Volunteers

In the not too distant past, volunteers were the backbone of public radio. They covered most of the airshifts. They helped with marketing, membership, IT, newsgathering and events.

Unfortunately, on the programming side, they took ownership of those shifts. That was something that held back growth at many stations. We had 28 different radio stations, not one. I was dropped into that situation to try to bring order and a sense of unity.

There were 28 community volunteers covering weekday, weekend and night shifts. They had all been doing their own thing for years before I was hired as a student intern to take some control of the music programming.

I set up guidelines covering break structure, forward and cross promotion, and certain expectations in music selection. And a set of rules about professionalism. Volunteers used to snipe at each other over music selection. Each individual thought they were the true purveyors of Jazz.

Some unity had to be instilled to create a stationality. Listeners develop loyalty to the station, not the individual talent. (This is a much longer discussion). 

Individual meetings and appreciative gatherings were instituted. The idea was to make them feel like they were part of something much larger. Some cooperated, some did not. 

I would like to say it was a success. Progress was made, but the issue of little cross appeal was never really solved. In the end, music was dropped in favor of news and information. A professional staff was hired. Volunteers helped with events and fundraising, but their on air presence came to an end. Not all at once, but over a relatively short period of time music shifts came to an end.

It would have been nice to have some guidance coming into that situation.  Today, tools and guidance are much easier to find. A ten minute on-line search, and dozens of ideas on training and expectations and positive reinforcement are a fraction of a second away.

A structure...some sort of expectations...would have made the job less frustrating.