[grc] Happy anniversary to WINGS!

[Maria Gilardin]

Dear Frieda - Love and thanks and best wishes for the future!
When I met you and Katherine way back then I was moved and impressed by 
your against-all-odds we'll get it done attitude.
There really was no vision for international production of a weekly 
radio program by two/three individuals except for you (and AR).

Hard to imagine now that 29 years ago we had practically no independent 
production or distribution. Even the thought that any radio station 
would accept a program like yours (- that did not come from a school or 
organizations -) into their schedule was new.
So much of what we now take for granted came from you or was first used 
by you in a new way.
My own TUC Radio is inspired by you!
Love, Maria



Maria Gilardin/TUC Radio
PO Box 44/Calpella, CA, 95418
(707) 463-2654
http://www.tucradio.org

On 5/13/2015 12:52 PM, Frieda Werden wrote:
> Beloved community radio people,
>
> 29 years ago, the very first episode of WINGS was released on the Public
> Radio Satellite in the US. The pilot was produced at Western Public Radio
> in San Francisco by Augusta del Zotto, Katherine Davenport, and me, and it
> included 13 news stories (!).  The pilot was funded by a director's
> discretionary grant from Sandra Rattley at the NPR Satellite Program
> Development Fund, Thanks, Sandra!
>
> Sadly, the SPDF was very soon de-funded by CPB.  When WINGS applied to CPB
> in 1987, we were told "this is an idea whose time has passed."  Apparently
> not!
>
> Thanks to a small travel grant from NFCB, Katherine and I attended the
> AMARC meeting in Vancouver in 1986.  That connected us to the international
> community radio movement, so that we gained more international contributors
> and also international subscribers. We also started to realize that
> community radio was the place where we'd find the minds and ears and
> station programmers that liked us, rather than Public Radio. WINGS won a
> Golden Reel from NFCB for coverage of women's conferences in our first year.
>
> In the fall of 1987, we signed a contract to distribute weekly (on open
> reel) via Longhorn Radio Network at the University of Texas.  But most of
> our station subscribers were not on Longhorn  or on the PRSS, so we bought
> a bunch of cassette decks and dubbed to them from our Otari MX 5050B open
> reel editing deck, mailing out the shows two per cassette in padded
> envelopes with paper show descriptions enclosed.
>
> In 1994 the Otari gave place to a digital audio workstation. Also in the
> '90s we signed a contract with Pacifica to be on their ku-band satellite.
> In those days, we had to dub our shows to DAT tapes and mail them to
> Berkeley for uplink, because cassette sound was not considered good enough.
>
> Over the years, cassettes gave way to CD duplicating and mailing, and
> finally to distribution via internet - to community radio satellites,
> community radio program download sites, and direct to some subscribers
> using email.
>
> Thanks so much to hundreds of contributing producers around the world for
> making our programming so diverse over the years, and thanks to many
> stations in various countries that air WINGS.
>
> Extra special thank yous to the sustaining community radio stations that
> contribute annually so that WINGS can continue to pay honoraria to
> contributing producers.  In the past year, these have been: KCSB-FM in
> Santa Barbara, KGNU in Boulder, KMUD in Garberville, KRZA in Alamosa,
> KKFI-FM in Kansas City; WORT-FM in Madison; WERU and WMPG in Maine - all of
> them some of the greatest stations around. We're proud to be on your
> lineup. And welcome to new sustaining subscriber KMUZ in Salem, Oregon,
> which is starting to carry WINGS on June 1 :)
>
> I recently retired from working as a campus-community radio station exec
> here in Canada, but I'm in great health and spirits and plan to continue as
> series producer for WINGS into the foreseeable future.  However, I am on
> the lookout for future successors. As always,WINGS is recruiting new
> producers and new stations.
>
> I'm also looking forward to having visits from radio folks at my new home
> on beautiful Denman Island BC Canada.  My partner Suzette and I are hosting
> our first-ever Women's Media Camp starting July 29.  Info:
> www.facebook.com/womensmediacamp
>
> Come up and see us some time!
>
> Yours in community media solidarity,
> Frieda
>
>