The Secretary and Vice President of Hawkesbury Gold have responded to radioinfo’s coverage of the station’s difficulties this week.
Yesterday we reported that the aspirant group’s website and facebook page were down. The management team says these services are now currently in the process of being restored.
At the time of writing yesterday, it was not known if the group would be on air for its scheduled shared airtime from noon today. The aspirant group did go to air at the scheduled time today. At noon, Hawkesbury Gold broadcast Air News, followed immediately by a pre recorded program from the Community Radio Network called 45 RPM.
Secretary John Bryant and Vice President Terry Malecki have told radioinfo:
The offender was not prepared to comply with a number of our policies, and chose to leave the station of his own free will.
The ex-Committee member had registered the Station’s Facebook page and website in his personal name, not the Association, hence the disruption to these services. They are currently being restored.
Hawkesbury Gold has faced a significant challenge getting started due to the fact we were given only short notice between receiving a Temporary Community Broadcast Licence and the start date for transmission. However we succeeded in getting from zero (with no equipment or presenters) to broadcasting in just 5 weeks.
A further set back was experienced when our transmitter suffered a lightning strike during local storms 10 days ago, resulting in us having to use a borrowed transmitter. New transmission equipment has since been purchased and installed, and is now operational.
Hawkesbury Gold received it’s TCBL after ACMA refused to renew the broadcast licence that has been held by Hawkesbury Radio 2VTR for the past 39 years. It was one of only two licences not renewed by ACMA this year. While both stations now share the same frequency on TCBLs, Hawkesbury Gold’s policy is to refrain from issuing acrimonious comments.
Hawkesbury Gold has made a significant financial investment in an effort to improve the community radio broadcast services and has had a very warm response from its local community, as evidenced by receiving over 100 expressions of interest in membership in the few short weeks of our existence. Presenters are being trained and will be added to the station in the coming months. We intend to become a benchmark for community radio in our region, and resent the scaremongering that appears to be coming from a very narrow section of people with vested interests.
John Bryant Terry Malecki
Secretary Vice President
Hawkesbury Gold
Hawkesbury Valley Community Radio Association, Inc
I applaud the team at Hawkesbury Gold for their great effort so far for getting to air and for involving businesses and the community which has not been seen before in the area, good luck in the future as it can only get better from this point on.
I really find this difficult, these two guys are the two persons responsible for bringing down our local radio station, Hawkesbury Radio.
Please surf through [the net to find what] these two guys pioneered it is incredible. They put [a website] together to cause huge problems for Hawkesbury Radio all because they were kicked out.
Editors note: Some content of this post has been modified.
I certainly question the comment from "straight talker"... Businesses and Community have always been involved with Hawkesbury Radio 89.9, as evidenced by both their always filled 5 minutes of permissible advertising per hour and constant noticeboard announcements of current events in the Hawkesbury.
What evidence do you offer for such a claim 'straight talker'.
Editor: Some content in this post has been modified.
My evidence is simple I was a director so I know, I also know that HR had the least amount of members because whilst I was a director they only had 63 members not real good after over 3 decades of broadcasting and when I mentioned that we should chase new members I was asked " What For " so before anyone else posts comments about who brought the station down the answer is very simple - The directors for NOT following ACMA rules and guidelines after multiple warnings which are all on public record and they do not lie
Interesting comments Helen, but ill-informed.
I was a member and Presenter at Hawkesbury Radio for over 10 years. During that time I witnessed management of the Station at close quarters. It wasn't TWO members who were responsible for Hawkesbury Radio having its broadcast licence renewal refused; rather it was the Board, FOUR of the directors having held their positions continuously for almost TWENTY YEARS.
The Board failed to comply with repeated directives from the ACMA to open the Station to community participation, thereby breaching the Broadcast Act. That's what precipitated the extremely rare refusal of licence renewal, not the actions of any of the members.
You have suggested that those interested have a look at [a] website. This site was launched and supported by a very significant proportion of the Hawkesbury Radio membership, myself included. We were frustrated by the state of the Station and the partisan management style. Personally I can't wait to see a new licence holder so that this radio station can be returned to those who rightfully own it.... the entire Hawkesbury COMMUNITY!
Editor: This comment has been edited to remove a website reference (which was also removed from other comments).