April 2006 Committee Reports to the Board
Finance
Annie Courtney
Guest: Corkey Custer (
INVESTMENT POLICY
The Finance Committee met twice in April. The first was with Corkey Custer of Custer Financial to discuss his recommendations for the investment of the WORT “Independence Fund.” Corkey advised that approximately $175K be kept in liquid/cash assets & that $256K be invested in socially responsible mutual funds.
He advised that $100K should be kept as cash & cash equivalents. Funds sufficient to cover general operating expenses, about $40K, would be kept in General Fund & Money Market checking, & the balance invested in short term CD’s purchased over a period of time to provide staggered redemption dates.
He advises an additional $75 be invested in bond funds, $50K in a short duration bond fund & $25K in a social responsible bond fund. The bond funds should provide a higher rate of return than the cash funds, but provide stable investment value with a low degree of risk attached.
The remaining $256 would be invested in a diversified portfolio of 12 different mutual funds. This selection of funds balanced large, mid-size & small funds, some chosen to provide a higher potential for growth with somewhat more risk, others less risky but less likely to exhibit rapid growth. All are solid performers, most have a track record of over 5 years. There is some international exposure, which is desirable, mostly concentrated in
The Finance Committee believes that this proposal is acceptable & requests the Board as a whole approve the recommendation as outlined.
The Finance Committee additionally recommends that dividends earned by mutual funds be rolled over into the funds & reinvested. The amount of interest earned by cash & cash equivalent funds will be monitored twice a year by the Finance Committee, during the annual budget & mid-year budget adjustment meetings. Interest will either be taken as income to add to the General Fund or be used to increase our mutual fund holdings.
The Finance Committee asked the Board as a whole to approve the recommendation as outlined, & to authorize the members of the Finance Committee to make decisions regarding the interest earned by the cash & cash equivalent funds without additional consultation with the Board.
FINANCIAL REPORTS
We reviewed the 3rd Quarter Financial Reports. Everything looks fine. We are on track for Income & Expenses are in line. We are planning a mini pledge drive for the spring instead of “Below the Radar” & should end the year in a strong financial position.
BUDGET: We took a preliminary look at the budget numbers but decided to wait to begin work on the budget until next month.
NEXT MEETING is May 11 at
PROGRAMMING
Nathan Moore
April 5. Laura Newman’s first meeting as chair was pretty light on the agenda.
We continue to work on the Programmer Review Process, a directive that came out of the LRP process. Dan & Nathan met to go over the process with a fine-toothed comb, and Nathan is still working on edits.
Morning Local News was a Program Change Idea presented a couple months ago. We’re going to put it on the backburner for a while.
A Program Change Idea was presented to move En Nuestro Patio to Tuesday
The Committee discussed ascertainment ideas. The FCC used to require stations to do ascertainment work, but dropped that requirement in the early 1980s. Yet the need to do public research remains. The Committee will consider possible qualitative ascertainment project ideas at future meetings.
The PC will present or co-present a workshop at GRC-11 called “Democratic Models for Programming Community Radio”.
WORT Programming Committee Program Change Proposal April 2006
CURRENT WORT PROGRAM SCHEDULE:
Tuesday
5-5:30 BBC Newshour
5:30-6 Free Speech Radio News
6-7 En nuestro Patio
7-7:30 Radio Literature
Thursday
5-6 BBC Newshour
6-6:30 Free Speech Radio News
6:30-7 IOBY
7-7:30 Making Contact
PROPOSED CHANGES TO WORT PROGRAM SCHEDULE:
Move “En Nuestro Patio” to
Tuesday
5-6 BBC Newshour
6-6:30 Free Speech Radio News
6:30-7 IOBY
7-8 En nuestro Patio
Thursday
5-6 BBC Newshour
6-6:30 Free Speech Radio News
6:30-7 IOBY
7-7:30 Radio Literature (pre-recorded)
ENGINEERING
Justin Richardson
Committee met on
PROJECT UPDATES
1) Web Switch. Roman and Laura have developed a webstream on/off switch with a light that will be implemented soon. The switch needs to turn the webstream on and off along with an indicator light in Combo A and Combo B simultaneously, affecting both the high and low bandwidth streams.
2) Master Control Room. Terry O. will finish designing the countertop Friday 4/14. TDS will then build and install the unit.
3) Remote broadcast via laptop during Day Without Latinos March. The remote worked fine until the day of the event when bright sun washed out the laptop screen and the wireless internet connection dropped the connection intermittently. We will continue to hone the remote
broadcast via laptop computer. The remote via cell phone was subsequently executed flawlessly, providing great coverage of the event.
GRC CONFERENCE IN
Norm suggested that if a member of the Engineering Comm has an idea for a engineering related presentation at the conference , that person should talk to Norm or Nathan about potentially adding it to the schedule.
SAP OR “WORT TOO”
We will not know for a while whether our grant for the will be funded. In the meantime, Norm suggested that the Programming Committee propose material or a schedule for WORT II. We could start to see how this would work and begin streaming this as a webstream-only channel until
(when or if) the PTFP grant is approved for the new equipment.
Part II – Post
Brett Lemke
WORT2 - Programming discussion led by Norm; a good possible outlet for archived material as WORT2 transitions into reality. Tom answered questions on the possibility of running separate streams from the same machine, and advised that it would be easier to accomplish this task on a Linux-based platform, although a Windows based system is also an option. Brett brought up a webstreaming program called SAM2, and will contact Lucas Osmond about a presentation for the committee.
Paypal - The Paypal button placed on the website has received $500 in out-of-state donations. Consensus was that webstreaming affected this amount positively.
Web Streaming Switch – Two designs for the switches were proposed by Laura and Roman. Roman was absent, but sent a schematic, wiring diagram, and physical example of his design to Norm. Laura presented a wiring diagram and physical example of the switch with parallel current and a single relay. A discussion then ensued on the pros and cons of different relay types, citing everything from construction to failure rate and availability. Dave D.W. gave some interesting insight as to how the technology has improved over the years, and related a worst-case relay situation he had some years back with relatively archaic technology.
Solid-state circuits were discussed, and it was agreed that this would eventually be the route to pursue. The relay-based switch will be temporary, but implemented soon to solve the problem. Consensus was that Laura’s design was easily convertible to solid state circuitry. A Neotech replacement was suggested.
After discussing the options available, and weighing the two designs, the general consensus was to defer the decision over Roman’s design until he could present it in person, and begin implementing Laura’s design.
Wireless Streaming – Norm went to the previous days rally and tried unsuccessfully to broadcast from his Mac laptop with the Nicecast program due to the spotty wireless connections around the Capitol building. Eventually, this broadcast was possible with an alternative method other than the laptop (I believe a tape recorder or videocamera – Norm, correct me if I’m wrong). Subsequent attempts will be made in the future.
Server Relocation – Discussion about using master control for recording, and the issue of the fan noise conflicting with microphones in the room. A possible solution would be to relocate the servers, but Tom brought up the question of where to put them. This will be discussed further in Future meetings.
Meeting Adjourned
Citizen’s Advisory Board (CAB)
Glenn Mitroff
The CAB met on March 22nd for their Annual Meeting. Mitch Rosefelt was elected as Chair and Joel Garb as Secretary. (Action item—Board approval needed of Chair and Secretary.)
The next CAB meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 2nd at
I was having problems sending documents by email to the CAB. Working with Tom Christie, we were finally able to track down and fix the problem which was a setting on the size of the documents allowed within that particular list serve.
FUNDRAISING
Jane Richard
Pledge drive
- Graph of pledge drive totals: interesting to look at the trends over the last 5 years, e.g.fall does better than winter/spring; BTR a bit lower than traditional summer drive
- Projected total for Feb 06: $98K; *great* fulfillment
Summer pledge drive/Below the Radar hybrid: Tue May 30-Mon June 5
+/-2 times/hour pledge rapping
- no goals for shows ($15,000 overall goal): once that amount is reached, the campaign will end
- get running start at block party May 21 and in Radio Pilot (early May)
- ONLY WORT-related premia; CD surplus push?
- Focus on computer-entry of pledges
- Snacks, no meals
- Culminating in booksigning or similar event at the Orpheum for Greg Palasts new book, Armed Madhouse (which isn’t officially out until June 6)
Major donor discussion
- Cultivating major donors event: house party for Rhythm & Booms.
- AC will become WORTs house party queen
- Agreement that major donor definition starts with $250; JG will extract those from database for invite list
- Follow-up with letter at the end of the year
Capital campaign: AC will see who can give us written pointers on conducting
Miscellaneous
- all staff will attend the National Federation of Community Broadcasters conf., 4/19-4/22(
- the Fundraising year calendar, is chock-a-block full of events and projects and deadlines
- $3k in tentative major donor money came in unsolicited this past week! (1 $1K and 1 $2K)
- Winter Radio Pilot has netted $4500 so far
EVENTS
Maggie Weiser
March 20th.
It was a "working meeting" dedicated to Bowl-A-Thon preparation where we distributed flyers, sorted prizes, and assigned duties and tasks. All committee members were present, and also Glenn. There are no notes, because there was not much discussion. We are scheduled to have our next "regular" meeting on Wed, April 26th at 5pm (before the board meeting).
Executive: no report
Personnel: Did not meet
MCOC: Did not meet
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE: Did not meet
BYLAWS: Did not meet
Sister Station Radio Project Ad Hoc Committee: Did not meet
posted by Jane at 11:05 AM
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