Patron: The Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC
A lot is happening at ArtSound. Read on for news about:
- John Worcester honoured
- Radiothon & Quiz Night
- Listen on Demand roll-out
- 2025: The Membership Year
- Specialist presenters wanted
- Programming update
- Call for radio-drama scripts
- ArtSound production unit
- Canberra Southern Cross Club sponsorship
- ArtSound’s podcasting meetup
- Donations
- How you can help
- Seeking volunteers for the Welcoming Committee
John Worcester Honoured
At the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia conference in Hobart in late October, ArtSound and 3MBS presenter John Worcester was inducted into the CBAA’s Community Broadcasting Honour Roll, celebrating his over 50 years of dedication to community radio.
Congratulations to John, who on ArtSound can be heard hosting Classical Mood each Friday 2-4pm, and some Sundays, too.
Photo: 3MBS
Radiothon & Quiz Night
Quizmaster Brian Leonard was assisted by scorer Judy Hayes.
ArtSound’s annual fundraiser Radiothon took place in late October. Thanks to everyone who donated or took part in the effort.
One feature of the Radiothon was another of our very popular musical Quiz Nights. It took place at the Eastlake Football Club on Thursday October 23 (National Day of Giving to the Arts). Some 100 contestants turned up to occupy tables and teams of eight people, or a couple more.
Winner – in fact, the perennial winner (pictured) – was Tangk, which featured several ArtSound presenters and other volunteers.
We also held an open day on Saturday October 25 with tours of the ArtSound studios and a CD/book/DVD sale in the grounds of the Manuka Arts Centre.
Listen-on-demand roll-out
Thanks to the careful planning and hard work of two technical team members, Jon Glanville and Chris Deacon, we are excited to begin rolling out a much-anticipated “Listen On Demand” feature on our website. Leon Buker has been crafting the website side of things, where you will be able to stream your favourite programs at your convenience.
Go here to see where things currently stand.
So far, we’ve made several programs available for on-demand listening covering the previous three weeks. If this trial phase goes well, we plan to add most of our programs over the coming months.
One of the accomplishments of our developers has been to fashion a way to upload programs without dated material such as preceding news broadcasts. Many stations’ listen-back offerings are, by contrast, merely chunks of audio cut hour by hour from broadcast streams.
Stay tuned! In the coming months, we will keep you updated about programs additions.
2025: The Membership Year
Recently the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC, agreed to be Patron of ArtSound, and that endorsement provides us with an opportunity to strengthen our profile in the Canberra community and decades of support of local arts and artists.
ArtSound is far more than “just” a radio station, and we need more than a high-profile patronage to achieve our goal of making Canberra one of Australia’s great centres of the arts.
We need you to be an ArtSound member. While grants cover some of our technical and transmission costs, it is membership fees and donations that support our day-to-day activities.
So, we’ve set a goal of doubling our membership during 2025-26. (Currently membership dues account for less than 10 percent of our annual income; can we bump that up to, say, 15 percent by the end of the drive?)
We ask that all listeners, as well as all those who benefits from ArtSound’s support — through on-air interviews or broadcasts of music and other artistic products — help us by encouraging family and friends to take out membership and join our team.
Annual fees are modest: individual membership, $75; family membership $110; concessional membership (with seniors or student ID) $50 per year.
For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the latest ArtSound Press publication, Gertrude’s Sweetheart: Monologues for Readers and Actors.
Go online to join, or call 6295-7444.
Are you our next presenter?
Do you have good knowledge of an area of arts practice that could make for compelling arts radio, or are you keen to learn?
ArtSound is always interested in hearing from potential presenters who would like to create programs about specialist areas of arts in and around the ACT, or the world.
At the moment, we have such programs in, for example, contemporary classical music, and bluegrass music, and the frontiers of jazz. We also have regular broadcasts in classical music, jazz, blues, world music, and much else, including an assortment of local concert presentations, primarily in classical music and jazz.
But perhaps you have specialised knowledge in, say, opera, or film music, or radiophonic art, or non-music subjects related to arts or culture… or history or heritage… You tell us!
We can provide training in the relatively simple tasks involved in long- or short-form programming — either live to air or via pre-recording.
Please write to programmingcommittee@artsound.fm and we’ll get in touch to discuss the possibilities.
Please write to programmingcommittee@artsound.fm and we’ll get in touch to discuss the possibilities.
Call for radio-drama scripts
You, too, could be featured in an ArtSound Radio Players production. If you have a script that would be suitable for radio, or even an idea for a radio play but you’re not sure where to start, get in touch with ArtSound Radio Theatre, which airs Sundays at 4pm (repeated Mondays at 10pm). The highly experienced troupe may be able to help. Write to help@artsound.fm.
ArtSound production unit
Do you have skills or ideas for audio production? For example, have you wanted to create a series of short items about some aspect of ACT-region arts and culture? Or could you help us to create polished on-air announcements of various kinds?
ArtSound is expanding its production of promotional and sponsorship (advertising) announcements, along with short items to drop into our regular programming.
The latter could be, for example, segments about Canberra-region arts, culture, history, architecture, social services… They could be anything that fits into our overall programming ethos.
ArtSound has the production capacity, and producers already working in this area of content creation. If you’d like to join them, or have ideas to share, get in touch via help@artsound.fm.
Canberra Southern Cross Club sponsorship
ArtSound is back on the Canberra Southern Cross Club Community Rewards list, which allows ArtSound supporters to contribute to our coffers simply by dining at the club’s various facilities.
Under the program, as a patron of the club, you can go to this link: https://csccmarketing.wufoo.com/forms/m1ti98210e4gdsx/ and add your CSCC member details. Then, every time you buy food and drinks at the CSCC, ArtSound will get 7.5% of what you spend, and the money goes towards our equipment upgrades and running costs.
It’s a sweet deal for all concerned.
The process is very simple: go to the site via the URL above, and you’ll see this box; simply fill in the blanks.
ArtSound’s podcasting meetup
Members are invited to attend ArtSound’s fortnightly Podcasting Meetup. It’s an informal gathering of podcast enthusiasts — some experienced, some beginners — who discuss podcast skills, approaches, and content.
The group generally meets every second Monday from 5:30-6:30pm in ArtSound’s dedicated podcast studio. The date of next meeting is Monday November 11.
To inquire about joining in, write to podcast@artsound.fm.
Pictured: some attendees at last month’s meeting.
Donations
We’re always grateful to receive donations to support our work, which includes featuring about 1,000 ACT-region artists on air annually along with specialty programming that supports and fosters arts activities in the ACT region.
ArtSound does this as an all-volunteer community radio station with expenses that run to more than $120,000 each year, almost half of them from the costs of transmitting to the ACT from Black Mountain and Mt Taylor.
If you can help, please do so. Simply use the QR code below to go directly to the ArtSound donation page. Or get in touch to talk about how you might help: admin@artsound.fm or 6295 7444.
Support ArtSound in any of many ways
Opportunities to help out at ArtSound are many. Some of them are:
Welcoming Committee members
Communications team members
Advertising reps
Presenters
Program producers and assistants
Music library helpers
We should let you know that our music library is one of the most enjoyable areas of our operations, according to volunteers who have spent many hours there.
The key task is to catalog new CDs. Working in the library provides an opportunity to witness and edge one’s way into many aspects of station operations.
Please write to help@artsound.fm or phone 6295 7444.
Seeking volunteers for the reception desk
Want to meet some of ArtSound’s presenters, get a better understanding of how ArtSound works, and contribute to the smooth running of the organisation? Then please join the friendly members of our welcoming committee who staff ArtSound’s reception desk.
Members of the Welcoming Committee generally cover a four-hour shift from 10am-2pm on one weekday a week or fortnight.
To learn about this and other volunteering opportunities at ArtSound, please email help@artsound.fm, or phone 6295 7444 weekdays between 10am and 2pm.
ArtSound FM’s mission is to cultivate a vibrant arts community in the ACT region. Your memberships and donations sustain our year-long programming including our artist-centred features and interviews and our many broadcasts of live recordings of concerts in and around Canberra.
Thank you for being part of ArtSound!
Please go online to artsound.fm to take out membership or donate.
Or, send your contact details and a description of how you think you can help to help@artsound.fm.
Or phone (02) 6295 7444 — if necessary, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you.
Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.
ArtSound is an all-volunteer community radio station.
Please forward this newsletter to any possibly interested friends and family members.
And if you have any suggestions about items to include in this bulletin, please send them to newsletter@artsound.fm at least three days before the end of the month.
