FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
NEWS
by FFWD staffCKUA goes back on the air with a referendum for listeners
After being pulled off the air more than a month ago, CKUA Radio will be back on Friday, April 25 at 6 p.m.
Staff from the station, which was closed by its former board to prevent bankruptcy, will return to their jobs on a volunteer basis for one month. The employees are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' local 348.
A volunteer interim board took over the CKUA Radio Foundation last week, firing former board chair and station CEO Gail Hinchliffe. The board is working to revive corporate sponsorships and is aiming to run the station on an annual budget of $1.4 million, compared to a $2.8-million budget prior to the station's closure on March 21.
Edmonton lawyer Bud Steen, chairman of the new board, says the station has approximately $100,000 in the bank and a provincewide fund-raising campaign will begin May 2. Referring to the campaign as "a referendum," Steen says the new board is operating on a plan in which two-thirds of the funding will come from listeners.
Jack Hagerman, a former station manager who joined CKUA in 1949 and is known today as the 'Old Disc' Jockey, has volunteered to serve as the station's interim manager. He says the upcoming campaign will make or break the station's future. "We really do look at this as a referendum. We will know whether CKUA is going to continue indefinitely at the end of this fund-raiser," Hagerman explains. "We will know at the end of the campaign if we're going to be around very long."
Steen says the station has not set a goal for the fund-raising drive but noted that the Save Alberta Public Radio Society had already collected approximately $150,000 in pledges - without the benefit of an on-the-air campaign.
Katherine Hoy, spokesperson for the SAPRS group and a producer-broadcaster at the station, says she can't imagine what impact the $1.4-million budget cut will have. "I think it will be interesting to see what this station sounds like at $1.4 (million)."
While she's confident the station's staff, board and Hagerman can meet licensing and broadcast requirements of the CRTC, Hoy wonders about less tangible elements. "Can the spirit be maintained? That's an interesting question," says Hoy, whose telephone voice mail at the station still invites callers to enjoy the first day of spring.
Hoy calls the grassroots movement which toppled the old board "an experiment in empowerment" and declares that "the people won."
Regardless of that fact, the station must deal with bottom-line realities. "This is a business," Steen says. "If funds don't come in, it's over."
Communities responsible to help prevent family violence
Following the murder of Patricia Yvonne Preece on Sunday, April 13, the Sunrise Community Partnership (SCP) is urging communities to speak out against family violence. Preece is the third women to be shot to death in the last five months and the ninth in two years to die at the hands of a husband or male partner in Calgary. One in eight Canadian women is a victim of spousal abuse and one in five murders in Canada is a result of domestic violence, of which 85 per cent are by men against women.
Women who feel they are in danger are advised to take precautions: memorize or keep phone numbers for shelters handy (266-0707, 232-8717, 531-1972); be prepared to leave home or work quickly (have cash, keys and important documents in a safe, easy-to-get-to place) and be sure children know where to go and what to do; don't always travel to and from places the same way or at the same time; let friends, family and co-workers know you are not feeling safe and how they can help; and call a crisis cousellor at one of the shelters for support and to get more ideas about how to stay safe.
Men can also seek the support they need to deal with feelings or anger or abuse behavior (299-9699, 24-hour crises line).
"As a community it is our responsibility to speak out against family violence," states a media release from the SCP. "Family, friends and neighbors need to encourage women and men to seek the help they need for themselves or for their children. The violence is not the victim's fault. If a person feels in danger then listen, and do not minimize the danger."
The Family Violence Prevention Initiative is part of the SCP and is a coalition of 21 agencies who provide services and programs on family violence issues in the Sunrise communities.
Parks Canada announces plan to protect Banff area
Parks Canada released details of its 10-year plan to protect Banff National Park last week, stating it will place seasonal "closed" signs at each end of the Bow Valley Parkway from March 1 to June 25 starting in 1998 and use education, not blockades, as enforcement. Parks Canada will teach the public why the wildlife grazing area needs to be protected in an effort to promote awareness and encourage participation in the closure, then monitor traffic to determine whether the initiative is successful.
The plan also rules out expansion to the Banff Springs Golf Course and limits ski hill expansion to existing plans; introduces a quota system for park users starting with Skoki Lodge, a popular destination for cross-country skiers, as a prototype; and clears the Cascade Wildlife Corridor by the summer of 1999 through closing the air strip, relocating the horse corrals and cadet camp, and removing the buffalo paddock.
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