Happy Spring!

Mickey parades all of his exploits from SXSW: got spots/Station ID from Mac DeMarco, maybe also The Flaming Lips.

Events calendar is here! Adam Wechsler designed them, they are various colors. Let’s all hang this stuff up as soon as possible.

Day of Zammuto event: someone(s) can help Mickey with streaming? Daniel Nass will be there!

Record Fair: Virgil is making the event on FB as we speak. [5:52: Virgil has completed the FB event and has invited folks. Check this ya’ll.]

Wesleying Posts for Adam Isaacson:

Zammuto Concert on Thursday afternoon (include disclaimer that non-students must register)

Record Fair post later

TuneIn talk (Mickey):

Talks of developing longer-term relationship

How to fix specs: have our events calendar on website? Minimizing ads?

They want to continue to liaise with us — we are guinea pigs for their college programming work (KEXP had a TuneIn banner, which sucks because KEXP rocks)

[I missed the first two paragraphs of this conversation, so it’s not exactly clear what we’re discussing regarding TuneIn]

What relationship ought we to have with corporate entities?

Ben M. says as long as it doesn’t compromise our values, we should have fruitful relationships — insofar as they benefit and do not exploit us.

They don’t seem too displeased with our minimal plugging during Stepkids show.

Ben M. is happy to talk to them? HOW HAPPY ARE YOU, BEN?

Mickey: Katherine, How would you feel about being a TuneIn contact?

Katherine: … [TBD]

If TuneIn needs to know who’s going to be around ASAP, Ben will be around this summer. Otherwise, we’ll wait for the fall to figure this out.

Ben M.: An alternative to the TuneIn service would be to have our own app. Is this feasible?

Shelving!

Lee Berman has (finally) agreed to step up and help us with the shelving project, which CC birthed (and strewn with

Kathy Lechowicz has agreed to fund/approve a work-study position! Folding stuff, checking messages, this person will be put to good use and will relieve Ben of administrative, bureaucratic burden.

Development position: Vice President has absorbed development/fundraising duties.

Spring Fundraising Campaign:

From what angle should we approach this thang?

Silent pledge drive? Or could we call it a “Freeform Pledge Drive”? In which we have several models to offer our staff, and marketing it to our stakeholders/donors as an effort to be a gentler fundraising — we will interrupt programming as little as possible.

Avery has put together a fundraising draft letter. It resembles a zine.

Other successful tactics: WESU Bunny (if you don’t donate, we’ll kill this adorable radio bunny), etc. Caveat: if this doesn’t work, we’ll have to fall back on heavy on-air promotion.

Still a good idea to pass 3 envelopes on to each DJ, whose job it is to spread among fans/friends/family.

The mailing is going out this week: program guide, Avery’s W-Zine-S-U, and other docs?

Let’s encourage — aka pressure — staff to try and raise $100 particularly if they haven’t raised money before. This is a better way to corral occasional/novice DJ pledgers. “Find three sponsors!”

What would a “WESU Membership” entail? Program guide, something more?

Automatic renewal…targeting parents of students who would be gone after four years. But it is rare for parents to continue donating once their children have graduated.

Special mailings? Other ways to deal with fundraising infrastructurally. Automatic renewal would require a reorientation of thinking about our services and our fundraising programs. Right now our zine and our package focuses on personal touch. Before we go further, we should enlist someone to embark on a longer-term project and do research on fundraising: IZZY! Thanks for volunteering.

Acteva (Activa? Activia?) could include a “do you want to be a return donor?” Yadda, yadda, etc.

April 2: Middletown Remix Advisory Committee Meeting at 5 at Nora’s Cupcakes

Unsurprisingly, Mickey volunteers.

Ben M. reminds us that we should be strategizing about next year’s board. Keep eyes and ears open for interest. Let’s bring this up at the next staff meeting, because there are only two meetings left this year.

Training starts this Sunday evening. Thursday is a week behind. Five sessions should suffice. (Will it end May 5?) David Bauer will be Sunday instructor. Adam Wechsler will send out message soliciting staff instructors shortly. DO THIS, YO.

First homework assignment: identify shows whose content you’d like to imitate

Second assignment: Get your hands on an internship

Third assignment: Content/programming review?

Fourth assignment: Record evergreen show?

Code of Conduct needs to be approved by supermajority at staff meeting. In the meantime, Adam can make changes to handbook.

DJ Spotlight?

Meeting adjourned.

F-Bomb dropped on Synthesis. Dave Bauer destroyed them. They were unhappy.
Events with Mickey!
- Ian MacKaye – Mickey has a recording to edit into an hour long special to run over spring break. Will send the unedited version to Ian.
Went really well, was very well attended by both Wes and not Wes people.

- Report back to TuneIn on the Stepkids show.

- Need a student opener for Zammuto. Zain doesn’t have demos, the Japanese are also willing. Either way, Neo Sora will be on bass.
- Sent out an email asking for help planning for all the post-break events. Also a meeting to talk about Eclectic’s hosting band.
- Although we don’t actually have the venue confirmed, we’ll hopefully know by tomorrow and possibly by the end of the week. we should try to start promoting asap, maybe come up with a poster before break, Promos can wait till we know where it will be.

- Reach out to press outlets and get us included in calendars.

- Record Fair – need to reach out to food vendors.
- Virgil will come up with posters over break.

- Grateful Dead lecture – April 30^th -  sounds amazing

- Boldy James on April 12^th, in the WestCo Courtyard
There’s another festival happening in WestCo the next day, we could potentially link our show in with that, depending on how together they really are.

Program Guide should be here at the end of the week! Most will be sent out as part of the “pledge drive.”

WESU should in future be a presenter at IBS, because it is way too corporate right now.

Fundraising Committee met yesterday, decided:
- We will send out packets in the mail. Explore the option of having different personalized packets for different kinds of programming.
- Avery will work on the content over break and then put it on a google doc.
- Emails will be sent out to different groups of people, past donors, alums etc. This will require a lot of data entry, instead of phone banking.

Changes to the Code of Conduct:
- No one has emailed back comments. If we hear back from people before break, we can meet about it the first week after break in time to incorporate it into training and discuss it in the April Break.
- Send out another email with bullet points of changes.

Adam is working on emails to Pangaea and other listservs.

Hartford Advocate – problems with scheduling.
What about taking our own picture? Dave could take it!
A few people could go to Real Artways.

Hugo Chavez died

Facebook consolidation – Some difficulties getting rid of WESU Fm the person, but Virgil will do it on Friday. Need to rethink the way WESU operates on facebook, in connection with the pledge drive. Need to figure out how to get more content creators.
Programming Council – group to listen to shows and offer constructive criticism, possibly suggesting all the first years.

Documenting the reviews could be helpful for training. Critiquing shows used to be part of training.

Happy March!

WESU is  No. 1 College Radio Station!
Homegrown is No. 2 Best Show, Rob is No. 3 Best DJ
Email board (at) wesufm (dot) org if you want to come to the photo shoot on Wednesday at 5.

A note: try to keep all staff emails to a minimum, because we have an hourly quota
Email personnel if you can’t make staff meetings (personnel (at) wesufm (dot) org)

Silent Pledge Drive this April, completely through mailings.
Means we need to put together a more personal packet to mail out, we want everyone to put in a lot of effort. Meeting tomorrow at 4 to talk about it, or email Avery or the Board.

Record Fair – Sunday April 7^th
Good service hour opportunity. Email events (at) wesufm (dot) org about volunteering.

Board of Directors is mostly seniors so get thinking about running. Email or talk to the board to find out more about what the different positions entail. It is so much fun!

Still looking for someone to lead the initiative to build the new shelving plan. Anyone with carpentry experience please get in touch.

Training will be starting after Spring Break (finishes March 25^th)
Looking for two people to help indoctrinate the youth in a good way, will cover all your service hours. Email personnel (at) wesufm (dot) org

If you are a student and want to keep doing your show over break, email Ben. Also check out the sign up sheets if you’re going to be around and want extra air time.

Virgil has finished the program guide – it looks great!

Please vote on the poll about potentially changing the meeting time.

Proposed changes have been made to the Code of Conduct, Avery will be sending them out soon. Please read and respond directly to Avery with thoughts.

DO NOT CURSE ON AIR. There have been incidents of people playing songs with indecent language. This could cost us our license. Please pay attention to what you’re playing.

Stepkids concert went really well, thanks for coming out. The livestreaming was a successful experiment.
Next concert is Zammuto on March 30^th, hopefully at Eclectic, we will confirm the venue later this week. Snowblink will be opening.
After that, Boldy James and Gifted Higz on April 12^th.
April 30^th, we will be cosponsoring a lecture with a Grateful Dead expert.
Keep spreading the word about our shows!

Might drop our TuneIn sponsorship if we can find money elsewhere so that we can continue to keep the shows free. Waiting to here back from the CFA.

On Wednesday, at 4:30pm Mickey will be hosting a meeting for people interested in learning how to work on concerts in any capacity. Email events (at) wesufm (dot) org.

Our new website is live! Amazing job by Dan. If you have any comments, send them to Dan.

Some board members went to IBS (Inter-Collegiate Broadcasting System) was this weekend.

WESU’s College Radio panel was accepted to Megapolis. They are only covering Avery’s ticket, but if anyone wants to buy a ticket themselves, they can also be on the panel. It’s in New York this year, contact Avery if interested.