Present: Kim Perrier, Marie Perrier, Deb Barnden, Mike Nix, John Nelson, Christian Jones

General Business:

Christian welcomed everyone to the studio, some for the first time, and opened with areas to be covered, Organizing meetings, Our Agendas, Broadcasting from Cafe

At this point John spoke about recruiting volunteers for Demographic Survey

John " There is nothing more important than to know who your dealing with ", " Who is our potential audience? " John feels we need to prepare a demographic survey covering the people of Bridgetown, this will be achieved by recruiting volunteers, who will be trained and sent within the community to doorknock and prepare survey, also asking for donations towards Bridge FM, which they can then be paid a commission Fee. The projects timeline should cover only "about a month", and the funds raised will go toward taking Bridge FM to air. John offered to co-ordinate this project and the committee resolved that this is a good idea.

John has worked with the Telecentre for the past 3 years and has now offered to focus his time towards Bridge FM,….. we warmly welcome him on board.

Kim then spoke of how this survey will help us tie down what the Vision Statement for Bridge FM is.

Kim "Why do people need this ?" ( the radio station ) "We need to put together this survey now. ". Kim feels that we should prepare a "Vision Statement" for the local community to have a clear understanding of where we are going, so as to create a further support for the project. Kim then went on to talk about what Kim and Christian had discussed on this topic the other day. ( to gain peoples thought on the radio station and where they would like to take it within their community ).

Christian then spoke of setting up a mock radio station " Live Broadcast "recording session outside one of the coffee houses in Bridgetown

Christian " It's really just an informal chat,.. " ( with the people of Bridgetown ) " about what their thoughts are on the station. ", Christian has offered to set up some light equipment on the street, for Kim and himself to talk with the people of Bridgetown and promote the new Radio Station, soon to be on air. Already running on the internet. This will be set up outside one of the coffee shops, and will be run as a live report from main street. We hope to use this experience in the running of the station, once it is operating. The main purpose of this project is to gather recordings, so once we are broadcasting we will have relevant things for people to hear on Bridge FM. Also to see if it is a project we would like to pursue and run on regular basis. " Once we get good at a live broadcast, when we are running,…. we could say we'll be at Mitre 10 next week, or something like that." Promote local.

The committee found this to be a god idea and resolved that we will have our first broadcast on Thursday 15th May. But only if Kim gets his Banner.

Kim would like to set up a Banner for the street broadcast, Marie has offered to organise this, and will have it ready before the day..

Marie also wanted to mention that Brian Cavanagh rang and is writing letter to NTL for use of facilities at Sutton Lookout.

John then wanted to express how " Things must happen concurrently ", he then raised the question
" Should we lease the aerial from the shire and then re-lease it on for them ? ". John also wanted to note that he is happy to do the rounds of radio stations to investigate for technical assistance, committee resolved that he may go ahead on our behalf..

Kim noted that we have Ambassadors out there for Bridge FM and we should set up an Ambassador Program. He also noted that Deb is now our offical Web Person and to talk with her about putting things onto the internet and also the email newsletter, ( a project soon to be undertaken )

John noted that the average community radio across Australia has 160 volunteers, and that we should invite one new person to the next meeting.

Marie then mentioned there are people who meet at the Uniting Church who may come on board,

John said we should have our identity solid before we approach groups.

Mike then talked about the Website

Mike wanted the go ahead to register bridgefm.com.au the committee resolved for him to do that and for him and John to move the Website to the Telecentre.

Kim then talked about getting together to produce the Vision Statement and Sponsorship Package, committee agreed to have this as discussion topic at next meeting.

Christian suggested we should equate our Advertising hours and work out what we can sell, so we know how much it is worth. Christian will prepare a programming submission for next meeting.

Marie will contact the appropriate people to secure premises at the call center for the next meeting

Deb will look into organizing the email newsletter, if anyone has any input, please pass it on.

Conclusion: Meetings will for now be ran fortnightly on Tuesday nights from 7.00 pm, next meeting is on 20th May 2003

John will contact radio stations for equipment and tech assistance.( ABC in Perth )

Mike to organize .com

Christian and Kim will be live at Bridgetown main street, Thursday 15th May.

Included is a copy of the start of a Vision Statement & Survey that Kim and Christian typed out for your consideration to take to the next meeting. ….. BE WARNED, this is totally unedited and as it went down from Kim and Christians conversation.

This is what happened when Kim and Christian got together under a tree in Kim's backyard with a notebook computer.

Vision Statement for Bridge FM
The Community Bush telegraph no longer functions as it did in days gone by,

We are the new age Bush Telegraph, providing a vehicle/voice for a an interactive sustainable future within local community. We will achieve this via radio communication and also internet.

As we evolve with digital technologies it has opened/made new levels of communication more accessible to everyone.We know that our future rests with our children and we can enhance peoples knowledge on what's going on in your backyard.

Survey

• Do you need other people, if so how do you find other like minded people to share your interests.
• Do you have information you would like to share with the community ?
• What do you think a bush telegraph could become ?
• Have you got a skill or service that you would like others to know about ?
• What discussion topics that have local relevance, would you like to hear about and dicussed?
• Local politics, hobby interests, religeon, vegetable growing,…. etc.
• Have you seen the Bridge FM website ?