Rosebud Cafe: Overview (1973)

• Overview
• Dumping Ground - People Visions, Vol. 2 c. 1973 excerpt

Overview
The Rosebud Café was founded around 1973. "We are a group of people whose life long interest has been to be a part of a cohesive community. While many of us are from Delhi, the initial energy came from a group in Downsville called The April Video Cooperative. AVC is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to better community communications. Our major effort has been developing 1/2" videotape as a means to look at ourselves and our neighbors and to see exactly what is going on in our community. We have actively shown many people in many parts of the country not only how to integrate this means of communicating into their daily lives, but how to bring about change and better understanding of us all."

The Rosebud Café has a library of 100 tapes, produced by the community. "The Rosebud Café" videotape 1/2", 30 min. Available from Downsville TV. Contact April Video Cooperative.

Interests:

• Cable access through Newhouse Cable Co., which owned the Delhi system, for public programming.
• Public viewing center
• Mobile unit with 1/2" equipment as a head end and community studio for cablecast for people living in outlying rural areas.

-Listed in Radical Software 1973.

Dumping Ground - People Visions, Vol. 2 c. 1973

Who is the Rosebud Nucleus?
We are a group of people whose life interest has been to be a part of a cohesive community. While many of us are from Delhi, the initial energy came from a group in Downsville called The April Video Cooperative. A.V.C. is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to better community communications. Our major effort has been developing 1/2" videotape as a means to look at ourselves and our neighbors and to see exactly what is going on in our community. We have actively shown many people in many parts of the country not only how to integrate this means of communicating into their daily lives, but how to bring about change and better understanding between us all. We have accumulated a library of over 100 videotapes which will serve as an example of how, why and where 1/2" videotape can be used. Local government officials, individuals, teachers, students, farmers, doctors, scientists, ecologists, conservationists, artists, both the young and old have all been able to put this tool to good use. We have also devoted much of our energy to cultivating cable television as an outlet and resource for locally originating television programming. Recently, we talked with the Newhouse Cable Company, who owns the Delhi system, about making available for public use a non-commercial channel and the facilities necessary for originating programming.

Comments from the Folks of Delhi

"I work at the drug hotline in town, and what I'm interested in doing is using video for drug education. I think it can be an effective technique to use all around the county."
          Kevin Shank

"My name is Frank Cyr, C-Y-R. I'm from the Rural Supplementary Education Center in Stamford. We're already broadcasting to several communities and were interested in getting started, before long, in originating broadcasts in the different communities we serve, up and down the Catskills, over an area 12 times the size of Rhode Island and we want to find out how to put local people on, so that we can have local programs."

"I think Delhi needs a drop-in place for all ages, where you can come and be yourself and do something. A place where a lot of people can share what they know."
          Arvy Potter
          United Ministry School of Art

"I know a lot of people in town connected with various agencies and I am very interested in being able to work with some of these people and teach them how to use video. To go out to rural areas to develop communication between really isolated rural people."
          Hilary Baum
          People's Resources

"I came because I thought you had films, but this is something more."
          Kurt Rotzler High School Student

We would like to help make The Rosebud the kind of place where all people could come and be, see tapes, exchange ideas and information, meet each other, and teach each other what they already know. We would like to see it grow to fit the needs of the community.

We would also like to equip a mobile unit with 1/2" video equipment so we can begin cablecasting from the first line amplifier on Rt. 28. This would serve as a headend and live community studio as well as a mobile tv studio to serve people who live in outlying rural areas.

The Rosebud would be a public viewing center and provide immediate feedback and community response via a live phone in system. It is important that this be a joint effort of the community and the cable company.

THIS PROJECT IS IMPORTANT TO ALL OF US. IT CAN PUT ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE IN TOUCH WITH EACH OTHER AND THEMSELVES.