My Three Overlapping Circles of Experience

Community Television

Twenty years ago right now (Feb/2003) I was sitting in the Winnipeg offices of CRTC reading everything available on the Brandon Cable Co-op, with a view to applying for the opening as Regional Program Manager in their public access department. That fall, after being hired into that position I read every board minute and Regional Access Committee minute available, interviewed all former Board Chairpersons and CEO's. As well, I visited several other community programming operations, soaked myself in the literature, and attended the national conference of programming managers. At the end of my fourteen months as Regional Programming Manager, when I moved on to other involvements, I knew just about anything there was to know about community programming in Western Manitoba up to that point: its visions, it hopes, its frustrations, its possibilities as an agent of change in the community, and certainly its volatility as a public resource within a region.

Over this past nine months, I have had the opportunity to return to the department in a volunteer/work placement capacity in order to upgrade my skills in community media as part of my Masters of Rural Development program at Brandon University. It has been a fascinating time to be marginally involved in their operation as it is very much a time of transition both technologically (from analogue to digital) and socio-culturally (from an essentially socialist to a capitalist ethos, under the effects of the globalized economic realities of today).

Ministry

Predating and straddling this twenty-year period, I have been a minister in the Protestant Christian Church, very much concerned and involved in an attempt to pioneer out a rule-set for a new paradigm of Church life. As media is one of the five tactical capacities I bring to bear in varying combinations in any of the projects I undertake, my use of community television has always been interwoven with my ministry. I am fascinated by the possibilities media offers to enable and enhance ministry far beyond its usual uses as a device for the transmission of worship services to the homes of shut-ins. To me, worship transmission is a beginning rather than an end point in the use of community television in ministry, and barely scratches the surface of its possibilities.

Community Development

My concept of ministry has a great deal of overlap with community development particularly when viewed at the strategic level rather than the tactical level where the two activities are broken down into a finer level of granulation and become heavily colored by their respective specialized agendas. To me, the usefulness of any media, and community television in particular, has a high degree of utility within both these two fields of endeavor. The possibilities which arise in either of these two fields, frequently transfer well to the activities of the other.

The Circles Overlap and Research Questions

So it is for me that there are three overlapping circles of activity: Community Television, Ministry and Community Development. There are of course, many people who specialize their careers in one or other of these areas of activity, but there are very few who combine all three. Even fewer people have worked in all three over this twenty-year span which has seen such great social and technological change.