[Rfu-station] Station Update April 17, 2008

[Andrew Ó Baoill]

MEETING THIS SATURDAY
Our next meeting is this Saturday at 1pm. I've booked the Family Room  
- downstairs at the IMC. Best way to enter is from the Elm Street  
entrance.

We've talked about integrating more practical elements into these  
Saturday meetings. As a first step, after the meeting I'll be happy  
to explain the Zara Radio automation software to anyone interested.  
I'm also interested in having sessions at future meetings on the  
formal consensus model - which can be an elegant and powerful tool  
when used properly - refreshers on studio equipment, and perhaps on  
audio editing and news-gathering.

FUNDRAISING
Many of you will have seen that I circulated a call for support for  
our capital campaign on Monday, something we had discussed and  
approved at our last meeting. My hope is that we can raise a  
significant portion of our funding needs from these $5 to $20 a month  
contributions. As a new community organization, with no established  
sources of funding other than our members, it's important that we  
each consider how we can help this essential fundraising - either  
directly through contributing, or through soliciting funding from an  
organization of which we are a member.

So far I've had no responses, but I hope they'll start rolling in  
soon. If we can get 4 members to contribute at $20/month, or 8 at  
$10, we'll be another $1,000 closer to our goal. I don't expect to  
raise all the money we need this way, but I do believe we need to  
capture a significant portion of it internally while looking at other  
ways to raise the remainder.

Our fundraising so far has been largely due to the amazing generosity  
of a very small number of members and supporters. This is, of course,  
welcome, but not sufficient. It's also difficult to ask outside  
community members to contribute - the next step on my list - without  
evidence that a significant proportion of our members (those with  
most ties to the station) are willing to provide financial support.

I will, of course, be among those contributing to our fund-drive.  
Please join me, either in a monthly pledge or a once-off payment  
(through wrfu.net/donate). You can also attach conditions to your  
pledge - such as that you'll pledge $10/month if 7 other members join  
you at that level. Let me know: andrew at funferal.org

AUTOMATION
Ray and I now have Remote Desktop access to the automation computer.  
This allows us to control Zara remotely, as well as (with some  
tweaks) to add files to the automation library (such as PSAs, IDs,  
show promos). Thanks to Josh of the IMC-Tech group for dealing with  
this.

ADVERTISING/MARKETING
- We are likely to have a volunteer intern available over the summer,  
whose primary expertise is in advertising and marketing. If you have  
ideas of how we might best make use of his talents for the benefit of  
the station please do let me know.
- This Saturday we will start signing up volunteers to work on our  
Farmers' Market stall. If you will be available for this, but unable  
to attend our meeting, you can send me a mail. The Farmers' Market is  
a great opportunity to draw community attention to our activities,  
and has also proven to be a great means of raising funds in the past.

ADMINISTRATION
- We have an administration phone number [ (217) 278 3933  x25 ].  
This feeds to voicemail, and we hope shortly to have messages  
forwarded to an email list (rfu-emergency). If you can volunteer to  
be on this list and field incoming messages (which we expect to be  
infrequent) please let me know.
- We also need additional volunteers to act as 'emergency contacts' -  
at present Noel and I are the only people listed. If you can  
volunteer, again please let me know.
- Our working groups are not all equally active. I'd like to have us  
concentrate in coming meetings on getting the groups back into some  
sort of working order. We've made a start with Automation, and  
hopefully our new remote access capability, and training this  
Saturday, will help with that. Tech, I think, needs to be our next  
focus. Perhaps, too, it would be useful to make sure we have a named  
individual (or two) charged with acting as a spoke from each of the  
groups, and also with calling and facilitating meetings of the groups  
- this already happens with Lavana and membership quite well, I think.

Andrew Ó Baoill
Station Manager
WRFU-LP, Urbana 104.5FM
http://www.wrfu.net andrew at funferal.org
admin/voicemail: (217) 278 3933  x25
(217) 344-2536 (studio)