Radio station welcomes Aboriginal involvement

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Radio station CJSF, the Simon Fraser University campus and community radio station, is looking for people who want to put a show together that reaches out to the Native audience in the Vancouver area.

The positions are volunteer (read: unpaid) but CJSF offers a lot of freedom to develop a show that deals with issues that don't make it to air on mainstream stations.

Emily Aspinwall, spoken word coordinator at CJSF, said the station is hosting an open house on Jan. 24 where aspiring broadcasters and technicians will be given a tour and told how they can get involved. Aboriginal people are especially welcome, she said.

"We've been doing some outreach, specifically for a First Nations focus show," she said. "We've been working with a couple of people who've been interested and we're trying to start up maybe a collective show or something and try to get people involved. It's in the works but we're always looking for more people. I think people, especially off campus, don't know that they can get involved here so we're trying to do an outreach in that regard.

"Part of campus community radio is to get people who don't have a voice in the mainstream, to get them involved to get the word out there what music they're involved in or what arts issues or what political issues they're involved in and bring that out because consolidation is on the rise," she said.

The station has a limited audience in the Vancouver area at the moment but it should expand sometime this year. Station staff members expect their signal will be available on the FM band soon although Aspinwall was reluctant to speculate on an exact date because final approval from the CRTC has not yet been received.

"We're on cable at the moment. We're also on the Internet and we also have AM service in two residences here," she said. "We've done what we can with our signal without going FM, but that's pretty much been our project for the last while."

No experience is necessary. Training is available for volunteers, both for those who wish to work in the technical area or on-air.

If you can't make the Jan. 24 open house, you can still get involved. The station offers regular training sessions for volunteers on the first Thursday of the month at 7 p.m., the second Friday at 3 p.m. and the third Tuesday at 4 p.m.

You can contact the station at 291-3727 in Burnaby or through their Web site: www.cjsf.bc.ca.