HCAT’s annual meeting was anything but routine this year when the Board took time to honor retiring member, Dan Sweeney. Dan served for nine years, but he is also one of the legacy producers of local television. Dan’s show was called “Profiles in Business” and between 1989 and 1991, he showcased 75 or more local business owners.

In honor of Dan’s work, Lindsay Crain of HCAT staff, assembled a short video that hit some high spots from the shows. The result was a romp down memory lane with jokes on how well guests and host were aging. The gathering shared many laughs of bloopers from those early days of cable television. You can watch this video on HCAT’s Web Page. Hint: Mary and Jerry Kiley, John Paltrineri (and others) might want to check it out.

Awards to HCAT
Bruce Gilfoy, Station Manager, reviewed the awards that have come to the station and staff in the past year.

ACM-NE Nor’easter Video Festival 2022: (The Alliance for Media – Northeast Region)

• About Access & Community Media Category – 1^st Place Award for HCAT During the Pandemic
• Arts & Theater Category – 2^nd Place Award for Story Time with Chief Cassidy “Nozzlehead’s Big Adventure Book 2”
• Documentary Category – 3^rd Place Award for HCAT During the Pandemic,
• Issue and Political & Process Category – 1^st Place Award for Just Thinking: Bylaw Debate

The 2022 Davey Awards: Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AIVA)

General Education Category – Silver Award – Story Time with Chief Cassidy “Nozzlehead What Firefighters Do”

The Communicators Awards – 2022

• Excellence Winner – Story Time with Chief Cassidy: “Let’s Meet a Firefighter”

https://www.communicatorawards.com/winners/winners-gallery/

A similar award was given to Bruce Gilfoy for Camera Work on that show.

HCAT wins Local Awards, too

The station’s production teams are delighted when shows receive recognition from national awards, but the local ones are priceless. These awards demonstrate appreciation from the community and groups HCAT serves every day. This year:

American Legion Post 47 awarded HCAT the Unsung Citizen Award to Bruce Gilfoy, Station Manager, for always being on hand to tape events and shows that are important to and for our Veterans.

Holliston Historical Society gave the Volunteer Award to HCAT’s Jane and Bruce Gilfoy for the station’s work with and for the Society and in producing shows from the Harvest Fair, Antique Car Show, Holliston People and Places and the many other activities.

And it’s worth noting that in 2021 HCAT was given the Holliston Hero Award by Celebrate Holliston in honor of the extraordinary service HCAT provided to connect the community during COVID by providing programs, government meetings and faith services on video.

Business Meeting Chair Chryso Lawless introduced HCAT’s Board of Directors, Anne Buckley, Tom Cady, John Drohan, Rich Powers, and Heather Scaringella, and, and reported that while the new contracts with the cable providers, Comcast and Verizon, are very good, the future of the cable industry itself might not be. To that end, she explained, the Board is developing a strategic plan designed to make HCAT financially self-sufficient in the future. This new approach will require fundraising and marketing in new ways, but there is a strong commitment to keeping this premier communication entity going long into the future in Holliston.

HCAT releases content on its YouTube channel, Facebook page and Video-On-Demand (Holliston Cable Access) besides Verizon TV channels 32, 33, 34 and Comcast’s 8, 11, 96, so people can view programming from anywhere. HCAT released 567 productions during FY 2021-22 amounting to 822.25 programming hours in cooking, sports, local government, personal finance, music and more.

Anyone who is interested in creating a show or in learning the business of directing, taping and editing, contact the studio – all shows are volunteer-driven, and all volunteers are welcome. office@hcattv.org

FYI – organizations that made awards. (From their websites)

• The Communicator Awards is the highly competitive, leading international awards program honoring talent in all areas of communication. 
• The annual International Davey Awards honors the achievements of the “Creative Davids” (vs. Goliaths) who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than stratospheric budgets. The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms.
• AIVA members include executives from organizations such as Condé Nast, Disney, GE, Keller Crescent, Microsoft, Monster.com, MTV, Sesame Workshops, The Marketing Store, and Yahoo! and many more.