WBCR-LP 97.7FM, Great Barrington Community Radio

Programming Committee/Program Dir. Report 12/19/07

Programming Committee Report

December 2007

Tasks/Projects

December Membership meeting: Commercial Speech Review.

Policy reminder email to went out to programmers.

The committee is seeking feedback from programmers about the on air list serve and is working on developing some basic protocols.

A policy over sheet for programmers to use to review relevant WBCR-LP policy with guests before they go on air.

On line program schedule and Studio Reservation calendars are up on the website thanks to the Tech Committee and Ben.

Facilities is (still) getting us a new voicemail box for listener comment line.

Programmer Issues

The programming committee reviewed four programmer policy violation reports ֖ three price violations and one call to action.  All three price-violations were self-reported and received a minimum of warning points.  No call to action was found to have occurred in the fourth case. 

The programming committee has made a request on behalf of our programmers to the tech committee to purchase and install a broadcast delay unit.  We feel that it is an unfair burden on programmers to hold them accountable for the actions of their guests without any immediate recourse for correction.

Policy

The programming committee considered the proposal to allow programmers to roll over any of the required volunteer hours from the fall term they have not completed into the spring term with a plan for completing those hours in addition to the six required during the spring term.  It was clarified by committee members that the decision to allow an change in the six hour requirement lies with the programming committee. 

While we see the reason for implementing such a plan, we think it is a bad plan as it has great potential to add to programmers confusion, requires more tracking and communication than has happened to date and undermines the decision we made at the beginning of the term at the request of the volunteer coordinator to ғput teeth in this policy.  We also feel that the board and membership committee has put the programming committee in a bad position in which the only reasonable thing to do is support this plan despite our misgivings about its effect on the programmers.

That said, we will agree to the roll over plan on the condition that the board act to ensure that all opportunities are offered to programmers to enable them to complete the volunteer hours required to maintain on air access and that programmers are supported in this area with organizational structure.

I would also like to thank Jan Seward for being open to hearing concerns and her responsiveness.

Deadline and Training Schedule

Applications for On Air Access and Continued On Air Access are available on the program page of the website.  They can also be made available in the studio with the boardԒs permission/agreement to reimburse copy costs.

We have made a request to the forming PR committee that a press release is made advertising the deadline for new applications.

On Going/Coming Up

Move Preparation

-The programming committee has requested time with both the tech and facilities committees to review plans regarding programmers for the move.

Peer Review

PSA Rationale

Creating Positions for Music Director and Director of News and Public Affairs

Pod-casting News and Information Shows

Updating Introductory Programmer Guide

→ Posted by atimpane on 12/20/2007 at 03:22 PM. Filed under "other".

Report from Jerry Fromm and Margaret Parish

Consultation to Berkshire Community Radio Alliance

Working Note

Jerry Fromm and Margaret Parish
Erikson Institute, Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge

Meetings Attended 5/17/06 and 6/21/06

Mission Connectedness around Diversity ֖ We were moved and impressed by the Board’s addressing what diversity meant in each individual’s experience.  There seemed to be unanimous agreement that the mission of BCRA represents “the dream of voice” for each of you.  It represents “free speech” liberated from corporate repression and commercial corruption.

We tend to think in terms of an organization’s primary task, which is what an organization must do to survive.  For doctors, it is to take care of patients well.  For most radio stations, it is to entertain.  You have taken on a more daring primary task.  You have placed your bets on your conviction that diverse voices, voices people have dreamed they would use someday, will be inherently interesting and entertaining.  Your unique mission fundamentally links this kind of entertainment with diversity.  (This is the reason that a tone having to do with “should’s” may be off-task for you; you are about “wants.”)  Without one or the other entertainment and diversity - you wouldn’t be you (though you might still be an ordinary radio station or a political action group).

A question arose in that first Board meeting as whether diversity on the air is a major goal for BCRA, and, if so, how that is to be accomplished and what is its relationship to Board composition.  Does diversity on the Board lead to diversity on the air, or does diversity on the air lead to diversity on the Board?  One Board member felt that, even without much diversity on the Board, you are doing very well with diversity on the air.  It seems to us that it is worth affirming diversity on the air as a goal, if indeed it is one, to set benchmarks for measuring whether you are accomplishing it, and to periodically carry out this audit at a Board meeting.  “Diversity” is such a complex idea that it also seems worth spending more time talking about what it means to each of you and what it means to the organization as a whole, as you began to do at the 5/17 meeting.  It is notable that the conflict that was erupting on the Board was so closely linked to such a central part of your mission.

The Other Side ֖ On the other side of the coin, it seemed to us that you have been “hoisted on your own petard.”  By that we mean that, despite your coming at this from an “outside the establishment” place, as soon as you “incorporated” and became a Board, you became the establishment that people react to.  Rather than let that cripple you, it can become an opportunity to do some important work.

We experienced your meetings as a mixture of extreme structure that was almost authoritarian and extreme lack of containing structure that was nearly anarchic.  On the one hand, there was little room for spontaneity and the process was weighed down by repetitive collections of agreement about every detail; on the other hand, the established time frame was easily derailed by the effort to hear everything everyone wanted to say at all times, even those not on the Board.  We suspected that tendencies in both directions are rooted in a collective anxiety about becoming oppressive, which in turn is rooted in a confusion of leadership, so necessary to accomplishing tasks, with the authoritarianism you are striving to combat.

Some issues associated with diversity in the larger culture, including the corporate inclination to suppress it and the commercial inclination to exploit it, make for enormous mistrust of authority.  It looked to us like that mistrust was projected onto the Board.  Within this frame of reference, differentiation (e.g., the fact that you have been elected to do a task, and others haven’t, or that one person chairs and others don’t) is viewed as negating the equality people feel has been denied them in many other circumstances.  The extreme here is that people feel that no one but me can be trusted to represent me; there is no “on behalf of.”

It struck us that what was put on the board that night was a visual pun for, and diagnosis of, the Board itself.  First the work agenda was put up in red in the center.  Then, everyone’s words about mission and diversity were put up in blue all over the board.  Soon, the blue of diversity covered over the red of work completely.  And the blue itself was incomprehensible because it went in every direction at once and was overwhelming in the sheer number of entries.  Most tellingly, many of the entries were very close in meaning to, if not synonymous with, other entries.  But the links between entries were not made, and so it was impossible to synthesize into something manageable as well as to get beyond to do the work of the agenda.

In other words, “the dream of voice” can degenerate into a preciousness about each person’s statement.  Diversity can come to mean in practice honoring a person’s words in such a way that they can’t be touched or linked with anybody else’s for fear of offending somebody.  We would argue that this is a distortion of diversity.  BCRA has a collective task and therefore it requires people to join it.  That means their making an effort to fit their diverse voice into a collective venture.  Instead, we had the impression that people dependently relied on the Board to solve all the injustices about diversity people carry from elsewhere.  Not only is the Board viewed as “establishment”, but it also seems to have charged itself with the impossible task of never being oppressive or even being seen as being oppressive, and the even more impossible task of making up for past injustices.

Leadership We felt that some of your leadership practices reflected this effort to accommodate to diversity issues, but at the cost of doing the work.  Indeed, one of the Board’s diagnoses of the trouble was a lack of leadership, and we felt that in meetings that seemed so over-structured despite the mission of freeing the voice.  There were three practices in particular we would encourage you to re-consider. 

1)  The issue of deciding by consensus rather than vote:  Indeed, the former might be most desirable and to be worked toward in good faith.  But, the latter is sometimes necessary.  (In the first Board meeting, there was the odd procedure of a motion being seconded and then “thirded”, no vote being taken, but people acting as though the motion had passed.)  The trouble with a vote is that someone will lose, someone will be left behind, a voice will be heard but not agreed with (an important distinction), there will be a “casualty.”  This is so often the societal fate of the minority, and the Board seems paralyzed by its fear of being accused of doing this themselves.  But not to vote (given, and this is essential, access to the agenda and sufficient airing of all issues) can lead to a tyranny by the minority.

This is not to say that consensus cannot work.  In a Quaker style consensus, the minority agrees to go with the majority unless they really feel they cannot live with it.  If someone has such a strong feeling, then the majority agrees to consider it.  Of course, eventually a decision has to be made, but this way of working prevents a tyranny by the majority.  This is quite different than everybody always having to agree about every detail.

The other extremely important reason to solve the problem of how to make decisions with some efficiency is that resources are limited.  “Managing” resources might sound like a dirty word to your constituency, but we are talking about the maximally effective use of important and limited resources: the Board’s time for sure, but also the patience, goodwill and capacity for quality thinking that each Board member brings, at least initially, to each meeting.  These essential resources can be squandered without leadership acting as management.

Things must get done in the real world.  To forfeit your capacity to vote as a Board is, from one angle, to jeopardize your ability to act in the real world and to abdicate the responsibility that the total membership (not only the ones who came to the meeting) gave to you.

2.  Rotating the role of chair:  For many of the above reasons, we would also suggest that you re-consider your rotating the chairing role.  (If, as someone suggested at the recent meeting, there is good training for Board members in the practice of rotating the chair, then a training event could be designed.  The cost to effective and efficient Board functioning of rotating the chairing role seems more important to us.)  If the Board President was elected by the membership, why wouldn’t that mean his chairing the meeting on a regular basis?  If he and others wanted it, a brief phase could be built in toward the end of each meeting to give the President feedback about how he did in chairing that meeting.

3.  The relationship with members in attendance:  Finally, it is worth re-considering how you manage your relationship with the membership in attendance (and maybe how working in public affects Board functioning).  In our language, we would call this a boundary between Board and membership.  Boundaries are not barriers.  Their purpose is not to exclude diverse voices.  Rather, they are meant to provide the un-intruded-upon space to do the work the total membership wants you to do.  It was clear to us that vocal non-Board members were disruptive to that task, even if they did not intend to be.  Why not take comments from the attending members only when they pertain closely to the agenda item?  Otherwise, why not save time at the end for member reactions to the work the Board accomplished that evening?  That would serve as feedback to the Board and help to set the agenda for the next meeting.

The Board needs to be sensitive to the dynamics we have outlined above, but not crippled by them.  You have been elected.  That means you have been asked to do the work “on behalf of” others (because most work can’t be done by a large group and needs to be delegated to a small group).  One major danger in not finding a way to manage your boundaries so you can actually carry out that work is that individuals on the Board (or maybe in the membership) will act on their own to do things.  (There was an example of that in the unilateral calling of a special membership meeting.)  Under the rationalization that the Board can’t get anything accomplished, and thus in the absence of Board authorization, people will exercise power to do what they think should be done, opening the gates for people to act in their self interest, rather than the organization’s.

Recommendations ֖ As noted above.  We suggest that you set aside time to discuss this note among yourselves in a meeting of the Board only, before negotiating any changes in practice.  We’ll be happy to be available to you for further work in the future if that makes sense to you.

→ Posted by wasa on 06/20/2007 at 10:26 PM. Filed under "other".