eChamps 2017

Our very own eChamp Mase interviewed Terrie Leoleos on her program ‘Speak my language’

Here it is!

CBF- Community Broadcasting Foundation has changed their system of funds allocation and distribution for the 2017/18 and so on.

Some stations were disadvantaged as their funding has reduced from what they used to receive. According to the CEO of the CBF, Ian Stanistreet, some stations received the same as last time and some stations received more than previously received.

I had the opportunity to interview CBF president John Bachelor in his role as president:

Q. Tell me about as a President of such a diverse multicultural organization?

A. I am the Chair of the Board, comprised of 9 board members who are volunteers in the organization. The roles they undertake but not limited to:

• provide governance to the organization;
• monitor the implementation of its roles;
• responsibility of finincial operations;
• importantly, apporve the grants;
• receive the grants from the Federal Government and
• to distribute the funds.

Q. What are some of the challenges and rewards of your role?

Challenges:

A. Share the funds/distribution

Keeping up with technological changes and peak body for the best interest of the Broadcasting sector.

Rewards:

To see each individual radio stations grow and become better; helping the volunteers and stations to make good radio programs; helping young people become more involved.

Q. As a president, how do you manage or what strategies do you employ to cope with challenging situations?

A. Employ people with skills to deal with a challenging situation. Also has sympathy with different people on the radio and make sure everybody have their say and everyone’s opinion is heard.

Q. How do you celebrate success in your role?

By attending the national conferences and talking to program makers

By seeing the sector growing and becoming a better radio program and continue to see it growing.

The Panel comprised of 4 distinguished guests:

Dr. Emma Campbell is the Director of Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia (FECCA) http://fecca.org.au/

Mr. Nick Tebby is the Chief Executive officer of the Settlement Council of Australia (SCOA) http://www.scoa.org.au/

Ms Isabel Lo President of Media Diversity Australia https://www.mediadiversityaustralia.org/

Professor Gillian Triggs, former President of Australian Human Rights Commission https://www.humanrights.gov.au

Emma acknowledged the work of NEMBC. It resonates with FECCA’s work in promoting multiculturalism regardless of the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, racial or religious backgrounds of the community. FECCA strives to ensure that the needs and aspirations of various cohorts of Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse population are heard by policy and decisions makers, as well as the broader public which can be fulfilled by the responsible attitude of the ethnic broadcasters.

Prof. Gillian Triggs advocated for the evidence-based research and the importance of engaging with the ethnic broadcasters to get the the real picture of the scenario. Freedom of Speech and Right to Information is at times takes as granted and it’s difficult to refrain from making comments on a report which is based on false evidences. Ethnic broadcasters need a strong lobby to advocate for a social cause.

Young people use wide range of social media platforms to engage with their tailored audience. The workshop, conducted by Community Media Training Organisation (CMTO), aimed at exploring such media platforms aimed in creating and distributing innovative, informative and fun stories.

It’s always important to talk ore comfortably in front of the audience. The journalist often struggle to decide the preferred mode of communication. With the technological development and the arrival of numerous media platforms, it becomes more challenging.

Surprisingly 88% of Australian use smartphone (extracted from Digital Australia) which is highest in the world. There are many social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Webinars, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Soundcloud, Website, Instagram which is used nowadays to engage more and leave a long-lasting impression.

The Community Media Training Organisation (CMTO) is a registered training organisation which delivers management and media training. They specialise in developing and delivering courses in broadcast and production, as well as training for managers and board members of community radio stations and works with media and training organisations around Australia and the world consulting on high quality effective training techniques and best practice in e-learning.  The Pathways courses are a great way to kickstart the training. Courses are short, one-day sessions with no assessment and give you the opportunity to sample CMTO training before you decide to enrol in a nationally-recognised qualification. CMTO also hosts free webinars for community broadcasters on a range of topics including fundraising, grant writing, sponsorship and social media strategy. These are also able to view on their website. The CMTO has developed an In-House Training Kit for use at your station. It covers everything from Media Law to Presentation and includes session plans for trainers and resources for students and customisable templates. The CMTO can customise courses for people who use media skills in their jobs and support you through delivering both mentoring and training services. They can work with your organisations to develop resources, including online courses, to suit your media training and management needs. To know more about the organisation, have a look at their website http://www.cmto.org.au/

Just finished listening to Giordana Caputo, CEO of Community Media Training Organisation (CMTO) and Emma Couch, CMTO’s National Training Manager.

These amazing guys provide free accredited training for local and community stations/organisations for young ethnic jouranlists and broadcasters.

As a youth member and a radio broadcaster, their help and advice has given me so many new ideas and they’ve really helped me and other young people improve their media skills.

CMTO’s main goal is to create better broadcasters and journalists so that it can allow ordaniary media to become extraordinary. I’ve learnt about audio mixing, how to be more engaging, how to research properly and how to engage a wider audience and connect with communities along with other ethnicities.

There’s so much more to being a journalist/broadcaster than meets the eye. Also so many things that anyone, who is trying to get into media, can implement into their own media work.

So many helpful power points!

Thanks so much to these guys I’ve learnt heaps and I hope to improve in the future.

Isabel Lo, Founder of Media Diversity Australia.

Her talk was based on the lack of media diversity representation from the multi-ethnic backgrounds in Australia. Some diversity is represented in the SBS and the ABC networks but not so much in the commercial media networks. And she commented on the challenges she and her colleagues as an ethnic background journalist face in her career.

The challenges,  the main-stream media lacks to address the issue of why the multi-ethnic journalists leave the mainstream media. There has to be supporting mechanisms to protect and support multi-ethnic journalists who are in the industry can find a place in the mainstream media.

She highlighted also that, the main media is compromised by the commercial interests but that shouldn’t exempt them not to engage the multi-diversity cultural backgrounds in the media. As Australia and as a multi-cultural nation in the world we should reflect that fact in the main-stream media which is not the case at the moment. Isabel Lo as the founder of Media Diversity Australia, the discourse is happening at the moment to engage the diverse representation in the mainstream media.

She also challenged the youth to come forward to pursue a career in the media and journalism. With all jobs, journalism can be very rewarding in itself. Media journalism can take you to places and at the forefront of a story unfolding in front of your eyes she said is a privilege and rare.   To quote Peter Grester “Journalism is a cool way to indulge your curiosity”

Saba has made a significant contribution to the Wagga Wagga community and to the international students’ cohort nationally.

She came from New Delhi as an international student pursuing her PhD at Charles Sturt University,Wagga Wagga,NSW with her husband and two year old daughter. Since arriving in Australia, she has donned many hats and achieved heaps of regional and national recognition.

Saba was a winner of 2014 NSW International Student of the Year Awards in the Higher education category and in 2015 was invited as a guest speaker at the same Awards.She was the first international student to be a Finalist at Crow Awards 2014 in the category “Young Professional Award” organized by Wagga Wagga Business Chamber. She was recently a Finalist at NSW & ACT Regional Volunteering Award, a Finalist in the category “Youth Community Achiever of the year” in 2017 Australia-India Business and Community Award.

She is currently a member of Regional Advisory Council (RAC) with Multicultural NSW, Communication Officer at Local Health Advisory Council (LHAC) at Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD), past Equity and acting Education officer at Council of International Students Australia (CISA), Board Member at Multicultural Council of Wagga Wagga (MCWW), AFL Multicultural Community Ambassador with Australia Post, Steering committee member at Relationship Australia, committee member at Wagga Wagga Australia Day committee demonstrating Saba’s dedication to the promotion of education and community based services for all members of society.

At CSU, Saba was the first international student elected to Council; Postgraduate student representative on Science Board, President of the International Students Club.

Saba is very passionate about her work, a highly effective communicator and tenacious networker who holds a fírm belief in the importance of engaging with our younger generations. She has been invited as a Panelist/ Speakers on local and national podiums.

She is also actively engaged with the wider community on the social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This is her 2nd year as an eChamp at 2017 NEMBC

Hey guys my name’s Mase, I’m 17 years old and this year I’m an eChamp at this years Youth Media Conference.

I play rugby and I’m studying at Narrabundah college. I’m heading into year 12 next year, my final year of college, and I’m pretty excited!

I chose to be an eChamp this year to learn new skills and meet new people to share ideas with.

Looking forward to this years conference!

Hello, my name is Jeffery and I am from Canberra. I am a landscaper by trade and that keeps me busy most of my time. Been broadcasting with the CMS radio for about two years with the Pacific Islands youth radio program which runs an hour from every Thursday’s at CMS.  Our radio program covers all range of topics and the current events of the day and been going strong.