The first attempt to establish Noosa Community Radio started in early 1985, with a committee comprising, among others, former radio station manager Mike Prenzler, Cr. Peter Bycroft and Cr. Doug Bettins. The committee disbanded after being frustrated by red tape.
1994 – 1997
In 1994, local singer/songwriter Barry Charles, his wife Diana Dummett, together with an enthusiastic group of volunteers including Mike Brennan, Fred Broomhall, Cr. Vivien Griffin, Gerry Kuipers, Meritti Pricket, Jim Toomey and Andrew Tucker organised meetings to revive the idea of an independent alternative to commercial radio which would encourage experimental, innovative program ideas, and give the thriving local music industry opportunities to be heard.
Barry Charles - Our Founding President
After six months of hard work, a studio was equipped, announcers were trained and permission was granted for a series of test transmissions. The first broadcast began at 12:01 a.m. Sunday May 7, 1995 from the old Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club premises (now demolished) on Gympie Terrace, with a licence for 30 consecutive Sundays. This enabled the station to operate for 24 hours each Sunday on 103.3FM until late November 1995.
When Barry Charles stepped down as President at the end of his term in 1997 the difficult task of establishing a viable community radio station had been achieved, leaving a strong foundation for further development.
1997 – 1999
James Tustin was elected President in September 1997 and served two terms as the station grew into seven days a week, 24 hours a day broadcasting, on 101.3FM. James offered the station a dynamic, perhaps slightly business-like approach to developing the station and its direction. This encouraged a positive attitude that helped the station move from the 2-day-a-week position to full-time, a change that demanded a more professional style of operation. James’s own performance on air during the near-floods of 1999 was an object lesson in keeping the community in touch with itself.
The move to broadcasting 24/7 proved to be somewhat stressful at the time and it was the vision and belief of all involved at the station, in particular the Programming Committee headed by Maynard Moroney and later by Brian Panisset, that enabled this expansion to happen with minimal teething problems.
1999 – 2000
Founder member, Jim Toomey was elected President in September 1999. During his term in office the station completed the transition to 24/7 on air and moved its aerial and transmitter to a new location on the Channel 7 tower along with Channels 7, 9, 10, SBS and the ABC. The station also moved to Pelican Street in Tewantin, leasing the upstairs storey of an old Queenslander owned by the adjacent RSL club. Whilst it had less floor space (no room for fund raising events) the premises were cleverly remodelled into a functional radio station with two on-air studios. A lot of the leg-work in the move to Pelican Street was done by Fred Broomhall, who, with a team of volunteers, transformed a rather decrepit former house at a cost that undercut anybody’s wildest hopes. Other stations undertaking similar moves spent over $50,000 around the same time; Fred and his dedicated band of enthusiasts did it for just over $10,000. This was certainly no mean feat. At that stage more than 100 volunteers a week worked at the station, with some 70 announcers presenting a wide variety of programmes and a large contingent of volunteers working behind the scenes in reception, administration and sponsorship. The station began what has become an ongoing history of awards, gaining third place in the National Bank Community Awards.
2000 – 2002
Andrew Tucker
Another founding member and longest serving member of Management, Andrew Tucker, was elected President in September 2000 and served two terms ending in September 2002. During his two years, the station’s ongoing work in a number of areas came to fruition.
Noosa’s success as a 100% volunteer-run station being noted by other stations, Andrew was invited to co-run a workshop on the station’s structure and maximising the use of volunteers at the conference of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), of which Noosa Community Radio is a member.
Short-course training continued to grow with more than 60 new presenters graduating each year. With training and education being seen as key building blocks to better programs, the station held its first One Day Think Tank workshop involving personnel from Management, Training, and Programming.
There had been a vision of offering nationally accredited training and after two years of hard work, first on our own and then with the CBAA, the station became the first in Australia to trial a Certificate III in Radio Broadcasting (Community Radio). This brought the station not only financial benefits but also a chance to put back into the community and the advantage of having large numbers of qualified members. By 2003 the station had no fewer than 15 members with Cert IV Workplace Assessment qualifications and some 28 graduates with a Cert III in Radio Broadcasting.
The station’s groundbreaking work in this area brought rewards and local and national recognition including Sunshine Coast Business Awards for a Community Organisation and Employee Of The Year plus a CBAA award.
The Australian Broadcasting Authority (now Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, the government agency whose main roles are to regulate broadcasting, radio communications and telecommunications) advertised the licence area as being up for grabs and we had to apply for the permanent licence. A small but effective team (Andrew Tucker, Jim Love, Brian Panisset, James Tustin and Rob Maitland) assembled and submitted the paperwork to meet the requirements of bureaucracy; the rubber stamp fell (in the absence of any competitor) and we gained the licence.
Originally, that had been intended to happen by 1997, but the ABA “ran out of tea-bags and couldn’t sustain its promised level of performance without them”. So we were given the 24/7 licence in 1997; it remained a TCBL (temporary community broadcasting licence) but was otherwise unrestricted, a significant departure from previous ABA practice.
Work began on improving reception with a full-scale computer-generated assessment of our signal area and dialogue with the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) regarding our transmitter strength. (The ABA has since been replaced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which is the Australian government agency whose main roles are to regulate broadcasting, radiocommunications and telecommunications).
The station began its first sponsorship of local performers through a regular financial contribution to the Peregian Originals, a free open-air community concert held on the first and third Sunday each month in the park behind the Peregian Beach Surf Club.
Our free-spirited character continued to be successful, but Management noticed that other stations were experiencing personnel-related issues. As a result, Management looked at ways of handling potential misunderstandings and disputes. A Human Resources Unit was created to provide information to people, ideally before any dispute becomes official, on a strictly confidential basis.
Brian Panisset spearheaded the development of a series of policy statements that defined what the station believed in, what guided its operations, and what standards it wanted to adopt and – ideally – to surpass. This gained the full support of the various Management Committee members of the time, and the enthusiasm and acceptance of the Management Team members emphasised once again the importance of collective involvement and responsibility.
The station gained up-to-date outside broadcast equipment, used initially at the Noosa Jazz Festival and the Bi-Centennial Event, in whose organisation Jinty Urquhart had a major hand, and deserves acknowledgment for her work on that exercise. The station took its first steps towards making open-line broadcasting available, enabling the presenter to speak live to a person on the other end of a telephone line while broadcasting. In addition, the purchase of a large number of portable mini disc recorders to assign to presenters created the opportunities for the station to get out to people, events, and meetings in instances where it was not possible to use the station studios.
In the first step towards satellite links with other community stations, the station purchased a state-of-the-art computer with permanent internet links to be used by members for research and other station business.
2002 – 2004
Rob Maitland was elected President in September 2002.
Rob Maitland, President 2002
When the station’s rental lease ran out in mid 2004 and the RSL advised that no long-term renewal was possible, the station faced the dilemma of either looking for another place to lease or biting the bullet and designing, financing and building its own premises.
There was a lot of anguish over whether we should build or accept Council’s suggestion to take space in “The J” community centre to be built in Noosa Junction. Views were strong on each side, but financial considerations were strongest. It would have cost us more than we had in the bank to build our own premises and although Council had offered to guarantee a loan to do that, we opted for “The J” on a favourable rental basis and to use the funds we’d accumulated to ensure that the fit-out met our rather exacting requirements.
It was recognised that education is the way to pass on lessons learned, and so, to ensure the future of the station’s Certificate III course in Radio (Community) Broadcasting, the pool of Cert IV accredited teachers was increased. In January 2003, training specialist Joan Masters conducted what is probably the first “in-house” Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment course conducted by any Australian community radio station. As a result, the station now has some 15 accredited people able to teach. No other station comes even remotely close to this.
2004 – 2006
When Mick Reid took over the presidency in September 2004, with Brian Panisset supporting as Vice-President, he sought to put the station’s management style on a professional footing. It is, after all, a business with a considerable turnover and while our volunteer status must be forever in the forefront of the mind, it must at the same time be treated as a business that has to budget, plan and operate professionally. Mick deserves credit for getting that situation recognised.
At the 2005 AGM Leonie Phillips was voted in as Vice President upon Brian Panisset’s retirement. Brian was inducted as a Life Member to the station, after having served 7 years on Management as Vice President and for his amazing contributions over so many areas.
Mick Reid celebrating the move into "the J"
It was also Mick’s mandate to oversee the finding of new premises for 101.3FM. There was ongoing pressure for the station to keep operating and also to keep funds for the big move ahead. We celebrated our 10th birthday on May 7, 2005 with a very short outside broadcast, due to Mother Nature pouring rain on the event at the Lions Park, Noosaville. Some of our original presenters, some of whom are still on air, were heard on the airwaves once again.
In November 2006 the station moved to new studios in “The J” building, Noosa Junction alongside the brand new Youth and Community Centre.
2007 to date
Mick Reid had to retire from Management in February 2007 due to other commitments and Vice President Leonie Phillips stepped in as President, having already served on management for a year.
Leonie was our first female Vice President and then President. Her role for the three years while she was on Management was as Broadcast Facilitator, overseeing the areas of Technical, Production, News and Programming so it was natural for her to be the coordinator of the Broadcast component in the relocation to the J, with the assistance of the coordinators from each of the relevant sub-committees. Sherry Corcoran was elected Vice President in July 2007.
In the same year, we applied to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for the renewal of our broadcast license, which was renewed until 2011. We also entered the “Toot Your Own Horn” national competition organised by CBOnline, an initiative of the Community Broadcasting Foundation, with a presentation of the station’s recent achievements and were one of the 14 winning entries. (Read our entry here).
Leonie Phillips, Vice President (2005 to 2007) and President (2007)
Even with all the busyness from the move and settling in, programming is always top of the agenda. A local television programming consultant (to whom we are grateful) identified a magazine style show that was absent in our programming. After some months discussing the proposal, “Noosa Wide” was born with the aim to provide interviews with local identities, covering items and events of importance and interest to our listeners. Leonie co-hosted the show with one of our other experienced presenters, Peter Mellish, a show that continues to be popular to this day. But that wasn’t all. We had done our first ever outside broadcast from the Pomona Showgrounds for the Noosa Show four years ago, an event at which we have broadcast live each year since (view photos and listen to elements of the 2008 broadcast here). And now, we also started other regular outside broadcasts – from the Eumundi Markets and also our first ever live broadcast of a Blues Concert from the J over the Easter weekend in 2007, featuring local artist Kate Gibson & friends, providing great Blues entertainment live to radio listeners at the northern end of the Sunshine Coast.
At the AGM in September 2007, Mark Rodriquez was elected as President, with Miki Venn-Brown as Vice President.
We are very proud to have won the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) Award for Radio Station of the Year 2007, and also in 2007, to be highly commended by CBAA for Excellence in Training for our Pilot of the Youth Training and Mentor Project, “Ten2Air”. (“Ten2Air” was our 6th Certificate Course and commenced in December 2006. It was run for disadvantaged youth, was funded by the CBF (Community Broadcasting Foundation) and included in its format was mentoring for the trainee while on air).
Miki Venn-Brown proudly holding up our Radio Station of the Year 2007 Award
But things don’t stay the same for long around here, and we were sorry to see our Vice President, Miki Venn-Brown leave at the end of January 2008, but we are happy for and congratulate her on her new role as station manager for 6DBY in Derby, Western Australia. (Read about what Miki had to say on her experience with 101.3FM – click here).
Following Miki’s departure, Sherry Corcoran was elected as Vice President in February 2008.
