Pre-Turkey Day

11/19- 2 hours
11/21- 5 hours, for a total of 133.5 hours

This week was full of communication issues. First, we have been having issues with Charter and the new resolution that has been passed, which pretty much cancels our franchise and makes the whole state of Michigan adhere to a uniform franchise agreement or else forfeit funding. This wouldn't be too bad, because the payments aren't any lower, except that Charter is now sending all of the money to the townships and then making them cut the consortium a check, which is a pain for everyone, will most likely cause tensions between the communities and the consortium, and will also limit the information we receive about the community subscribers. Charter used to break down the franchise payment schedule and pay the communities 3% and the consortium 2%, which is the agreement that we have between the communities and the consortium. Charter also used to send us a detailed breakdown of the monetary amounts, which made tracking easier. Now, in an effort to deter communities from being members of the consortium (because there is power in numbers) they are sending the whole 5% to the communities and then the communities have to cut us a check. Needless to say, the community members are not super happy with seeing how much money they send us each quarter; even though they agreed to the percentage as a tradeoff for being a member, its hard to see the use of sending off thousands of dollars. While we're convinced that this is a underhanded ploy to deter membership and ultimately the knowledge of the member communities, there is nothing we can do about it and so we're sure to be looking at some rough times ahead.

Additionally, the computer that I use here at the station does not have the Microsoft Office package installed on it. Will (the volunteer who is always around) called and ordered it from some supplier, and it took a very long time to place the order because he insisted on getting the government pricing for the station (being that we are a sort of government entity). However, this was a very long process and involved a lot of calling back and forth between the station and the supplier, and I'm pretty sure that the whole thing wasn't worth the effort in order to save a few extra dollars. However, hopefully I will be able to have full use of my computer by sometime next week, which would be nice because I wouldn't have to use multiple machines to get simple tasks accomplished.