“Minutes ” from 3/7/08 meeting

A very good turnout- 27 people attended in total. I took some notes in The Kitchen & the Med Bar, hopefully they reflect what people remember ……. please feel free to add if there’s anything I’ve missed or have got way wrong of the mark:

1) The constitution was amended, seconded & approved. This is good- it means we can start to apply for external funding now that this is in place.

2) Paul & Dan welcomed everybody to the 1st official Rhubarb Radio meeting!

3) We asked everyone to summarise what they see as a vision for the station in their own words, and maybe express what every individual wants from the group/station/training/ activities etc. Here’s a few bits:

• Personal development opportunities
• Increased learning from other sectors of the creative industries
• Dessert!
• Using http://www.resonancefm.com/ as a good starting model
• Ability to feature local unsigned bands
• Blog exchanges & links
• Opportunity to meet new people
• New experience
• A good introduction into the music industry
• Being a part of the underground music scene
• Community Empowerment
• Opportunities to develop work, experience & training with press, pr and publicity routes
• Catalyst for creative industry’s growth
• No cloning of http://www.resonancefm.com/
• Providing an additional service to the Arts
• Giving the ability to investigate alternative opportunities within the creative industries
• A different, unique & fresh approach
• The ability to pass on knowledge learned
• Targetted to a defined audience
• Springboard into professional careers
• Social Gain outcomes
• Putting Local back into local
• Community Spirit
• Sharing of experiences
• Opening up of public spirit
• Tranparency throughout.

Then, we moved over to the Med Bar- an event was coming into The Kitchen.

One key question raised was “Who is the model listener”

Another suggestion was the use of You Tube as a model for delivery to:

• meet the needs of whoever the “typical” listener is &
• by it’s very nature, perhaps the station would create needs for the group (us) and also fr the listener by natural group progression and growth

I asked how many people were interested in presenting shows, and nearly all the hands went up, which is a great sign of things to come.

Then, we discussed how best to develop content for broadcasting, and the first idea we agreed to try was to train everyone from within the group. It became obvious to me that the mixture of people we have gathered all have various skills and qualities to bring into Rhubarb Radio- some are IT & internet specialists, some are marketeers, some are fundraiseres & bid writers, some are community development practitioners, some are industry professionals, some are students, some are teachers & trainers, some are electricians, carpenters, musicians, engineers……. and there’s many more. This in itself brings our “community” together, with a common goal, but the great thing is that we can all learn from each other, and develop over the future as a whole………… where do we start?

We discussed various options based around the launch, the live streaming, FM licences, raising awareness, audience research, premises, partnership links, outside broadcasts, live performances etc. Generally, everyone agreed that it was probably best to start with the kit being delivered & installed in the training room (suite is tooooo posh a word!) at the back of the shop, and to get some informal training up & running, so everyone can start to produce some podcasts. I suggested Tuesday next week (8th July)- what have I done!?:-)

Then, we discussed how best to get the 2 important areas of the radio group going:

1) The Web Team- development, design, branding & maintenance,layout, coding etc etc (genrally things that I know absolutely nowt about!). Volunteers for input, activity and responsibility for this (sub) section came from: Mark, Kevin, Pete, Simon & Wayne. That’s great news to have such strong people offering their time, knowledge, assistance, tools etc…….. I’m sure they’ll all be along here in a minute.

2) Audience Research Team- as it says really- finding out who our potential audience would be, who we want to broadcast to, and all market research info to make this Rhubarb Radio thing really fly. Volunteers for this (sub) section came forward from: Oliver, Claire, John, Janet, Adrian & Titchy B. Again, this background knowledge & development will be vital if we’re going to achieve any level of success.

Then, I anounced confirmation (subject to approval from artists, promotors & managers of course) of live relay from bands & dj’s playing live from The Rainbow, all things that revolve around Factory Events (Med Bar, The Kitchen, Space 2 etc), The Custard Factory, and the organisers of Supersonic also expressed an interest too, both from here at the Custard Factory & Barcelona too (sun-tan anyone?!)

And then, around about 8.30pm-ish, in good style, we went to the pub.

Hopefully this is a good reflection of what actually happened……. maybe somebody can volunteer to actually minute the next one, instead of my hand-written scrawl being translated into this jibberish! Now, if somebody can teach me how to host photos here, we can all see who we are………