It's finally time to announce the winners!

The NCRA Awards were founded in 1993 with a contribution from the Standard Radio group and ran as the Standard Awards for 12 years. Since 2005 they have been the NCRA Community Radio Awards.

But whatever the name, the Awards have always served as a place for the members of the NCRA to recognize the amazing work that goes on in our sector – from what we put on air to how we contribute to our communities. Needless to say the entries represented here are only a slice of the great work produced by member stations. We thank everyone who applied -- it was a record year, with 103 entries.  

The NCRA currently has 77 members, our highest ever. And this year we had submissions from new and longstanding members and campus and community stations working in both rural and urban areas. In fact we had so much material that we had to strike two juries:

Melissa Buote used to work at CIMN-FM, the campus/community station in Charlottetown, PEI (sadly no longer broadcasting) and later worked as Program Director at CKDU in Halifax for four years. Now she’s a consultant producing videos, among other things.

Caitlin Crockard was bit by the radio bug at the former CKMS-FM in Waterloo, where she dived into the dusty shelves of musical gems and didn't surface until 4 years later. Caitlin is now the producer of CBC Ottawa’s “All in a Day” and also worked on Fuse and Bandwidth.

Zofeen Khan hosted the long-running show “Mystic Music of the East” on CKDU-FM for years and just moved to Indianapolis to pursue a career in photography.

Jaime Little taught radio at the University of King’s College in Halifax, NS and now works for the CBC’s Cree and French services in Northern Quebec. She has also worked with community radio in Afghanistan and taught radio at a refugee camp on the Chad border.

Gabriela Mayoquin used to work for the World Association of Community Broadcasters, known as AMARC, and has trained community broadcasters around the world. At the time of the Awards she was in Bangladesh, helping work with community radio stations there.

Dan Misener was a programmer on CKDU-FM in Halifax and now works on CBC Radio’s “Spark”.

Prudent Nsengiyumva works with Radio Salus, a community radio station in Butare, Rwanda but he has also had work featured at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and on CBC’s Dispatches.

Thanks to all our jurors for offering their time and their ears. They had to make tough decisions and everyone mentioned the quality of all the work submitted.

Thanks also to everyone who supports community radio behind the scenes, especially family and friends. And thanks to the sponsor of this year's Awards gala, CBC Radio! 

This year’s awards’ trophies were collected on a beach at Degnen Bay on Gabriola Island, BC and are a good way to honour the sea and sky from this year’s conference, known as “Camp Radio”.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AWARD 

Winner: “Do you hear what I hear?” by Doug Ralph

CHUO-FM Ottawa, ON

Doug’s involvement with CHUO began in the fall of 2007 with the show, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” This two-hour weekly program focuses on newly released music from across Canada, with a special focus on the Ottawa music community. It explores the stories and theme of the music played. Doug also hosts a weekly local indie music night in Ottawa.

Honourable Mentions:

“Into the Magic Soundbox”

CFRC-FM Kingston, ON

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Youth Radio Camp

CKUW-FM Winnipeg, MB

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Canoe-FM

CKHA-FM Haliburton, ON

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LOCAL TALENT DEVELOPMENT AWARD

Winner: “Melodies in Mind” by Ryan Fletcher

CJSF-FM Burnaby, BC Ryan has been planning and hosting the live 2-hour show "Melodies In Mind" at CJSF-FM for the last 4 years. Every week, he brings in local musicians to chat about their music and play a few songs in the studio. The last hour of the show is devoted to the Song Circle, in which performers go around playing a live acoustic song one by one, which adds a co-operative element and joins local musicians together.

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VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Winner: Erin Montgomery,

CHES-FM Erin, ON

Every weekday Erin hosts CHES’ morning program from 7am-9am. She is also the volunteer Station Manager, Volunteer Coordinator and chair of the Programming Committee.

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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT/COMMUNITY RADIO "LEGEND" AWARD

Winner: Magnus Thyvold,

CJSF-FM Burnaby, BC

There isn’t enough space to describe Magnus’ contributions to community radio. As far back as 1991, when he was at CFUV, Magnus organized an NCRC in Victoria. From 1996 to 2003, he served on the NCRA Board of Directors and put a lot of creativity and common sense behind making the organization what it became. In 2002 he was pivotal to organizing and hosting the first BC Campus and Community Radio Conference.

In 1997, Magnus became the Board rep for Earshot! His work since then with this important compilation of campus-community radio playlists includes work on the Earshot! web page since about 2000, and doing charting and editing since about 2002. He still coordinates Earshot!, including recruiting and compiling playlists, and writing and editing articles, and he has organized annual Earshot! parties for the NCRC since the late 1990s. Earshot! has become a benchmark for CBC and other stations and networks that are looking for emerging artists that are becoming popular in the campus and community radio sector.

Magnus’s work on the NCRA web presence also needs to be emphasized. Until last year, he was webmaster for the entire NCRA website. He designed, and still updates and maintains the NCRA Program Exchange, which has become really important for sharing audio among stations. He’s been an enthusiastic contributor to most of the technical innovations in our sector, including live national broadcasting, automatic logging, and more.

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AWARDS FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN:

ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS AND CULTURE PROGRAMMING

Winner: “Healing Perspectives”

CKMO-AM Victoria, BC

Producers: Earle Thompson, Brad Edwards

Honourable Mentions:

“Sne Wayulh”

CFRO-FM Vancouver, BC

Producers: Gunargie O’Sullivan

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CREATIVE PRODUCTION

Winner: “Murder on the edge of nowhere: a three-act radio play”

CKUT-FM Montreal, QC

Producers: Chris Zanti

Honourable Mentions:

“Smoking by the School”

Radio Laurier, Waterloo, ON

Producers: Greg McKenzie

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“Windy Radio Drama”

CFRC-FM Kingston, ON

Producers: Stephanie Jowett, Bill Gillespie, Jessie Stephenson, Christopher Currie

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

Winner: “Not rocket science”

CHLY-FM Nanaimo, BC

Producers: Todd Barsby, Liz Gillis, Greg Arkos, Gara Pruesse, Stefanie Duff

Honourable Mentions:

“Family Matters”: Stay at home—Homeschooling Dads

CFRU-FM Guelph, ON

Producers: Wendy McDonnell

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“Youth Now”: The N word

CKDU-FM Halifax, NS

Producers: Sobaz Benjamin

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“Chinese Community of Nelson as-was and how did it get here?”: Chapter 13

CJLY-FM Nelson, BC

Producers: Claus Schunke

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DOCUMENTARY

Winner: “Adventures of a Fetish Virgin”

CKUT-FM Montreal, QC

Producers: Kaitlin Prest

Honourable Mentions:

“Cognitive Dissonance”: Lightning in a bottle

CFRC-FM Kingston, ON

Producers: Chris Trimmer

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“Celtic Connection”

CKOA-FM Glace Bay, NS

Producers: Shaun MacDonald, Brittany Mullins, Bill MacNeil

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“Handi-link”: Paralympic Athletics

CJAM-FM Windsor, ON

Producers: Cameron Wells

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NEWS

Winner: “Poverty Olympics”

CITR-FM Vancouver, BC

Producers: Andrew Longhurst

Honourable Mentions:

“Interview with Adam Shapiro”

CFRC-FM Kingston, ON

Producers: Christopher Currie

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“Water and Waste Utility Special”

CKUW-FM Winnipeg, MB

Producers: Geoffrey Young and Michael Welch

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“Autonomous Social Centre gets evicted”

CKUT-FM Montreal, QC

Producers: David Koch (with files from Aaron Lakoff)

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MUSIC PROGRAMMING

Winner: “Japanese Musiquest”

CJLY-FM Nelson, BC

Producers: Yukiko Tsutsui

Honourable Mentions:

“Old Time Radio” CJLY-FM Nelson, BC

Producers: Barry Boates

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“Road Poets”

CHLY-FM Nanaimo, BC

Producers: Dave Teichroeb

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“Unsigned”

CKHC-FM Toronto, ON

Producers: Shauna McCreedy

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SPECIAL  PROGRAMMING

Winner: “Homelessness Marathon: The Artists Edition”

CJSF-FM Burnaby, BC

Producers: Ryan Fletcher, Jay Peachy

Honourable Mentions:

Kwanzaa from “The Holiday Show”

CKHC-FM Toronto, ON

Producers: Josh Long

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“Iran on Fire”

CKLU-FM Sudbury, ON

Producers: Brent Holland

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“Swine flu: The Second Wave”

CKUW-FM Winnipeg, MB

Producers: Michael Welch

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SYNDICATED SHOW OR PODCAST

Winner: “Ends of the Earth”

CKLB-FM Yellowknife, NWT

Producers: William Greenland and Kirsten Murphy

Honourable Mentions:

“Deconstructing Dinner”

CJLY-FM Nelson, BC

Producers: Jon Steinman

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“Now Hear This!” Episode 8

CKHC-FM Toronto, ON

Producers: Erin Bosenberg, Pattie Phillips

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“La Colombie de l’Interieur”

CKUT-FM Montreal, QC

Producers: Blandine Juchs

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“This is Montreal”

CFRU-FM Guelph, ON

Producers: Trevor Darlington, Corey Schmidt

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THIRD LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING

Winner: “Radio Pazhwak”: Radio Pazhwak brings progressive political analysis to the community

CFRO-FM

Vancouver, BC

Producers: Mehdi Latifi

Language: Persian

Honourable Mentions:

“Monday’s Encounter”: The immortal poem: Santa Maria dalla Salute

CKCU-FM Ottawa, ON

Producers: Boba Borojevic

Language: Serbian

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Photo: Gunargie O'Sullivan accepts her Honourable Mention for Outstanding Achievement in Aboriginal Affairs and Culture Programming at the 2010 NCRA Community Radio Awards gala, Gabriola Island, BC