Getting Started: Connecticut Public Affairs Network (CPAN) has never been what you'd call a household name, and up to now that's been by design.  From our non-profit organization's beginnings in 1998, our goal has been to stay quietly in the background and keeping the attention on what we did, rather than who we were.  For the first 10 years of our existence that was mainly CT-N - The Connecticut Network.  Since 1999, CT-N has been an important source of gavel-to-gavel coverage of state government and public affairs.  But even back then, the CPAN's goal was never to just be CT-N.  While we were busy growing the TV network, we were also looking for other ways of realizing our bigger mission:  to educate people about government and civics and to give them tools that helped them be better-informed and more effective citizens.  We looked for a long time, until a new opportunity presented itself...an opportunity involving one of the oldest public buildings in the Constitution State.

In August of 2008, CPAN officially took over the educational and community programming at Connecticut's Old State House in downtown Hartford. Hear the story of how this opportunity came about from the very people who were there by watching the first edition of Tales from the Old State House, featuring CPAN's President & CEO Paul Giguere, VP of Administration & Communications Bill Bevacqua, and the Executive Director of Connecticut's Old State House Sally Whipple.