[grc] LPFM Community Learner’s Permit

[Paul Bame]

LPFM Community Learner’s Permit

(cross posted to LPFM Solidarity FB group and GRC mailing list)

Renewals have begun and everyone saw it coming. Everyone can guess that
some stations will need contract help, some just a how-to guide, and others
can do it all; and that stations who succeed have the know-how to help
others. There are a whole lot of LPFM stations and it doesn’t make any
sense for each one to take this on from scratch. But where was the
organizing together to make it happen?

Luckily, Prometheus, REC, and other service providers looked ahead, and
developed renewal guides and other resources, prepared to do contract work,
and to answer questions on line and elsewhere – in this case also
investigating some last-minute twists and turns in the LPFM renewal rules.
That’s the way things have been working for a long time. [and there are
additional folks who’ve stepped in on the policy side, and… FYI ETRS/NPT is
coming]

But stations aren’t driving their own collective bus – we providers are
still doing that.

Maybe its time for stations to get a collective learner’s permit.

Could that start out as simple as this? Instead of assuming the providers
are going to step up to the next common need or issue, might a responsible
driver might ask those providers up front what they’re planning, and get
the word out?

Even that implies a lot… like who has the role to reach out? Who has the
role to communicate and how? How will the institutional memory be kept –
for example I pledge to write a renewal guide and then don’t deliver? Who
will know what the outreach person is doing, and to whom are they
accountable? Who decides that something’s important enough to do outreach
in the first place? Is this an organization? Collective? Hierarchy? Is it
as simple as a communication checklist someone promises to initiate every
month?

I don’t think service providers are likely to drive the LPFM bus into a
ditch, and I do want to inject some realism… I’m doing most of the service
work at Prometheus right now as a volunteer who sometimes receives
sub-contract consulting fees. My gross last year was less than the poverty
line, and will be worse this year, so my love of radio and savings account
are funding pro-bono LPFM services, and I’m not getting any younger. That
doesn’t scream sustainable to me… Occasional public comments by REC lead me
to believe that passion is making up for low funding there too.

There are strong currencies besides money in our community too – don’t get
me wrong. But I ask the LPFM community of stations, is it time to get a
learner’s permit?

(I mean no disrespect by not mentioning other groups in this space)

Paul (pablito) Bame
Prometheus Radio Project <http://prometheusradio.org/>, Engineering Director
215.727.9620 x505
N0KCL/3