Marblehead TV group to hold first meeting

MARBLEHEAD – The new independent corporation running local access TV has been up and running for a year – and the Board of Directors of Marblehead Community Access and Media (MCAM) has scheduled its first annual meeting for Monday.The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the TV Studio in the Marblehead Veterans Middle School.There will be reports from MCAM Executive Director Jon Caswell, MCAM President Bob Peck and MCAM Treasurer Ed Bell, and the Board of Directors election will be held – one of the five director seats is up for election.The hour-long session will also offer a chance for the press and public to talk with board members.MCAM runs local access programming as an independent non-profit corporation. Its board of directors includes three members appointed by selectmen and one each appointed by the superintendent of schools and the Cable TV Oversight Committee.The first three members whom selectmen appointed were Bell, Peck and Patricia O’Hare Williams. Peck received a one-year term, Williams received a two-year term and Bell received a three-year term.When Comcast withdrew from running Marblehead’s public access program, MHTV-10 was converted to a town-run, non-profit Access Corporation, funded by Comcast and Verizon. Long-time MHTV staff members Jon Caswell and Bryan Nadeau continued to run the new organization.Bell, who currently serves on the Council on Aging, has 50 years of media experience. He has been a newspaper reporter, television executive on WBZ-TV and WHDH-TV and worked with the Associated Press in Washington D.C.Peck, a lawyer, former selectman and Finance Committee chair, chaired the town’s first Cable Oversight Committee and helped prepare the town’s first cable TV contract.Williams, a local painter and artist, has been instrumental in bringing public art to Marblehead High and the Marblehead Veterans Middle School and said there are plans to bring some examples to the Marblehead Village School as well.