Hi, this is Dolores Brandon, AIR's Executive Director. It is my pleasure to welcome each person who's tuning into today.

I'm really very excited. Its AIR's first ever entirely virtual annual meeting. And, if I may say so, it represents a rather bold experiment on our part. In the fine old tradition of AIR, its been an all volunteer effort. Overall, the idea was to provide a place to meet, greet, learn a little more about each other, open our doors to non-members, and have fun as we think about: The Future of Radio: Independence and New Media.

I believe we've put together a nicely balanced, interesting agenda and I hope you will find it worth spending part of your Saturday with us.

Believe me we have no illusions, we're taking baby steps in cyber meeting space, and I ask that you indulge our awkwardness as things are quite likely to go awry now and then. I do hope you will travel with us in a spirit of adventure rather than criticism (although there will be opportunities for that, too.)

As might be expected, my take on our theme will be to focus on AIR. The Future of AIR.

Anyone who's been around us for a while knows, the Internet, as a vehicle for organizing this community is not something we are just now discovering. The Internet has long been the lifeline without which AIR may have fizzled years ago. I don't want to go too deeply into the history of AIR but as we look at the future, I do think it's important to ever so briefly acknowledge the significance of the Internet in AIR's past.

For years, most AIR business as well as its grass roots advocacy efforts have been conducted via email. Back in the 80's there was the WELL, which many long time members remember fondly. It's still the place new members go to join AIR. In the mid-90's, the WELL gave way to PAG - the Producer's Advocacy Group hosted by Jay Allison and recently reconstituted under his leadership as the AIR Daily.

In large measure, these email discussion groups were and remain the very heartbeat of AIR. Oh sure, we've had our big tent conferences, retreats and Larry Josephson included us in his AIRlies, but there was never money enough to hold in person meetings on any predictable annual or even semi-annual basis the way some more fiscally fluid associations do. We certainly couldn't afford to bring the AIR Board together for strategy sessions. So the Internet has pretty much been the only vehicle available for conducting day to day AIR business and socializing.

Also, it must be acknowledged AIR has never really had an office! The Executive Directors have always worked from home. And with little money for telephone calls, even holding AIR Board meetings via telephone conferencing had to be curtailed.

Yes, AIR's had a website up for a few years now, but only over this past year have we really started to use it as a home. You could say this is our first "house" party. So welcome and let's get on to AIR's future.

I am delighted to be able to come to this gathering with really good news! The hard work of the last year has begun to pay off - AIR is the recipient of a $225 thousand grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We submitted our proposal this past April and a phone call from MacArthur's Program Officer Alyce Myatt telling me of their decision to fund us came in late September. There's a little red tape to be cut before that money actually arrives but rest assured it will be here within the next month or two.

The $225 thousand dollars will be spread out over a three-year period and will go primarily to support the expansion and strengthening of AIR's Mentor Program as well as the building of operational infrastructure. For the first time in a long long time, AIR will be able to prepare a budget based on real income. Happily, we will again be able to pay mentors. And, also happily, we can begin to build a paid staff.

The Mentor Program as some of you know came into being in 1994 with a mere $5thousand dollar award - also from the MacArthur Foundation. Milt Lee, when he was AIR's Exec Director and President stoked the fires from 1995-97, then passed the torch to current AIR Board President Steve Rowland who carried it from 1997-99. Over those years, again the Internet was vital. In the main mentorships start with a phone call or in person meeting, and more often than not they are continued via email.

One to one mentorships in which veteran producers are paired with less seasoned producers will continue to be the foundation stone of this program. But expansion plans include on-line mentoring sessions that'll be open so that interested parties can eavesdrop so to speak and learn on someone else's time We hope, too, to offer travelling mentorships, which will send seasoned producers out to stations for a day or two to do small group mentoring on site. We hope some of our members will agree to hold mentoring sessions in their studios. And, we've already started talking with sister organizations both here and abroad about developing on-line training curricula.

With a membership so rich in skills and experience, broadly recognized as content providers of the highest order, Steve Rowland and I as well as many others within the AIR are committed to making the Mentor Program a core service benefit of membership in AIR. And if we play our cards right we should be able to use the MacArthur money to leverage future funding to guarantee the ongoingness of this benefit. In fact two more grants asking for mentor program support are pending. One with the National Endowment for the Arts and another with the National Science Foundation. If those organizations take their cue from MacArthur and fund our proposals, AIR and mentoring will become synonymous.

Everything we are doing now, is geared to putting AIR's future on more solid financial footing. Securing funding for services and programs is our top priority. This is the only way we can realize our potential.

Even this meeting has the potential to bring in funding to AIR. With a membership so geographically dispersed and generally speaking economically stressed, its always been difficult to hold an all inclusive, in person gathering. I'm pleased to say Advance notice for this virtual Annual Meeting has generated considerable excitement within the public radio community or "system" as some like to call it. Although we started with no thoughts of asking anyone to fund the meeting, along the way AIR member Tom Livingston suggested I approach the CPB. He considered the idea completely on target with CPB's current goals as regards public radio and new media. I took his suggestion seriously and in mid-August did submit a pretty well crafted proposal. CPB responded very very favorably.

However, as we were really too late for them to consider funding this year's meeting, and they asked if we would postpone it until April 2001. Well, as I told Jeff Ramirez, that would no longer be Annual Meeting 2000! AIR still had to hold a meeting this year! And, those of us who had already invested so much time and energy really didn't want to pull the plug. The upshot is, CPB wants to be involved more as a partner in the planning and development, and has asked us to resubmit a proposal for a more expanded virtual Annual Meeting in 2001. They see AIR as the logical system player to conduct an experiment of this kind and they believe our doing so would have valuable lessons to teach others in the system. Certainly WE have learned how labor intensive it is to put a virtual meeting on!! Believe me we will be asking for their support next year.

Unfortunately, CPB is less interested in helping AIR stage a retreat or small conference. That does not mean we'll drop the dream: after all, no matter how successful a virtual meeting may be, it will never be the same as meeting each other in person. But one thing at a time, as they say.

Lastly, the interactive and streaming features of this meeting really lay the groundwork for what you can expect from AIR in the future. It's been forever that AIR members have talked of having their own place to showcase member work. In the past we have provided links to the personal sites of members who have audio pieces up for listening, but we have never offered a showcase per se. This meeting changes that! How we might keep this going has not yet been discussed but I think it safe to say we are listening, and remain open to hearing your ideas.

Also, you should know, we are in the very earliest stages of a plan that may partner AIR with PRI to create a weekly AIR Hour on Sirius Satellite Radio. Because those plans are just now taking shape I prefer not to say more. Steve Rowland and Kathy Gronau are taking the lead on that front. Perhaps Steve will answer any questions you have on this during the Q&A session when you get to talk to us more directly.

In closing I'd just like to say while the word community is a trendy word in new media circles today, AIR is genuinely a community - alive and kicking. As this meeting shows, we represent an amazing variety of people all completely smitten by radio, all deeply committed to making a life within it. Among us are some of the most recognized even legendary innovators and architects of what Karen Michel calls radio past, among us, too, are the dreamers and makers of radio future. Once again, welcome.

AIR Annual Meeting 2000

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