CIUT Fundraising Next Week!

This radio no doubt only receives AM signals, so this image isn't entirely appropriate. But check out that Edison wax cylinder player on top! photo taken at the Mississagi Lighthouse, Meldrum Bay, Manitoulin Island.

CIUT's Fall Fundraising Drive is coming up from November 3-7, and I'll be in the hot seat on Nov. 5 from 6-8PM.

I actually enjoy fundraising because it gives me the opportunity to speak about how important CIUT is to me and to the GTA's mediascape. One of the basic virtues of CIUT is its balance between the individual expression of a programmer within a community supported/oriented organization - it's a duality which is seldom in evidence anywhere else, and with CIUT's range encompassing 8 million people in the Golden Horseshoe and New York state, it's writ large. At a time when so much of our views of media are either as large conglomerates or as tiny, niche oriented blogs (and both have their virtues), CIUT represents a true alternative.

I have worked harder than ever over the last six months volunteering at CIUT. Since the end of June, I have volunteered than 50 hours above and beyond my regular show to help out CIUT's special broadcasts from Afrofest, Jamaica Day, Harbourfront, the Guelph Jazz Festival, and most recently Nuit Blanche. I have also interviewed a wide variety of guests since our last fundraiser, including Leroy Sibbles, Ernest Ranglin, Pee Wee Ellis, Myk Freedman, Rei Alvarez and Stephen Lyons. I've given away lots of tickets and other prizes.

Most of all, though, it's about the music, and I'm constantly sourcing new material and putting older music into fresh new contexts, challenging myself each and every week. Though I have volunteered at CIUT for 22 years, I do not take the privilege of having a radio show for granted.

Won't you please help me fulfill my goal of attracting 20 membership level donations of $25 this November 5? I'll be straight with you - fundraising is always a hard time for me, and open format programmers in general. But the kinds of musical relationships found in open format programming are so important to this otherwise narrowcasted world.

Anyways, tl, dr, perhaps... but please help out. Troubled times will only get more troubled if a FREE resource of alternative, multicultural, grassroots information goes off the air. If you would like to pledge online, do so here, and don't forget to indicate that you're supporting the Abstract Index!