.  Student participants in this program will also be encouraged to contribute to the Civic IQ show.

But first, we are also extending our requests with email appeals.  We have an extensive list of members for whom we only have email addresses.  From the tremendous email response that we got in support of our winning the Town & Country Good Neighbor Grant, we know that many of you would like to contribute to our efforts even though we do not have a snail mail address for you.  Of course, you can always donate by going to portlandmedia.org and clicking on “Support the 2024 Annual Appeal.”  Please help PMC grow and become more of a community resource than ever before.

PMC was one of twenty nonprofit organizations nominated to get a grant from Town & Country Credit Union as part of their Better Neighbor Fund.  Winning grants went to the eight nonprofits of the twenty who were able to have the most people vote for their nonprofit on Town & Country’s website every day during the month of October.  We put out the word in previous editions of Airwaves and you responded generously, because PMC was one of the grantees, receiving $2,000.

Town & Country created the Better Neighbor Fund in 2010. Through the Better Neighbor Fund, Town & Country makes grants available to local non-profits, charitable organizations and community groups across Southern Maine to support initiatives designed to improve the community.  Each fall, Town & Country’s Better Neighbor Fund awards a total of $25,000 to eight non-profits across Cumberland and York Counties to support good works in the community. Since 2010, Town & Country has given away $350,000 to support 128 local initiatives through the Better Neighbor Fund.

Two days before the voting ended, a total of 10,034 votes were cast for all the nominees.  That’s an average of over 500 hundred votes per nonprofit.  In order to win, it’s likely that PMC had to receive more than that.  That’s a lot of you thinking about us every day enough to remember to cast a vote for us.  Thank you, kind supporters of PMC and thank you Town & Country Credit Union for being a good neighbor and supporting PMC’s mission.

December 2 will be my 28^th anniversary at PMC (fka CTN when I first started in 1996).  My tenure at this great community media center will end when I start my retirement on January 1, 2025.   In the past 28 years, a lot has happened at PMC.  We moved from USM’s former Continuing Education Building at 68 High Street, to 100 Oak Street where we stayed for six years, then had a brief six month stay in the basement of City Hall until we moved to our present location at 516 Congress Street in 2005.

During that time, we’ve had shows featuring local musicians, actors, dancers and other performers, shows about local, national and world politics and events, shows that focused on spirituality, diversity, sports, LGBTQ+ issues, law, immigrants, children, art, education, substance use, government, environment, technology, self-help, circus acts, call-in shows, comedy, improvisation, women’s issues… the list is hard to complete.  We’ve also hosted hundreds of workshops on media production for seniors, children, and people with disabilities, aside from being open to the general public at any time.  As varied and interesting as all these experiences have been, the most rewarding experiences for me has been helping people make their dreams come true when they produce their own video or podcast to share with their community.

There is magic when people realize their dreams.  Media production, in all its forms, provides that magic.  And with PMC’s new Civic IQ initiative there’s more magic to come.  We have a very involved and committed Board with a specific vision for the future expressed in the Civic IQ initiative.  The launch of this initiative makes this the perfect time for a change in leadership to champion Civic IQ and move it forward.  Please stay tuned to PMC for exciting changes ahead.  Many thanks all of you for making my more than a quarter of a century here at PMC an exhilarating and transformative adventure in community media.

On October 24, Portland Media Center held its annual meeting, marking 38 years as a media resource to the greater Portland community.  This meeting was preceded a week earlier by a special event for our donors to launch our Civic IQ initiative.  Both events were held in the front two rooms at 516 Congress Street, the rooms that were formerly PMC’s reception area and conference room, but have been transformed into a new co-working space and storefront TV studio.  This renovation marks PMC’s first visible step in realizing PMC’s Civic IQ initiative.  PMC Board President Tim Wells and Executive Director Tom Handel spoke at both events, first thanking our supporters for the support that has brought PMC this far, and then outlining PMC’s future with Civic IQ.  Tim talked about how the strategic planning started in 2022 set an overall vision for PMC to expand our services, connect with local schools, extend our outreach to all sectors of the community and improve our facilities.  Tom then described the three major goals for PMC’s fiscal year 2025:

• Establish a collaboration with King Middle School;
• Add 6 beginner media production workshops to our curriculum; and
• Produce a pilot Civic IQ TV series as an experiential platform for participants of our new educational programs.

Both events gave us an opportunity to hear from our supporters and stakeholders and get feedback and insights on our plans for the future.  PMC will be relying on increased support from our donors as well as seed grants from foundations to fund the first years of this exciting initiative.  We have already secured a $10,000 grant from the Davis Family Foundations and have grant applications pending with three other foundations with more grant applications yet to come.  Stayed tuned to future articles in Airwaves as we make Civic IQ grow in the months ahead.

Cindy Czubryt

Cynthia (Cindy) has been helping out on various shoots and events at PMC for more than 10 years before being recruited in 2024 as Programming Coordinator. She has run camera, graphics, and helped set up on shows such as Friday Night, Lighthouse Jubilees, Pachios on the News, and USM Update. In addition to PMC, Cynthia has also been running camera and graphics for 10+ years for International Sound and other public and government access TV stations and currently helps record municipal meetings at Falmouth Community TV.

Cindy earned her Associate’s degrees in Liberal Studies and Communications with a focus in audio and video production from SMCC and has also taken many classes at Mass Art, Rivier College, and York County Community College. Her past volunteer work includes Portsmouth Community Radio (WSCA) and Preble Street Resource Center.  When she is not shooting or editing video, she enjoys being outdoors, traveling, camping, and hiking around and snuggling with her fluffy black and white cat Princess Ninja Kitten!

Brendon McDonald

Hailing from Saco, ME, Brendon McDonald, our new recruit and Production Assistant,  has undergone significant development in his career since attending and graduating from the New England School of Communications/Husson University. After receiving his Magna Cum Laude degree, he immediately set about applying his talents in camera operation, editing, and production assistance to numerous local government and entertainment positions, firstly working at the Town of Scarborough as a camera operator and live-editor for municipal meetings. After getting his start at this part-time job, he began to showcase his talents with larger, more involved productions, such as those produced by the IATSE Local 114 organization, and began to take on a more substantial role at the City of South Portland, working as a camera operator and an editor for various local business promotional videos and scheduled events. He has also contributed as a live-editor and camera operator for harness races held at First Tracks Cumberland. In addition to work in the live-broadcast industry, Brendon has also assisted with short film productions in various roles, such as Director of Photography and Grip, and has experience directing student films of his own. We’re glad to welcome him to our team.

PMC has a new co-working space!  As soon as you enter our home at 516 Congress Street, you will see that our reception area was transformed by staff, Board and volunteers led by PMC’s Vice President Jean Haney.  Jean designed the space, picked out a new color for the freshly painted walls, designed the stenciling, picked out new furniture and delivered it.  On Sunday October 13, Jean, along with Cindy Czubryt, Tim Wells, Keith Costello, Dino Raymond and Tom Handel had an assembly party to put together and set up the furniture.  The rooms were ready for our two October events, Donor Appreciation and Annual Meeting.  The co-working space consists of adjustable height workstations that will be outfitted with computers for editing on Adobe Premiere and DaVinci.  There is also a group workstation as well as a small meeting area with comfortable chairs.  The intention is to provide our membership with a space where they can not only create media, but also work collaboratively on their creations.  People who walk by our front window wondering what happens here will now be able to look inside and see what we do.  We look forward to this visible activity inspiring others to join the fun.