Registration is now open for NFCB member stations! If you’re a member station, you are encouraged to secure their seats at the early bird rate for NFCB’s 2025 Community Media Conference and 50th Anniversary Celebration. Click here to learn more and register.
The conference program schedule is nearly confirmed, and while I can’t share the details yet, I can give some spoilers that we’ll have in-depth sessions about engaging audiences and new volunteers, fundraising and development, music department strategies, community representation, and so much more. We are truly so excited by the depth and breadth of knowledge that will be represented at this conference!
Speaking of expertise, we’re so happy to announce that, in celebration of 50 years of NFCB, we’re waiving additional fees to participate in our a 3 hour pre-conference workshops.
About the Pre-Conference Workshops
We know that this is an uncertain time and that budgets are tight. We also know how important it is to get the absolute most out of conferences and summits, especially when it means sending more than one station representative. That’s why we’ve designed a pre-conference workshop schedule that will deepen your peer connections, expend your knowledge in some of the most important areas of focus in community radio, and (hopefully) be fun to boot.
Click here for the complete details of the pre-conference workshops.
Here’s what to look forward to on Monday June 9th:
Monday Morning
All three workshops take place simultaneously from 9 am to noon.
Amplifying Voices with StoryCorps: Local Outreach & Engagement Through Stories & Oral History
StoryCorps‘ Emily Janssen will lead a multi-faceted workshop designed to provide participants with tools and best practices for recording and preserving oral histories in their communities. Participants will be well-equipped to capture and share their community’s stories, which will deepen and enrich audience engagement as well as providing more accessibility for local voices and stories over the air.
Who Should Attend:
- Station leaders (i.e. SMs/GMs/EDs)
- Board members
- Station volunteers, especially programmers
- Producers
- Anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge in capturing and preserving community histories and stories.
“The Center-Peace”: A Mindful, Playful Precursor to Conferencing
Join NFCB board member JC Polk for a workshop unlike any other. In this three hour experience, JC and collaborators will guide participants through activities and conversations designed to re-center our human selves within community service and community broadcasting. You’ll explore topics like rest as a radical act, self-care as community care, the art of peer-to-peer connection, and more. This workshop is designed to be restorative and to help anchor participants ahead of a rich and tightly packed conference program. More details and speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
Who Should Attend: Anyone!
Emergency Preparedness: From Foundation to Finish
Join Aspen Public Radio’s Breeze Richardson for a dynamic and hands-on workshop designed to help you better understand the ever-changing needs and standards of emergency preparedness and to provide time and space for peer-to-peer networking, solution seeking, and tangible strategies to implement at your stations the following Monday morning.
This workshop will be an engaging blend of lecture, active participation, peer learning, and hands-on problem solving. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to take notes, discuss specific scenarios, and have a specific challenge related to public safety or emergency preparedness at your station on the ready for hands-on “Solution Seeking Blitzes.”
Who Should Attend:
- Station leaders (i.e. SMs/GMs/EDs)
- Board members and volunteers
- People involved in station Operations
Monday Afternoon
All three workshops take place simultaneously from 1:15 pm to 4:15 pm.
Safeguarding Oral History and Radio Legacy:
A Skills Workshop for HBCU, Tribal, and Community Radio Stations
Project Director of HBCU Radio Preservation Project
Director of Audio Preservation at NEDCC
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project invites you to a comprehensive workshop designed to equip HBCU, tribal, and community radio stations with the skills needed to safeguard their oral history and preserve their radio station legacies for future generations. HBCU radio stations have been at the forefront of documenting the Black experience, with nearly a third of the 104 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) operating radio stations, many for over fifty years.
Join us in our mission to honor and preserve the vibrant history and cultural legacy of HBCU, tribal, and community radio stations. This workshop is an essential step towards ensuring that these invaluable resources are preserved for future generations.
Workshop Goals:
- Foster a culture of preservation at HBCU, tribal, and community radio stations.
- Teach best practices for preserving both analog and digital audio materials.
- Provide strategies for building sustainable preservation programs.
- Connect and support radio stations and their institutional archives.
Who Should Attend this Workshop:
- Representatives from HBCU radio stations
- Managers of tribal and community radio stations
- Archivists and librarians from HBCUs and other institutions
- Individuals interested in preserving the history and legacy of radio stations
Why Attend this Workshop:
- Gain practical skills for safeguarding oral history and preserving radio station materials.
- Network with peers from HBCU, tribal, and community radio stations.
- Learn about resources and support available for preservation efforts.
- Contribute to a broader effort to preserve the rich cultural history encapsulated in radio broadcasts.
AIR Media Presents: NFCB Hack-a-thon!
Join Keisha Salmon, Executive Director of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), and members of AIR for a unique workshop designed to provide participants with customized support and hands-on problem-solving. The workshop will feature four stations that participants will rotate through. Each station is hosted by an expert in a specific area of community broadcasting: fundraising challenges, audience engagement and development, programming, and the digital realm.
As workers in community broadcasting, we all have those stubborn growth edges that hold us back from accomplishing our bigger goals. This workshop is designed to be useful for any member of your station’s team. RSVP for this workshop to receive some bespoke support from industry experts to overcome those hurdles and hit the ground running when you’re back at your station!
Who Should Attend:
- Station leaders (i.e. SMs/GMs/EDs)
- Producers
- People involved in station Operations
- Anyone interested in tackling elusive fundraising, audience engagement, programming and digital goals at your station
Demystify your Airchain: Engineering Basics from Mic to Tower
Now more than ever it feels necessary for station leaders in all departments to have awareness and even some know-how when it comes to the station’s airchain. From mic to tower to receiver, the path will be laid clear in this engaging, hands-on, workshop with Becky Meiers of Thieves Union. In this workshop, participants will develop a more anchored understanding of a broadcast airchain, the common engineering emergencies that come up and how to avoid them, how to troubleshoot and document issues (especially with non-tech staff and volunteers), and where to access more information for future engineering needs.
The workshop finale will be led by David Klann of Broadcast Tool & Die. David will demonstrate how to create a remote signal monitoring kit that a station could deploy anywhere there’s power and Internet to remotely monitor (with their ears and with software) their station’s FM signal. Such a device can even be outfitted with the necessary software to act as an FM silence sensor and send an alert to people when silence is detected on the FM (or HD) signal. Session attendees will be led through the process of acquiring parts and assembling the necessary antenna and other components, and demonstrate an example during the session.
This workshop is designed for anyone at your station that desires more agency in the tech/engineering realm and will be informative for engineers and IT folks as well.
Who Should Attend:
- Station leaders (i.e. SMs/GMs/EDs)
- Board members
- People involved in station Operations
- People involved in station Programming
- Anyone interested in better understanding broadcast engineering basics
