The Schreiber Media Centre will be two years old this year. Linda Williamson met up with Kim Krause in a year end review special to talk about how it all came about and what the future might hold for this Schreiber NPO.

Kim was a town councillor and had been assigned a position on the library board where he got to know chief librarian Donna Mikeluk. One of the targets that the library had set was to create a media literacy programme. Years ago a special project consisting of local interviews was produced with the aid of a grant from the Heritage Fund. There were technical hurdles to overcome at the time and this lead it to become a bit of a pioneering experiment. Youtube was in its infancy and high speed internet was a pipe dream. A few years later the library would play a role in the development of a streaming service for town council meetings.

Kim Krause had worked in the film industry all his life in many locations around the world and soon him and Donna realized that it might be time to try and get some form of media programme established in the library.  Donna set out to find funding for the project and found a potential partner in Cactus Media who were administrating a Local Journalism Initiative Program, funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

After a few discussions Donna and Kim spent a week in Wakefield Quebec, attending workshops and brainstorming ideas on how to get the project off the ground with other CACTUS Local Journalism Initiative program participants.

Having realized the potential of a media centre in a small town like Schreiber, Kim was faced with a choice. As no local journalists could be found in the area he would take on that role and resign from council. Equipment would need to be purchased. A non-profit organization was established and soon the Schreiber Media Centre was born.

However it was not all smooth sailing in the beginning as days before the official opening, COVID struck and closed down the library and other municipal buildings and put a halt to all gatherings. The media centre somehow survived that first year and still managed to produce local stories for residents in the area. It was a bit of a surprise when word that funding was to  be made available for a second round was announced. The LJI funding was a very important source for establishing the centre and having been given a shot at a second round was good news indeed. More attention would be given to training and expanding programmes as not much had been accomplished in this area due to the COVID restrictions. Soon the original team of one would expand to include two additional junior editors, a floor manager and camera person and of course Linda would continue on as the host of the Community Connections series. Recently there has been a new addition who will hopefully bring a younger group of high school students into the program.

Kim Krause foresees a time when the Schreiber Media Centre could become even more involved in community events and even help in being a driver for economic development through film festivals and tie ins with other organizations. Local content has been met with positive reviews coming from all viewers and the benefit of being able to highlight local issues will continue into the next phase.

The Schreiber Media Centre has gone from strength to strength in both quality of content and the steady increases in viewership it has received from its home grown style of content that has found a place in the hearts of the citizens of Schreiber and surrounding areas. Recent statistics show the their programming has reached outside of the confines of the small town with world wide views in South Africa, Europe, Australia, and the USA.