It's often said that there are no more good ideas, or that at the very least all the best ideas have already been thunk up. Maybe so. But it seems like a lot of the good ideas haven't yet been used, so maybe the people who think up good ideas are just waiting to see the current ones get some action before working on more.
Take, for example, apprenticing. In general, we don't apprentice anymore. Or maybe we just call it "interning," since an intern can be made to do menial work & not necessarily be promised to learn a trade or craft. But surely the idea of a newcomer learning from an old hand is a good one. & it's one that seems beneficial to both - after all, if you have to teach your own work, you learn more about it, like learning a different language helps you examine your own.
Nothing I am saying here is in the least bit profound, & wouldn't be to a blacksmith in 1513. But for an enterprise as fraught with complication as "community radio," it seems like a broadcast station with virtually no paid staff, run on a shoestring budget with virtually every task done by volunteers, it seems like such an entity would want the best possible way - not to mention the cheapest & least onerous - to have brand new participants learn as quickly as possible the ins & outs of not only the mechanism for making radio, but also how the station works. Therefore: an apprenticeship system.
When I came to KOOP in 2000, the training process was perfuctory at best: three consecutive Mondays of "training," a ten question "test," & you were left to do what you needed to do as a volunteer. Most of the people who came to be "trained" left - there was nothing there to encourage your participation in KOOP except your own motivation. & by the way, there was also no reason for you to even hope to get a show, but that's another story.
I stuck it out because I love doing radio, & I'm also creepily stubborn. I became part of KOOP's Training Team & watched as dozens of great people came to KOOP & then left, simply because the station didn't have a process to nurture involvement. Surely that could be changed! Surely there was a good idea out there so we didn't have to invent one!
In 2005, I took part in a process to redefine the training system & the programming policies. You can see those policies here. One part of the policies is that now training takes a little longer than a month. More like six months. & while you're being trained, you are assigned to a current KOOP programmer - as an apprentice - to learn the ropes. You're given something to do as you become involved.
I don't know if KOOP did anything like this in its first ten or so years of existence, but boy, isn't it a good idea?
This is a long-winded way of saying that I have two great appentices this season & I am giving them my show this week. They want to do a show about the weather. Okay! I'll be there to make sure nothing gets broken - you know, except my heart - but it's all them. Ninety minutes of apprentices gone wild. & why not give them the show? How else are they gonna learn how crazily easy it is to do Self Help Radio.
Oh, wait.
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