ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR INDEPENDENT RADIO PRODUCTION (a corporation without share capital) also known as CSIRP Sunday, 25 August 2002, 5 p.m. EDT Artscourt Library, Second Floor, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6E2. MINUTES Attending: Hal Doran (President and Chair), Victoria Fenner (General Manager), Doug Samuel (Treasurer), Barry Rueger (Secretary), Dominique Soutif, John K Muir, Heather Ritchie, Jill Hopke, Lois Ross, Janna Graham a) CALL to Order Hal Doran called the meeting to order and declared the meeting duly constituted. In his opening remarks he comments on the continued success and growth of CSIRP, and thanked outgoing Board members Chris Brookes, Andy Posthumus, and David Kattenburg. UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried the agenda is set as amended. b) PRESENTATION of Reports of the Directors, Committee Chairs, Staff and Officers. c) Past Year's Activities - Victoria Fenner (General Manager) We have just returned from the fourth annual Full Moon Audio Art Camp. It was once again a great success, and the new location at Au Grand Bois proved very nice. This has become CSIRP's signature event. Artists this year were Chris Brookes and Darren Copeland. As we speak Chris is off to Chicago to join the Jury for the Third Coast Audio Festival. This is one more indication that the Full Moon camp has developed an international reputation. We are one year into a three year grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. We will conduct four more workshops this year, and will bring together a group of community radio staff to assess the training needs in that sector. We will resubmit our application to Heritage Canada's Capacity Building program, and will have in hand a business plan and the Audited Statements that you will examine tonight. We will this year move ahead on charitable status, which will better increase our access to funding. One of our goals is to begin to expand staffing and increase the resources that we can provide to our members. The second edition of Radiant Dissonance had been juried, and will be releases early in 2003 to radio stations in Canada and the U.S. We are growing and getting stronger. d) Board Goals for Coming Year (Hal Doran) The current Board of Directors has outlined a number of goals for CSIRP in the 2002-2003 operating year. Those include: * To apply for a capacity building grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage, which, if received, would bring us to a new level as an organization and help provide us with an on-going operational support framework. * To continue to work with the developing Quebec Community Radio Network with a view to useful collaborations which could strengthen both our organizations. * To continue to expand the geographic scope in Canada of our very successful Full Moon audio art camps with the goal of an audio art camp 2003 in Central Canada as well as one in Atlantic Canada, in conjunction with CHMA Radio in Sackville, New Brunswick. * To continue with our professional training and development programs funded by Ontario's Trillium Foundation. We have just received the green light for the next phase, four workshops for Ontario-based community broadcasters, after submitting a successful report on our accomplishments so far. We will explore ways to build upon this initiative after the project ends in 2004. * To continue to increase our membership numbers, which again grew this year. * To explore ways of expanding the reach and scope of our very successful publication, Wavelength. Wavelength will move to twice a year publication (in the Spring and Fall) in an expanded format. * To continue the development of our Web site, to include more training and audio resources. * The Board has established a Communications Committee (Chris Brookes, chair; Barry Rueger and Janna Graham, members) to develop an overall communications strategy and to oversee publications, including Wavelength, pamphlets and our Web site. * To explore the possibility of obtaining charitable status as a non-profit national organization which provides benefits to the Canadian community as a whole by virtue of our training and development efforts on behalf of independent radio production intended to serve a broad spectrum of Canadian communities. * To explore cross-border collaborations with our U.S. counterpart AIR (Association of Independents in Radio) and continue to strengthen that relationship, which includes reciprocal memberships in each other's organizations and a CSIRP member on the AIR Board. * To work with American participants in Full Moon to develop an audio art camp in the U.S. with significant participation and leadership from Canadian audio artists. * To produce a new edition of Radiant Dissonance, a radio series featuring the work of 10 Canadian audio artists and promote it to broadcasters in North America. * To continue to develop our organization's goals though our collaborative discussions on our listserv and elsewhere. e) Discussion on the Goals in response to questions from the floor * Quebec Community Radio Project (Hal Doran): Over the past year we have begun working on a joint project to better support Anglophone community radio in Quebec. Although the Government of Quebec has provided strong support for francophone community broadcasting, Anglophone stations have been largely unsupported except for a few federal programs. A new group was started by the Anglophone Newspaper Association and the Quebec Farmers Union with the goal of establishing an Anglophone community radio network in Quebec. Earlier this year they approached CSIRP for help, and I attended their meeting in Quebec. We are planning on developing a joint proposal to Heritage Canada. * Membership (Hal Doran) - Our goal for the past year was to increase our membership to fifty. In fact we are now at 65 members, plus an additional 15 from the Full Moon Audio Camp. Our goal in the coming year is to double our current membership. Douglas Samuel is spearheading a drive to develop new ideas for member development. * Communications (Hal Doran and Barry Rueger) - The Board has established a Communications Committee. Over the next year they will develop a strategic plan for CSIRP's communications (Wavelength, radiosite.ca, and other print materials). Subsequent to that they will oversee all of these ongoing projects. Wavelength will now be a semi-annual publication. The hope is to expand the content and increase the overall quality and polish of the publication. Our email lists continue to be well received, and our website traffic has increased greatly since the re-design last year. This redesign was a substantial project, but has increased our profile significantly. * Charitable Status (Hal Doran) - One element of the Capacity Building grant which we hope will be funded by Heritage Canada will be an application for Charitable Status. This will open many funding doors, particular with private foundations, but it is John Muir's estimate that this will be a two year process. UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried the reports of the committee chairs, staff and officers. were accepted. f) REPORT of the Auditor and PRESENTATION of Financial Statements for the Year Ending 31 March 2002. (Douglas Samuel) As we grow and become more successful we have found the need to improve our record keeping. Over the past year we have implemented a detailed financial recording system, and a number of financial controls which allow us to better monitor our spending. As the amount of our activity increases, we are also developing mechanisms for project reporting to the Board. We have just completed our first Audit. The auditor seemed to be satisfied with how conduct our business, and offered much valuable advice. We are improving our systems based on that advice. To date CSIRP's overhead has been paid for by contributions by the various projects that we have had funded. Careful planning and management of individual projects has allowed us to afford Wavelength, a website, and a variety of other services that could not be paid for out of membership revenues alone. Douglas presented CSIRP's Audited Financial Statements for the year ending 31 March 2002. This was followed by questions from the floor. UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried, whereas this is CSIRP's first Annual General Meeting, and whereas it was it was not seen as necessary to have such meetings previously, be is resolved to * accept the Report of the Auditor and Financial Statements for one year ending 31 March 2002 as presented; * accept the previous Review of CSIRP's Financial Statements for the year ending 31 March 2001; * Waive presentation of Financial Statements for prior years. g) PRESENTATION of proposed amendments to the By-laws of CSIRP - No changes were presented. h) UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried all motions of the Board during the previous year. are confirmed. i) REPORT of the Nominating Committee and election of Directors (John Muir) The Committee included John Muir (chair), Hal Doran, Audrey Churgin, Doug Samuel, and Heather Majaury. The Nominees in alphabetical order are: * Hal Doran * Janna Graham * Heather Majaury * Barry Rueger * Doug Samuel * Dominique Soutif * Steve Wadhams There were no other nominations received by the Nominating Committee. Those Nominees who were present were asked to speak to the group. UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried the report of the Nominating Committee is accepted and the Nominees named appointed to the CSIRP Board of Directors until the next Annual General Meeting of Members. j) Other Business It was requested that the Membership formally acknowledge the contributions made by Tim Rivers-Garrett and others in establishing the Full Moon Audio Art camp. UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried the Membership expresses sincere appreciation to Victoria Fenner, John K Muir, Tim Rivers-Garrett, and the community of Killaloe in recognition of their work to establish Full Moon Over Killaloe, which has grown to become CSIRP's most successful event. k) UPON a MOTION duly made, seconded and carried the First Annual General Meeting of Members adjourned. ______________________________ ___________________________ Hal Doran, President & Chair Janna Graham, Secretary