About KWPA
CONTENTS
What We Do
KWPA is a volunteer-based, noncommercial, community broadcast station in the town of Coupeville, WA licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.
We make broadcast airtime available to the general public and offer resources and education to all members of the community for the production and dissemination of community media.
KWPA is committed to broadcasting 36 hours per week of locally made programs with a strong educational element.
Local content can be defined in several ways. Creation by a Whidbey resident qualifies, but KWPA would wish for more than that. The simplest form of program is a music program in which a presenter selects and plays a range of music, usually within a specific genre e.g. jazz. Such a program can include mentions of local people (who like or dislike a particular track) local places or events (where or when a piece might have been played).
Educational content is also easily achieved. The jazz presenter can construct a program to trace the development of a player or style, show how musical ideas are transferred and developed, or just explain what is enjoyable or interesting about particular tracks.
The same principles apply to speech and feature programs. Local and educational content must be to the fore, but achieving this isn’t difficult.
Program producers should also be aware that as a non commercial radio station, there are rules about advertising. The most basic of these is that there can be no direct inducement to buy. (For example we can say that a band performs regularly in the island, but we can’t say where they are playing tonight.) Station sponsors and underwriters can and should be acknowledged, as can the help of an organization in making a program (e.g. a meeting room provided for a recorded discussion, a performer who donated CDs, etc.).
KWPA Vision Statement
Encapsulate in programming the cultural, multi generational, arts and entertainment opportunities on Whidbey Island in a broadcast medium accessible to everyone in multiple audio mediums by creating a truly community based radio station.
Milestones and Objectives
- Approval and adoption of a formal business plan for KWPA to provide key objectives ad next steps. Completed 2/08
- Board of Directors election of officers and formal management, accountability and objectives created. Completed 2/08
- Completion of broadcast technology providing maximum audience reach. Anticipated completion 6/08
- Completion of KWPA Radio website to provide public information, access and programming and fund development opportunities. Ongoing from 04/08 – Anticipated completion 6/08
- Develop broad community support through educational, community service organizations, groups and events. Ongoing beginning 3/08
Achievements
- Broadcast transmission facilities at Penn Cove are 99.9% complete as of May 2008 with just the technology to aid web streaming still to be finished. KWPA has been broadcasting since 2006 with limited range in Central Whidbey and is currently on the air.
- Approximately $9,000 has been spent by volunteers in purchasing final transmission and broadcast equipment over the past 6 months, with over 100 hours per month on average of volunteer time committed to KWPA development.
- Website for KWPA has been registered and is under construction.
- Formal financial reporting and Board of Directors structures are now established, including letters of incorporation, non-profit 501(c)(3), IRS FEIN registration, Bylaws and state business licenses competed.
- Funding appeals to key corporate and private donors are in development
- Formal Business Plan is completed.
- Over $4,000 was raised in a single evening from people in the community interested in supporting the station concept, $1500. In pledges were received in late February 2008 with only 3 solicitation calls.
- Emergency Broadcast and FCC reporting software have been installed and are functioning, work toward full FCC compliance is underway.
KWPA Business Organization
Five primary areas of responsibility create the management and business
foundation of KWPA. Board of Directors of KWPA responsibilities include the overall management and public access to KWPA Radio including programming, community outreach, marketing, role of the station in community arts and entertainment broadcasting, business and underwriting policy and all aspects of the station.
- Station Management includes oversight responsibilities, team coordination, financial reporting and compliance, committee goals and objectives, community standards and broadcast production oversight. This is a General Manager position that may be funded in the future.
- Technical and Broadcast production. Responsibilities include equipment, signal, program broadcast quality, FCC signal compliance and reporting.
- Fund Development. Community, underwriting, on-air appeals, giving programs and other programs that generate sustaining revenue streams to offset operational expenses. The area of responsibility includes appeals, business engagement opportunities, sales of commercial underwriting and other revenue generating activities.
- Finance. Responsibilities include 501(c)(3) compliance, accounting and tax reporting, billing, and expense accounting, asset and depreciation accounting.
- Programming and FCC compliance to community programming, creative and scheduling responsibilities, activities in developing programs, approving community program ideas and concepts and the development of programming that encourage underwriting opportunities.
Board Members
The Board of directors as of January 2011
Harry Anderson, Board President, has been a journalist, editor, educator and corporate communications executive for nearly four decades. He spent almost 19 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at the Los Angeles Times. He also served as head of corporate communications for the Paramount movie studio in Hollywood and as executive in charge of public relations, charitable activities and internal communications for a large health care company in Texas. He recently retired in Coupeville and continues to serve as a communications consultant and teaches graduate courses at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Charles Arndt, Board Member, and his wife Georgie Smith and their two daughters, live in the refurbished, historic granary building on Willowood Farm, the Smith homestead in the Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve, just outside Coupeville. Charles has been an attorney on Whidbey island since 1990 and is currently a managing member of the Coupeville law firm Arndt & Walker, Attorneys at Law, LLC. Charles received his B.A. in philosophy and his law degree from the University of Washington. He is a member of the American Association for Justice, the Washington State Association for Justice, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Charles has previously served as president of the Whidbey Camano Land Trust. He is often seen riding his bicycle around Whidbey Island and throughout the state.
Martin Behr (KWPA Board Treasurer) has earned an MBA from Stanford University in Finance and Marketing, an MS from Stanford University in Space Dynamics and a BS from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Engineering Mechanics. His career began in management consulting with The MAC Group, a Strategic Planning consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts (now a subsidiary of Mercedes Benz), consulting to Fortune 500 companies in the industrial, retail, and government sectors. Over the two decades he has founded four adventure travel companies, each of which has been successful and sold to others. He is now a consultant to upscale travel companies from Alaska to Africa. Also, Marty is or has been a board member of several non-profit organizations, including The Whidbey Camano Land Trust, People for Puget Sound, and the South Whidbey Rotary. Marty and his wife Ginny have lived on Whidbey Island since 1990.
Tom Laurenson, Board Member & Station Manager, came to the US in 2001, and moved to Washington in 2006. He has been involved in small scale broadcasting since 1978 when he joined a group who set up and operated a hospital broadcasting system serving 5 small hospitals in Oban, Scotland. Working from a small room, the group recruited and trained broadcasters and provided a landline based radio service to each hospital bed. Such systems are common in Britain and serve as the training ground for many who go on to become professionals. With the move to encourage community radio in the UK, Tom was a ready to take advantage of the opportunity and worked to develop what became Oban FM Radio (see http://www.obanfm.org.uk). Serving at various times as Chairman, Chief Engineer, Program Controller, Tom has produced and engineered a variety of program formats and specializes in live work, especially outside broadcasts. (He also hasnt quite grasped certain stripped down US spellings!) While in New York, he learned of a new community radio station in Great Barrington (http://www.berkshireradio.org/- worth a look) and donated a couple of interview training sessions to help get them going. Tom now lives near Bayview corner and still provides program material for Oban FM.
Sarah Richards, Board Vice President, has a Master’s Degree from Oregeon State University in Counseling. When first starting college in the dark ages, she had intended to major in mass communications, but majored in French and Art instead. After many careers including computer programming she is now the owner and developer of Lavender Wind Farm, Coupeville.
Connie Wolfe, Board Member
J. Christopher Dunn, Board Member
Gwen Samuelson, Board Member
Lynda Eccles, Board Member
Carol Castellano, Advisor, Greenbank
Richard Dalton, Advisor, is the Operations Manager of KNHC Radio in Seattle, a listener supported public radio station owned by Seattle Public Schools. The stations listener base is approximately 298,000 per week, most below the age of 30. The stations financial base comes from 2 on-air fund drives each year. Mr. Dalton has worked with similar stations in New Jersey, Delaware and Hawaii.
