welcome to a very special edition of the open music session this pre show i'm your host dr lockwood today is the official end of an era in denver open media for the last twelve years has been led by our fearless leader and tice and today is her last day so even though july is a pretty difficult month to have open music sessions we decided to have one anyway and that kind of segues into one of the bits that we'll be doing is talking about the reminders that ann is going to be leaving us with because one of the things about ann is that she is very good at understanding how to really run a true to democratic system a system that both allows for individuals to express themselves and also allows for the whole group to have an equal share in their expression and the community expression so there have been a lot of reminders throughout the years that and has tried as best as she could to in call kate into our practice so we're going to have a few people up here and hopefully they can share some of their insights around th production community access station a lot of times quality can kind of go out the window and people think oh well it's just community access we can we can relax but one of the things that i personally really appreciate about an this is way more difficult than i thought it would be a man i'm going to miss you so much and this this experience of denver open media i don't remember what i was talking about i'm going to just change subjects right now this experience for me working at denver open media having an opportunity to ultimately have you as a mentor volunteered for two thousand and eighteen and there was a lot of things that i learned in that process and as a denver open media incalculable amount of education and personal development that happened and i think that there's a lot of people here that can say the same thing public access is a very challenging beast to run and for twelve years and spearheaded making absolutely magical happenings out of a very  string budget i think everyone can agree that the things that we were able to accomplish denver open media over the years was just far outweigh well certainly what anybody else has been able to do with that exact same budget since the contract was lost in december so what we're going to do is we're going to ask some people to come on up and just kind of share their little bit of any any initial  leaving behind there's a lot of things building of the station building of this community but for me personally when i see her work it's the thing i think about  thirty and you know through that work she has i mean she's fostered young minds and you know i think about some of those people you know jonah matt  that she has fostered through the years and impressed upon them the values of you know civic responsibility and also the importance  you know fostered those skills in in our with our youth group and now they're out in the world doing amazing things which is a really comforting idea so that's an amazing  legacy that and has left and i think a band also think of her as an animator she is always looking for ways to make the station better always looking for ways to make the experience that we have with youth better  super cool idea and of course is really cool project in the end is just really really cool so yeah yeah it's a sad time but if there is a silver lining it's the in that  and you were so kind to us and helped everyone not only to overcome the issues we were dealing with at the time but to learn how to troubleshoot our solutions for ourselves i noticed how much time we spent teaching classes and helping people in the studio and you would never judge sarah laugh at us for not knowing something but you always spurred us on to excellence and i appreciate that here are a few things you taught me specifically he taught me to use broadcast pics to do live switching as a technical director to set up lights and microphones for a concert and another thing he taught me personally that i'm very thankful for was how to properly coil x l r cables might seem like a small thing but it can't really be taken seriously as a filmmaker unless you know how to coil a cable thank you so much and for fighting for independent voices and for encouraging us to work as a collective thank you for encouraging us for sharing your time with us and for being there for us we wish you the best in boston so the youth group is something that you know i don't know if we're going to be carrying it on  experience of the youth group has been if you can sum it up  i have made countless films with and and the biggest thing i got out of it was being able to think about community and really brought that in she was like you know you think about oscars you can think about the big picture you can think about hollywood or some new mexico or one of those big works but what really matters steep down is if you do media for your community you do something that will have an impact in your local audience and something that really matters if you do something about police brutality or we did one  about walking flats and its nuclear explosion and how they're dealing with that and what that really teaches is two things one it really helps us as inform the community about things that we may not see every day too it teaches about journalism and three it really puts into thinking about what you can do for your community and really trying to get the community included in the decision making and let them make informed decision and i think that that's what and really taught me because i really came in thinking i'm ready to make films i want to make narratives i want to work my way up to good enough where i can get a stable job maybe one of the studios in new mexico or anywhere but andrew we said let's take a minute and step away from that and what's really think about films that we concentrate on your local community because that is what it's important that that's definitely the voice that's missing in the mainstream is the local community and in fact everything's kind of getting geared more towards if it's not big it's not important and i think the and definitely holds the flag of no local is important it doesn't matter if the whole world sees it or not if we are able to communicate and come closer together as a community and that that's something that's more important than than big money or big ratings invention was that exactly what the message she wanted to bring across and i think the other thing that made it even more powerful is that she really wanted us you through lead that her but  and so i think that made that ten times more powerful because it is in some adults or it's a variety of diversity of kids and different range from being hispanic to african american why and spanning from all over to community of colorado and just instead of having politicians really speak out and so i think that made it ten times more powerful as a youth and our diversity of that an inclusive it's always been a very inclusive environment where everyone was felt special and that was seven definitely something i mean i volunteered with the youth group it was definitely the lead that i was following which is just we're here to help these young children learn how to do it themselves yes exactly that's real empowerment it was and we're going to we're trying to just get credit look how many youth group kids we've got like there was a real attention to community so it's nice that you got some crossover and some exposure and experience with people that you wouldn't normally have had an opportunity to be with so what is the future of the youth group now that in his is moving to boston more time spent on videos and the influx of more kids to be able to come were thinking about going on the weekends so that would allow more people to be able to drive in by their parents and stuff like that other thing is it was interesting is the question about our public access because before we were you sure did shows a lot and these kind of pains fitted into a show we made small little p and then we were put into a show but now that we've taken away our public access t v station we started to start looking into a lens of maybe heywood's not think about t v anymore what's think about radio and podcast and how we can speak our voices through proc asking radio yeah ok interesting so we're going to start building up some projects through that and to our public activist access radio ok well i'm really glad to hear that the youth group will be into what she wanted to continue and put out there and i hope and it's the opportunity to maybe continue dairy like you see in boston yeah so there's if you are in boston and antis has the ability to put together a youth group you've group it's free dropping drop out anytime you want so come out and check us out so that's available if you're interested thanks a lot thank you liane it's michael is here and i am at ten street hockey putting together my gallery so that's happening tonight so i will miss our works at general good mood here but i just want to say i am so grateful for you i started there five years ago as an internist and now we are working together and the director you know our own lives shows so what an amazing experience part of my dream was to direct  television and i ever built that dream through denver open media and with you help me out help me understand the whole production and learning of the poor it's just been such a blessing and i just want to say from the bottom of my car thank you so and has several connections to the community she's not just a community leader for denver open media but the just general broadcasting community at large and now we've got dave ashton from cajun you know spit some game and and wow good words about and are not hard to come up with due to the fact that she exemplifies a type a leadership that is just selfless that is not attached to a clock you know the type of just never say die never give up never  ceded to the pressures you know and as a real fighter and as you're hearing here that you know it's not that she's like fighting for her own self aggrandizement but that it is the community that she needs to fight for so you know honestly we're losing a really incredible resource absolutely i mean i don't think that it's really going to hit us until it does and then we'll be like oh that was another one of those things that i just didn't really quite understand that that's what she was doing for us and that's what the that was that's what was available while she was here because there i mean there's there's it's of it's a vast the ray of different things that and your station yeah i think ten years is an incredible career you know that is been an opportunity to shepherd so many people from youth to adulthood to teach real viable skills that people have brought into the marketplace and you know we don't see everyone here tonight you know we've had st fridays where it's just like jam to the gills and here we're not all of those folks are not here today and a lot of them are out like on their own professional career and several weekend so you know maybe maybe one of these days and words will sink in maybe next year but the point is that a ton of people have been impacted by ann's work you know the youth of today are the adults of tomorrow and over a ten year career working so closely with the community the impacts of just rippled outward so you know with the city pulling back on resources trying to you know capture the voice of the people like it's up to the people now of this community to take that training and that experience on to the next level and let n do what she's best at which is you know parachuting into this next community to do this incredible community work and start impacting more lives because when you have this tireless dedication to putting the work  that's a very very special individual and that is something that you know has to be cherished yeah absolutely i really appreciate the fact that she is going because here in denver for what it's worth we  the ability to be in control of our own community this city has taken it over and they're running out of their building and so that that means that there's just not community access or something different now and what and does and what she wants to do with it what what she wants her career to be about is working with community access and so that's where she's gone she's gone to do her calling and now it's up to us to those that are staying in denver to deal with denver's problems to be championing community access really nationwide because this station was a beacon in america as one of the premier community access stations the things that we were able to do and have access to especially for the  less than normal budget is was really amazing and so i'm certain that wherever she goes in boston it's going to be amazing like we're going to see what maybe community access can be it even a next level because i it's something that she's interested in getting involved in so hopefully we'll see some cool stuff come out of boston no doubt well you know in closing i'd just like to say thank you ann for working with me for these ten years you know i can think back it doesn't seem like too didn't use its membership to produce copious amounts of video but it's hard video is really difficult and we never really got it figured out because it's very easy to press play on a record turn of mike on tell me what you think about it you know so our radio thing is much easier for me to teach people than it is for you to facilitate video for folks so you know all of the things that we never got edited up we're going to do it in your absence for  and so yeah thank you so much for everything you have downs and seeing you in boston there's been a lot of heartfelt words because there's a lot of heart and soul that's been put into this program these the work that we've done over the last few years has been definitely a labor of love jump on in jeremiah's sense just went on to be so jeremiah how long have you been associated with and ruben media i've been associated with dinner open media maybe about three years after it came around about twenty million one hundred and two thousand and eleven somewhere in the ballpark so and you know what this is a great turnout compared to what we used to have back then like it used to be better than a doornail so i additional more stronger contributions to causes to messages and you know she had a very big push for the youth and was amazing about that is you know those  adults and now they're taking over the helm so she's literally she's planted this seed and grew her replacement here so she's still here with us basically let's put it that way yeah i mean i think i'm a  up everything i know about video pretty much got from her and and you know i really appreciate how she holds the space for the professional expectation the studio when ends in there at the studio is not run like oh it's fine whatever it's run as if you're in new york yeah and you're on the broadcast but i mean i exactly and so i really appreciate that that she always held that energy of we were going to be working at the highest and your creativity and you're taking advantage of everything that this studio has to offer her and she's unable to you to do things with you kid you can really go out there on lives so i've one definitely been a thorn in our side in a good way though because i think ultimately she felt she's an enabler and therefore you know we really push the boundaries here when we could and that's the great thing about him so that's a funny anecdote sure i don't know i  get into any more detail other than i'm still here i'm not kicked out so thanks and all right so what's on what's on the horizon for for denver of media in the future for a radio station i know you're more of a video guy you going to be making radio content well i mean you guys still have the studios and you're merging with rocky mountain p b s right so you guys are merging into this backbone of the best of the best of public content so the future's wonderful for media yeah yeah we're not shutting down we almost did it was kind of a brownout you know like when you almost pass out right yeah yeah and you know would the people who made that a possibility like there was no purpose behind doing that you know we're not going anywhere so we're the community forever we're the community that you might have forgotten but we're still there and we're still protecting and not having a slot in the nother regions of a cable company's channel programming is not the end of communicating t people we've got streaming much more powerful we've got the radio station which is just like a pirate radio beacon right in the center of the city it's great you're fine we've got yeah and content is  evolving so quickly that that you can't like hold onto one particular channel to communicate that's just silly like the all want to still be in two g or you're looking forward to things change so technology changes and getting the message out is still you're more enabled than ever to do that right here right now or tomorrow or this year or next year it's all still here so yeah the community is still here we're not going anywhere and the access is still the family still we're still here so we're good yeah you know i showed up today just to pay my personal issues downstairs but i just wanted to express my gratitude to her for all that she has done so many people to so many things and i could read a lot of that do enabled us to create so much more through denver open media she's allowed us to host a three hour sequel the mile specials right here in this building and really left it open to whatever we wanted to do and really allowed us to  share in the credit for what we've done and what she does so it's just you know one door closes another window opens and hopefully she'll sneak through that window and remember us going forward but like the person before me express denver that we all can build upon and yes it's a it is a big loss but other people are going to have to pick up the slack we're all going to have to step up and improve our game and yet now we're doing mostly radio and we love doing the radio that took over what had been here for so many years and had worked so hard and it was heartbreaking for her to have to step away and look for another position and it's heartbreaking for us because we are really losing an ally but like i could do all those things so i know that jamison who was part of the youth group as a youth he's going to be stepping into