3MC Meeting 6-14-14

Good Morning:

A lot of things are going on and only Walt could make it for  breakfast Saturday morning. We did, however talk about a few things that I thought might be worthy of sharing. As we head into summer “break” for Walt and his class, Walt and his wife will be leaving in early July for a month long tour of Europe. We will, of course, struggle on without him but there are a few things that we will be working to make progress on in his absence. First, however, I need to share an important realization that I’ve come to that sort of dominated our conversation.

 

We have covered a lot of ground over the past, nearly, three years! Since those early days when I walked into Walt’s classroom and met with Walt, I’ve been exposed to the WORLD of Multi-Media Arts and it has changed how I view marketing and promotion. Over the past year, with the “connection” to the Central Valley Buzz, Chuck Leonard, Mike Briggs and the KAIL-TV program and my work with Carol Fong, our Gold Coin Web Master, I’ve learned about the modern telecommunications arts! In short, I’ve learned that there are two parts of this new Paradigm of communication; the MEDIA and the COMMUNICATION for lack of a better way to describe my thoughts. Our new media is the audio/visual multi-media tools that Walt and company have command of and the Communication is the way that we get this multi-media “product” out to the world. In this regard, we are using traditional TV and printed documents to “connect” our customers to our multi-media presentation. We are, with our Old Town/Gold Coin Web sites, Facebook and Google pages, “broadcasting” our multi-media message to the world effectively. This is reflected in the viewership number on our Web sites, the “hits” we are getting on our pages but most importantly, the number of people who are in Old Town (and the Gold Coin) and the “feedback” from these people that I get every day!

 

Our Old Town was packed, again, this weekend and our (Gold Coin) “numbers” are up significantly from last year! I get reports from other Old Town merchants that “business is good this year”. It’s WORKING!

 

So, back to Walt’s and mine conversation! To move our “plan” forward, one of the KEY elements is to get our off-campus “studio” up and operating! Walt and I will try to meet with Eric McClard, and his wife, over at the Epic Center to see what we need to do to get this Studio going. We think that Thursday/Friday of next week would be optimal for Walt (he has training early in the week and I will be working on the “Old Town” show Monday and Tuesday) and we are going to try an contact Eric to see when we can get together. Our thought is that we might get some of his young folks started on a few small projects. OUR focus would be “Life-Style” type of short multi-media projects that tell the “Story” about what it means to “grow-up” in a place like Mariposa! We need to work on and refine this idea but, as a reward, we can use our “Communication” network to “publish” winning video projects; maybe a CASH award as well???

 

This “studio activity” will get the ball rolling with students and potential students for Walt’s class AND, maybe, generate a resource pool of students who could be available to work (for MONEY) on various projects that WE might need some help with???

 

Along the lines of “Projects”, we will be wrapping up the Coulterville/Flash Mob videos for publication! Damian, and I are a bit at a set-back point with our John Bruce Art & Artist video but we will keep pushing forward while John is in the hospital recovering from a broken hip! Last night, I chatted with Bill Dewitt, of our Dewitt & Franklin Art and Artist video. They will be performing at the Art Park on the Music on the Green Stage next week and Bill asked if we could get some video? I will be working with Walt to see if we could find someone to take this on. We can use some of the video as part of our Art & Artist video project and Dewitt and Franklin can use the video for promotion of their band. There will, of course, be MAJOR time needed to edit the video but getting the “shoot” done right, right now, will be the challenge. I will talk with Ronnie Sweeting about how we “might” connect his “sound” leads into our camera equipment to get some first class recording quality on our video tape???? Mike Hall, from Ciera Wine Cellars, might have some ideas about all this as well?

 

On the “Communication” front, we’ve had a little set-back with Chuck Leonard’s health down at our Valley Buzz show. The “show” is going on with a “stand-in” Host so we will be sticking with our Buzz show schedule as planned.

 

Walt and I talked about the possibility of starting to do a second “show” from our NEW studio that we can broadcast on the PBS station’s web site! I will also be talking with Chuck and Mike Briggs about perhaps trying out some new ideas for broadcasting this show on other Valley Channels?

 

On the Web side of the “communication” equation, I’ve made some upgrades to the “Old Town” presentation. I’ve added some personality???? The following text has been added:

Self-Description:

Who am I, you might ask? I’m “Old Town” Mariposa! I’m the spirit of the West! I am a National Historic Place but, more than that, I might be your way of understanding the future!!! Someone once said that “we cannot understand where we are going unless we understand where we have been”! I’m an old mining camp, in California’s Southern Mother Lode region that was founded in the summer of 1849. I’ve survived boom times and bust! I’ve seen days of glory and I’ve burned to the ground three times each time to be rebuilt in a manner that was better than what was lost. I’ve been the home to some great and famous pioneers and early explorers, John C. Fremont is perhaps the best known to modern day historians. I’ve been the host to presidents, like Teddy Roosevelt, movie stars and other well-known personages. Most of all, I represent the “spirit” of the REAL old west and what has made California one of the great success stories over the past 160-years. I’m “Old Town” Mariposa, a historic Gold Rush mining town on the Highway 140 entrance to Yosemite National Park. I’m where “History Lives”.

Job Description:

Very few of us old California Mother Lode mining towns have survived into modern times. For many, the gold played out and the minor moved their temporary “camps” to richer diggings. Most were destroyed by fire; I’ve burned to the ground three times! I was built of stronger stuff by men, and women, who had the vision and industry to keep me alive through economic and natural disaster. I’m a survivor! When you look at my old buildings, you can see the character and quality of “what it takes” to survive! Perhaps you can see your future as you view what was YOUR past. Yes, I was built by your grand-fathers/mothers; your great grand-fathers/mothers and I really am YOUR past.

Theme Line:

“You can’t really SEE where you’re going until you UNDERSTAND where you’ve been!”

Old Town Mariposa, Where History Lives!

The other night, I had an opportunity to visit a little with Dr. Monty Thornburg of the John Muir Geotourism Center in Coulterville and we spoke of collaborating on doing some multi-media “content” on John & Jessie Fremont. He mentioned some art work down at the Hornitos school that might be moved to Mariposa as part of an “old town” community art exhibit AND I was thinking that, perhaps, we could work with the John Muir Center/Chamber to set up an “Old Town” FB/Google presence for Coulterville. Of course, once you start something there is follow-through and then there is Hornitos, Bear Valley, El Portal......well it just goes on and on!

 

I’ve been trying to create a “personality” for our Old Town Internet image and this is what I’ve come up with. Your thoughts, of course, are welcome. Check out our Google page to see how it is developed https://plus.google.com/u/0/+OldTownMariposa/about As part of the “connecting the dots” efforts, I’ve rented the table in the Chamber Visitor Center to “Promote” our Old Town with pictures and brochures. I will place rack-cards for Old Town businesses/motels (Chamber Members only) on the table for higher visibility for folks visiting the Center! On another front, we hope to have the first of our I-Beacons up and operating soon in the Coin.

 

I also had a long visit with Leroy Radanovich, yesterday, about developing and e-book from one of his publications; we kind of focused on the Joaquin Murrieta book/story and talked about some multi-media tools that we could integrate into his publication! There is great potential, here, for us to extend our multi-media “tool kits” application to another level of “Communication”; publication!

 

It’s time to STOP! I’ve got work to do and so do YOU!!! I could go on and on about some of the “resource” people that we’ve come in contact with, and are part of this e-mail list but it would never end; another time! The donuts were good from the Donut Agogo shop but Walt and I actually had breakfast and the staff got all of the donut (except for one-ahhh the Carrot Cake with Cream-Cheese frosting was just tooo much!

 

Have a good week. Bob

Robert Borchard
Bett's Gold Coin
4850 Morningstar Ln.
Mariposa, CA 95338
Phone 209-966-3412
Cell 209-617-8366