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Sounds Co-op Handbook: released!

Twelve years ago, CJLY-FM Kootenay Co-operative Radio flipped a switch and started broadcasting, neighbour to neighbour, within their community of more than 10,000 people.

Now, teaming up with the NCRA, they’ve produced a handbook to help other communities do the same.

The "Sounds Co-operative Handbook" was funded by a grant from the Co-operative Development Initiative and covers topics like forming a co-operative, how to start a not-for-profit community radio station from idea to first transmission, and profiles of the 15 co-operative community radio stations across Canada.

It also commemorates 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives, declared by the United Nations.

For more information, click on the title of this post. To view the handbook, hear the first documentary, and for project updates, visit the project's freshly launched website, at www.soundscooperative.coop.

NCRC! June 12-17

This coming June 12-17, CFRC-FM will host the 31st National Campus and Community Radio Conference (NCRC) in Kingston, ON. CFRC-FM is based at Queen's University and was home of Canada's first campus radio broadcast, an electrical engineering experiment in 1922.

Come celebrate 90 years of amazing campus and community radio and prepare for a future of even more radio goodness. Community radio practitioners from across Canada will gather to exchange ideas on radio and grassroots media.

Workshops will cover production skills, media training, social and cultural issues awareness, technical radio know-how, community outreach and organization. There's something for the experienced c/c radio practitioner, the first-time volunteer, supporters and listeners.

For more information or to register, go to http://cfrc.ca/blog/ncrc2012

Now hiring: Archive Co-ordinators!

The NCRA is hiring three (of the seven) Archive Coordinator positions for the Ontario Independent Music Archive (OIMA).

These positions are responsible for researching, contacting and obtaining copyright permission from independent artists past and present from their focus area and uploading the music to the OIMA website. It's part detective work, part community outreach and requires a love and knowledge of local independent music of multiple genres.

The categories being hired at this time are: (1) Aboriginal, (2) Northern Ontario, and (3) Francophone. For more information regarding the positions, click here.

New member: P.E. County-Community Radio!

Welcome to the folks at Prince Edward County Community Radio! They're joined as Developing Members of the NCRA but are eager to get a licence to serve their county in Southern Ontario, bordered by the Bay of Quinte. 

According to their website, the idea for a station has been bubbling since last Spring, followed by an official kick-off meeting last November 30, 2011. In that time they've already filed for incorporation, visited CKHA-FM in Haliburton, CJLX-FM in Belleville and CJAI-FM Amherst Island, had weekly Board meetings and released their first newsletter!

Some of what they've discussed in community meetings include:

  • The County already has its own unique identity, radio is another way to help it gain its voice.
  • Community ownership: by the County; for the County.
  • When listening to the station, people should feel “at home”.

They're planning their first fundraiser in March.

Announcing...the Ontario Independent Music Archive (OIMA)!

Independent music from across Ontario will have a home online, thanks to campus and community radio stations and a new organization with a dream to preserve Canadian musical history.

The Ontario Independent Music Archive (OIMA) will be a place for musicians to post and share their work with the public but will also collect and provide new life for independent music that was originally produced in small batches on vinyl, cassette and CD.

OIMA is funded by a two-year, $224,500 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and the site will go live late this year. A leading grant-maker in Canada, the Foundation strengthens the capacity of the voluntary sector through investments in community-based initiatives. An agency of the Government of Ontario, it builds healthy and vibrant communities.

The idea first came from Jonathan Martel, a music fan who was studying history through popular music, but who found that local independent music was often hard to get. He then reached out to Mario Circelli, former station manager at CHRW-FM, the campus-community radio station at the University of Western Ontario, in London. Together they formed the Music Association of Canada and approached the NCRA to partner. We're thrilled!

For more information, click on the title of this post.

Auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

Two NCRA Board members and long-time c/c radio colleagues are movin' on:

Irkar Beljaars was host of Native Solidarity News at CKUT-FM in Montreal. He twice served on the Board as an Aboriginal representative and one of the leaders of the Native Caucus, helped found and host Voices of our Nations, a day of Aboriginal-related programming out of CKUT-FM, and been nominated for an ImagineNATIVE award for his interview with Buffy Ste. Marie.

He leaves to work on a documentary and has also recently been promoted as the producer of Montreal’s Mike-FM Drive Home show, a long-time dream. Congratulations Irkar, continued luck and thanks for all your work!

Also Adam Fox, the former Station Manager, former Music Programming Director and former host of Biz Cas Fri at CJAM-FM in Windsor, ON (as well as NCRA Board member and devoted CRTC letter writer) has moved to Edmonton!

Adam is the new Content Director at CKUA-FM, Alberta's public radio network, while continuing to perform as Field Assembly.

In his time at CJAM-FM, Adam oversaw the station's move to a protected frequency, the consolidation of block programming, and helped coordinate NCRC 2008. He is already missed. Thanks for everything Adam!

Happy World Radio Day!

Sending its love a day before Valentine's, February 13, 2011 has been declared the first annual World Radio Day by UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

To celebrate you could visit the website, which includes 15 ways to celebrate (including helping spread the just-launched Community Media: A good practice handbook) and 10 quotes about radio, like this one from Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuchlan: “Radio affects most intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and the listener”.

Or you could listen to/play/broadcast the NCRA's commemoratory, exclamatory, public service announcement in English and French! 

New Membership Coordinator!

Welcome to Alan Sovran (pronounced “sovereign”), the new Membership Coordinator!

Alan is from CFRU-FM in Guelph where for three years he hosted indie music shows ("Okay Radio", "Fake Headlines" and "Alan's Psychadelic Breakfast", the last one named after a Pink Floyd song.) He was also on their Board of Directors for a year.

He is super keen about community radio and though an Anglophone, speaks, writes and loves French. His job over the next nine months includes launching a French version of our website, planning a bilingual track of workshops at NCRC and helping develop materials to help stations carry more French programming and services.

And of course he will also be working on member outreach and communications and supporting stations with compliance and other questions and concerns. He will be in the office full-time and his email is alan@ncra.ca

RFP - Lead Co-op Developer

Just in time for the kick-off to the International Year of Co-operatives, we are releasing a Request for Proposals for a Lead Co-op Developer. 

This position is to coordinate co-op development activities for a project called “Sounds Co-operative” funded by the Innovative Co-operative Projects Program of the Co-operative Development Initiative, and jointly undertaken by CJLY-FM Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, BC, and the National Campus and Community Radio Association, based in Ottawa.

The project aims to provide (formative and existing) campus and community radio stations with assistance to become or transition to co-ops, report on and work with co-operatives in their community, and spread the word about co-op principles and innovative uses of the co-op model.

The Lead Developer will work with the Sounds Co-operative Coordinating Committee to source and adapt educational materials and contract co-op developers across the country to aid in the development or transition of between 3 and 5 identified new community radio co-operatives. 

For more information, go to the full job description.

Notice of Consultation: Codes of Conduct

The CRTC recently released a Notice of Consultation on the NCRA/ANREC's Proposed Codes of Conduct and Proposed Guidelines and Best Practices that together could replace codes developed by commercial broadcasters.

We believe that using codes developed by the commercial sector is, in many cases, not a good fit for our stations because they respond to needs and values which are very different from those of community radio.

Submitted in July 2011, the NCRA's proposed Codes and Guidelines cover matters related to complaints, programming standards, advertising, and employees and volunteers.

The deadline for interventions is February 16, 2012. For more information click on the title of this post.