Category: Board Meeting Highlights

The members of the Public Gallery of Carrboro (dba WCOM Community Radio) held its 2016 Annual Meeting on Saturday, October 22 in the ArtsCenter. The membership by acclamation elected Eliza Dubose to a three year term on the board of directors starting on January 1, 2017.

Donald Brumfield presented the engineering report, Bill Henderickson for the Development Committee, and Karl Blake for the Programming Committee. The latter has been very active lately adding new local and syndicated shows and developing a system for rebroadcasting local programs. Art Menius offered the financial report indicating that the board has ended the unfortunate run of $2000 annual losses that began with the $5400 per year increase in studio space rental.

Menius gave the chair’s state of the station report. He listed numerous accomplishments of the past nine plus months including enhanced budgeting and cash flow projections, stronger committees, new bylaws and observing them, more fundraising and grants, adoption of and monitoring a long range plan, bringing the station into compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 with the outstanding support of music hosts entering data into Spinitron, and 100% underwriting compliance. He also listed challenges before us including increasing involvement in the local community, strengthening the community of WCOM members, getting more people involved in the tasks that keep the station on the air, and building a financial reserve.

The WCOM community owes a big debt of gratitude to Donald “DJ Smooth Jazz” Brumfield who not only agreed to take on the vacant chair job with the Engineering Committee but to serve on the board of directors effective immediately. Donald reported on the late May meeting of the Engineering Committee. Jim Dennis of the Music Loft is our man for equipment issues. Bill McClymont, now an advisor to the committee as is Tofu Dave, is training Donald on Simian so that Donald can become the go-to person for Simian.

The Development Committee has planned a great WCOM member party for Monday, June 20. All WCOM members (show hosts, volunteers, and donors) should have received an email invitation two weeks ago. If you did not, please email me at art@artmenius.com. If you did, please rsvp. There is no admission fee! Vimala’s is donating the food and dessert; WCOM non-alcoholic beverages; music by mandolin great Tony Williamson.

At the party, we expect to have new WCOM T-SHIRTS available as a premium for $15 or more donations to your station. Thanks to Don and Donald for making this happen.

The Board Development Committee which will recruit board candidates for the October election will be Don Emmett, Tana Hartman, Marc Lee, and Ben Alschuler. You can send me nominations of others or yourself at the email above. I’ll forward them to the committee. We now have five functioning committees as compared to one in 2015. If you are interested in committee service, just email me.

The Program Committee reported that during the next two months two completely new shows and one returning after a couple of years will be joining our lineup. We are saying goodbye, however, to Sidelinz Sports and its host TC Rogers after four years. The final Sidelinz aired on June 8.

Rather than a regular monthly meeting in July, your board will hold a long range planning session on the 9th. The next regular board meeting will be August 10.

The February minutes were approved and posted at http://wcomfm.org/index.php/about/minutes.

We are still badly in need of an engineer or two. We are still imposing on Bill McClymont. If you have ideas or want to become a station engineer or to chair the Engineering Committee, please email Tofu Dave at tofudave@gmail.com.

We are down to a small handful of hosts who either don’t have underwriting or haven’t signed a host agreement. These folks will be contacted one last time with a 30-day notice.

The door code will be changed in the near future.

Our cash on hand has dropped to just less than $2000, one of the lowest levels during the past four years. We have experienced two consecutive years with four-digit losses. The biggest reason is that our underwriting fees are too low to meet our budget, even if we had 100% participation.

Starting next week, we ramp up for our April 28 fundraiser at Silverspot. 

We have, therefore, decided to raise annual show underwriting to $144 effective January 1, 2017. That should increase our income by around $1200. To be clear, if a new or renewal underwriter pays on December 31, 2016 the fee is $120. If they pay on January 1, 2017, it will be $144.

Brief Notes From February 10 2016 PGC Board Meeting

January minutes were approved and have been posted at: http://wcomfm.org/index.php/about/minutes

We came up with a couple of actions to fill our thin bench in engineering.

The Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance has become an Angel Voices underwriter.

Tana Hartman Thorne, Becky Johnson, and Don Emmett have joined the Volunteer Committee.

As required by our bylaws, the Board defined qualifications for being a “member” and thus eligible to vote at the Annual Meeting: Members will be all current hosts with a signed agreement, all who have donated money to WCOM or volunteered in a non-host capacity, and our “staff,” one very part-time bookkeeper. That gives us a total of 80 members.

We are slowing moving toward compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

We have filed our 990N to IRS and our application for Exemption from Charitable Solicitation Licensing with the NC Secretary of State.

In January we got funding applications in to Town of Carrboro, Strowd-Roses Foundation, and Orange County. We have station fundraisers planned: WCOM Solstice celebration on top of Pickards Mountain (June 20), WCOM Night at the Kraken (August 20), and our annual birthday celebration at Hickory Tavern (November 3), with one more in the works.

The  next board meeting is 4PM on March 9 at The ArtsCenter. All WCOM  members may attend.