Campaigning CJRT cuts; Eve's post - some Guelph & area news

[BJ Lewis (Open Bookings)]

hi eve;
	you raise some excellent points and ideas, some of which are 
already at least partially in action - all over the place ... and 
richard's idea of posting on jazztalk IS brilliant. as a jazz musician, 
i'd been planning on joining for awhile, but this lit the fire under my 
butt to do it (hell, i just wanted to lurk n'read the fallout from his 
post to jazztalk - and it's been *very* positive in terms of support, 
from what i've read so far)!
	over the past few days, i've tried to cover as much of my region 
(guelph/ kitchener/waterloo and area) in terms of alerting arts orgs, 
presenters/festivals (folk/blues/jazz/classical/world), arts centres, 
musicians and music fans not on list-servs, appropriate media and loyal 
patrons of the arkell folk and classical series. 
	the response has been very good. some highlights:
- the president of guelph arts council has written cjrt and has been 
spreading the word throughout their membership. many individuals have 
informed me that they have written articulate, but very direct letters 
to cjrt (all receiving 'form letter 'a' or 'b' in reply)
- one of arkell's most loyal patrons of both the folk and classical 
series has offered to start a fundraising effort to keep the shows even 
would you like me to have him contact you directly? 
- and just this morning, i was just asked to write an article about 
the situation for a local/regional newspaper. 
	please keep me in the loop and i will do the same for you, 
for this area. would you like this posted to mapleblue, too?
	cheers!
	brenda
http://www,guelphonline.com/openbookings
http://www.w7.com/a_and_e/arkell

Date: 
      Fri, 22 Sep 2000 08:33:38 -0400 
  From: 
      Eve Goldberg <patootie@interlog.com>
   To: 
      cdnfolk-l@ican.net, maplepost@icomm.ca


Hi Everyone -

Like all of you, I am shocked and very pissed off at what's going on at
CJRT. The actions of the management clearly parallel what has happened 
at
many NPR stations in the United States in the last few years. In talking 
to
a few other people, I have surmised that their strategy is to make the
changes as quickly and quietly as possible, prepare for the inevitable
outrage that will follow the announcement, and ride out the controversy. 
If
they can manage to do that, noone will remember in two years that they 
used
to have the programming they cut, and they are on their merry way.

If this is going to be stopped, there has to be some serious 
organization
and campaigning. It's great for us all to write letters and we should 
keep
doing that, but a group of people needs to get together and plan out 
some
kind of strategy.

If there are three or four people who could dedicate a little time to
gathering some information and organizing a meeting, we could probably 
get
some further action happening.

I have been in touch with folks in Washington DC who dealt with this a
number of years ago and we could surely get some advice from them (they
were ultimately not successful in re-instating the show in question, but
they developed a very good campaign), and I'm willing to share the
information I get from them. The first thing they said was that we 
should
be sending letters to the media in addition to the station. How about 
some
letters to the Toronto papers? But there is a lot more they have to tell
us, and I'm hoping to have a phone conversation with them soon.

Richard, I think your strategy of getting in touch with the jazz 
community
is brilliant. What about the classical world? Surely opera fans can't be
happy about the canning of the opera show?

Unfortunately, due to personal, work, and other commitments, I can't 
give
time to organizing anything, but if a few of you can, we could start
looking at demonstrations, fundraising efforts, media campaign, etc. 
etc.
As I said, I'd be able to share whatever I learn from the folks in
Washington.

Any volunteers? Time and place?

Eve

P.S. could someone crosspost this to Mapleworld and the jazztalk lists? 
Thanks!