Villens United by Chris Haskell

It’s official Villens! Somerville now has its own community media holiday!

In celebration of inaugural holiday on Thursday October 20, Somerville Community Access opened its doors to the public and Boston Free Radio took their live broadcasts to the streets of Union Square.

The newly founded city holiday showcases our outstanding local media outlets in print, online, or on the air. It also gives residents of Somerville the opportunity to come check out all the programs and opportunities that are available to them with a membership to BFR and SCATV.

Community Media Day kicked off at noon with Alderman Matt McLaughlin presenting SCATV and BFR with a plaque to commemorate Community Media Day as an official city holiday. The writers from Scout Magazine Somerville along with SCATV media director Erica Jones took to the airwaves of Boston Free Radio shortly after to talk about the new Scout TV, which is airing it’s premiere episode this week. Friendly locals and passers by stopped to hang out to interact with the media and to enjoy the live outdoor broadcast.

In the early afternoon The Boston Institute for Non-profit Journalism took over the BFR live broadcast to talk about their involvement in the local media scene. BINJ founder and editor at Dig Boston Magazine Chris Faraone and his colleague Jason Pramas sat in to discuss the importance of community media and the fun events BINJ has coming up over the next several weeks. They were followed by the an hour long local teen takeover of Boston Free Radio where some of the teenage members got to command the BFR live outdoor broadcast for an hour.

The outdoor festivities concluded with my own show The Villens Den taking over the last few hours of the live outdoor broadcast. This week I was lucky enough to have comedian Al Park come on and talk about his live stand up comedy show Something Big and his other projects.

We were also joined by Megan Ward of Old School Game Show fame and local man about town Kevin Harrington. Singer/songwriter Ana D’Leon also drove down from VT to talk about her upcoming shows and perform a few songs for us. Despite the chill wind and constant interruptions from passing rush hour traffic the broadcast was a lot of fun. The beautiful music of Ana D’Leon was the perfect distraction.

While the BFR booth got all the face time for Community Media Day, there were many interesting projects going on within the building for the public. Although in truth, it’s really no different from most days in the SCATV/BFR building. Whether it’s Fallon’s Daily Toast or the many other projects Fallon O’ Brien has going on or the local media programs for the city’s youth; there is always something fun going on at SCATV and you’ll find a colorful cast of characters and friendly local faces hanging around the building any given day.

I myself have been lucky enough to work with and within the local community media over the last year with this column and my Thursday broadcasts on BFR. Local musicians, comedians, writers, and all the locals working on their own projects within the building. In that time I have met some truly interesting and all around good people. It’s nice to have some place where you can meet with others to discuss ideas for media projects and work with others to make it a reality. I am honored to be a part of this great community media circle we have in the Boston area and humbled by how welcoming and supportive those within the local media have been. I enjoy my creative projects both here at the newspaper and at Boston Free Radio immensely.

While the first annual Somerville Community Media Day was a success we are already looking towards plans for next year’s festival. I hope to see you there. In the meantime both SCATV and Boston Free Radio have their doors open to the public everyday, so stop by if you would like more information on membership.

Later ‘Villens … enjoy those pumpkin spice coffees.