Town Hall Meeting Newsletter

May 12, 2003

Town Hall Meeting Newsletter #4. Vol. 1, (from Dale Bell, Harry Wiland, Ron Barkley - 310 202 3370; and Jim Hood, in DC)

Dear ATSH Town Hall Meeting Teams and Friends,

I apologize for allowing so much time between newsletters. We have been on the road, trying to meet new people, secure funds, and make new arrangements. It appears as though we may be able to stage about six locally/regionally- televised-through-PBS stations Town Hall Meetings in this calendar year and 6 in the next six months of 2004, prior to the national in Fall 2004.

This is phenomenal. Let's try to keep up this journey towards empowerment, enlightenment and education, inaugurated last October 9 with And Thou Shalt Honor! We received a wonderful, warm letter from Jim Towey, Director of Faith Based and Community Initiatives at the White House, supporting our efforts. It is on our web site at atsh.org. We are extremely proud and gratified.

Here is our overview as of now:

• Denver: We have a firm date now with AAHSA of October 27, a Monday. We have worked on format and content issues. They will be contacting Brian Williams of MSNBC to see whether he will and/or can moderate. We still need to raise an additional $25,000 which we will try to do through foundations and individuals in the area. We will be writing an Executive Summary of the event so we can submit it to the local PBS station, with whom we have spoken and who are interested in our next step. Once it is written, we will share it with all of you.
• Cleveland: We still have more work to do with coalitions and WVIZ before we complete the application process to other foundations/corporations to obtain funding in addition to the $25,000 already pledged contingently by Mt. Sinai Healthcare Foundation, one of the original supporters of ATSH. We will begin this process immediately and should have some further announcement shortly. All is positive, just process.
• Milwaukee: We have a commitment of $25,000 from a local foundation and are awaiting word on several other applications that are pending. Marilyn Lange's team is doing marvelously well and will begin to enlarge their coalition base, deliberate about content and host issues. We have made contact with the local PBS station and have a tentative commitment from them, but still have more work to do to nail it down. They are looking to November for a production date.
• Kansas City: their meetings have been temporarily postponed due to the horrendous weather they have been subjected to (our prayers are with them!) and we will get an update from them this week. We still hope that they will be the first to produce (August?), the first to air (September?). As we nail each of these THMs down, we will begin to contact "experts" from out of the region to invite them to attend.
• Los Angeles: We have a meeting with a potential corporate funder this week which could ignite the THM/LA and attract the other funders who have remained in the wings until someone antes up first.
• Boston: We have received strong interest from a small potential funder after we held a series of meetings with WGBH and the University of Massachusetts' Gerontology Institute at McCormack Institute. We may have an overall coalition coordinator who will assemble a team for an April 2004 event to be broadcast in Older Americans Month next May. Meanwhile, NFCA is holding a web-cast THM in Boston in September 2003 that will trigger a rebroadcast of ATSH on WGBH. The Boston PBS station is very enthused about our plans. The Boston Community Foundation might also become involved.
• Seattle: Nora Gibson continues to assemble people for her coalition. We expect she will have a critical mass shortly that will require that I go to address them, as I did in Kansas City.
• Michigan: Cheri Mollison has inquired as to whether they could hold one in Lansing and/or Detroit. She now has a starter kit and is going through her first steps. We know the Detroit PBS station very well.
• Rural Kansas: Stacey Boothe of the AOA there is hoping that her group can assemble what is necessary so that we could conduct our last THM in rural Kansas next summer, just prior to the National THM in DC proposed for September/October 2004. She feels that they have some rural interests and needs that cannot be addressed in a "city"environment. Tentative target date: June 2004.
• Chicago: I had a good, preliminary conversation with the Chicago Community Trust. Now we have to assemble a coalition(s) to make something happen in the Windy City. Not to have Chicago, or Boston, for that matter, would not be good. They are essential. I will start this week trying to put people together again after the ASA. Marilyn Hennessy at RRF is supportive.
• South Florida: I have not heard from Rona in several weeks but will get an update shortly this week and put it out. Florida is key to this effort because of their political and demographic importance.
• New York: After Memorial Day, we will contact NYC again and particularly the Borough of Queens which was the first to hold a ATSH THM, untelevised, in January 2003. We will work through the Borough President, Helen Richards, who hosted the first one.
• St. Paul/Minneapolis: We have new interest from new people here and will pursue it this week.
• DC: We met with the Executive Director of the Center on Aging at Georgetown University to ask whether they would take a principal role in setting up the national THM in DC next Fall. They are considering and we should hear back this week. We seek their imprimatur and guidance. Our goal will be to bring together Federal and State people to have a discussion about accountability and responsibility and solutions. Since much of caregiving legislation/initiatives begin at the local and state level, it is important to enlist that support in your coalitions, and to consider representatives as potential experts. Gail Hunt, Executive Director of National Caregivers Alliance and our Technical Director on ATSH, is beginning to suggest content issues from a national perspective.
• AARP: We had a very productive meeting with AARP while in DC. We believe that each of you should contact your local AARP leader and involve her/him in your project locally. There is support from national on this plan which we hope will be formalized shortly. Having AARP on our side, as they were with ATSH, is great.
• Portland/Charleston, SC: We would like to initiate THMs in these locales.

  ATSH2: NAHU, the National Association of Healthcare Underwriters has made a commitment of $20,000 towards the development of ATSH2, our sequel. They hope to be able to identify an underwriter(s) who will fully fund the follow-up program of two hours for national PBS broadcast in 2005. We are ever hopeful as this will maintain our presence before the national audience with these issues and our encouragement of empowerment through education. If any of you can help to identify a national funder for the sequel, you enter the bonus round!!

  National Funder for THMs: This week, we have a telephone meeting from LA with another insurance company that has expressed strong interest in being a part of the regional and national THMs. We will report in shortly. Ditto to ATSH2 above!

  Kettering Foundation: We had good discussions with them in DC and with NIFI (National Issues Forum Institute) which might be interested in helping to stage some of the THMs or to raise interest prior to our broadcast in some cities. They might also help to conduct outreach in the cities. They have extensive connections across the country in colleges and universities.

  PBS expressed interest in our plans for the THMs and for the national one in Fall 2004. We have more discussions with them.

  Consumer Reports: Trudy Lieberman continues to assemble information that will enable her to "rate the states" as to their caregiving performances, in categories and with criteria she is devising. We are encouraged that she will have sufficient information to present her findings concurrent with the first production, hopefully in Kansas City.

  ATSH as a Pledge Special: We are inquiring of PBS as to whether they can use the original program as a pledge special for this August. They would offer our two principal products: the DVD and the companion book to new members of PBS sations locally.

  The companion book: Rodale is publishing the paperback version at $15.95, to be in stores by end of August.

  New videos: We have now produced 12 additional films after completing ATSH. 10 of them are being distributed to professional organizations through Aquarius Productions, our distributor, at aquariusproductions.com. Two new films: Spiritual Caregiving (30 minutes) and City of Refuge: The Church of the Valley AIDS support group (60 minutes) will soon be available on our web site at atsh.org. We are seeking funds to broadcast City of Refuge locally and nationally through PBS. Ideas welcome.

  LA County's "10 Essential Caregiving Tips" (30 minutes) is our newest film now in production, commissioned by the County throough USC's Andrus School of Gerontology. It will provide a video/web site/booklet guide to services within the county and could be a template for other cities/regions. If you know of a need in your local area, pls let us know and we will follow up.

  "GreenHouse Project": Shortly, we will be creating a short film about the very first built-from-the-ground-up eldercare homes, created by Dr. Bill Thomas of the Eden Alternative. The new facility that will "transform the face of eldercare"is located in Tupelo, Mississippi. Other GreenHouses are in the works under the leadership of Jude Rabig, Executive Director.

  Thank you for all of your help and support. Dale, Harry, Ron and Jim