Penticton’s community radio station gets funding to help develop inspire and develop volunteers
Penticton’s community radio station, CFUZ Peach City Radio, recently received a major grant from the Community Radio Fund.
The station was awarded $38,550 to fund the Listen Up! CFUZ Speaker Series. The station hopes to inspire community members to participate in community radio while also training and developing programmers, members and volunteers.
“As the first licensed community radio station in the Okanagan Valley, CFUZ has found it a challenge to attract volunteers who already have first-hand radio experience,” said Peach City Community Radio Society president Jackie Del Rizzo.
“By bringing a series of facilitators to the area over the next year we plan to provide our current and future radio volunteers with information and skills on a wide variety of topics.”
Experts in areas such as production, interviewing on the air, music curation, and sponsorship will be invited to speak.
Along with hands-on workshops for community radio volunteers, speakers will deliver lectures open to the public, helping CFUZ grow awareness of community radio and the power it can have in a city like Penticton.
These funds were made available through the Radiometres program of the Community Radio Fund of Canada, a national not-for-profit organization whose mission is to build and improve the campus and community radio sector for all Canadians.
Peach City Radio will be hiring a coordinator to assist in the speaker series. Interested applicants may apply by July 14 on the station’s website, peachcityradio.org.
Society delegates returned from a national convention with some new hardware.
During the conference, the 2017 National Campus and Community Radio Association conference, Peach City Radio programmer Lydia Frederick received an honourable mention for Best in Documentary for the Cannabis episode of her program Doc Fever.
Long-time Peach City Radio member and programmer Larry Saidman received the award for Best in Music Programming for Discovering Jazz, a show he produces for Trent Radio in Peterborough, Ontario. Larry no longer lives in Penticton, but still records his show, Musical Therapy, for Peach City Radio.
The conference was held in Abbotsford last month, hosted by CIVL Radio, the campus radio station for the University of the Fraser Valley.
Six members of Peach City Radio attended a variety of presentations and workshops on interviewing skills, podcasting techniques, web development, volunteer recruitment and retention and more.
“The conference was inspiring and each Peach City Radio delegate took away ideas and information that will serve us well as we move into the next exciting phase of community radio in Penticton,” said Jackie Del Rizzo, Peach City Radio president
For more information about Peach City Community Radio or to listen online go to peachcityradio.org.