Off the Top of my Head: Karamea Radio 1-Year Anniversary

Luke Hurley Live on Karamea Radio 107.5 FM in 2004

September 26, 2004 marks the first anniversary of Karamea Radio 107.5 FM, which means the community radio has been broadcasting non-stop (bar a few technical hiccups and the odd power outage) for more than 8,760 hours.

From its humble beginnings at James and Raramai’s “Old Bike Shop” building on Bridge Street to its current location in the old ambulance bay behind Rongo Backpackers & Gallery on Waverley Street, the radio station–and the people who run it–have overcome poverty, equipment failure, technical ineptitude and finite musical archives to continuously transmit an eclectic range of fabulous audio entertainment for the Karamea community.

Craig Stenhouse, James Rae and Stu Mollison were the instigators of the radio station and their vision for the station was realised through their passion for the idea, a lot of hard work and the generosity of the Karamea community, who donated money to purchase a transmitter as well as much of the music and station equipment we still use today. Special mention must be made of the contribution made by Cab in Little Wanganui, who provided a 25-stack CD player, which enables us to play at random 25 different CDs repeatedly all night until the morning DJ arrived to change the tunes. Judith and Norman Stopforth donated many fabulous old records, as did Peter Churchill and Tex Franken and Brian Thomson took the station to a new level with the donation of a laptop computer to store and play the station’s extensive library of music.

Operation of the radio station equipment is surprisingly easy and after some simple instructions, aspiring DJs can begin broadcasting their own material and soon become masters of the decks. Many locals have risen to the Karamea Radio challenge and come down to do their own shows. Tjalve Mollison-Sjoberg, alias DJ-T, plays music every week as well as occasionally reading the news on air. His father Stu has a huge collection of classic records and CDs and is a consummate purveyor of alternative, forgotten and rare tunes. Jethro Davidson-Linnaker occasionally drops in to play narrated children’s stories on air and Cody Wilkinson, Callum Moynihan, Dave Bateman, Simon Vos, Matthew McNabb, Leila and Willis MacBeth, along with the Rongo Crew of Sage, Brian, DJ Crap, Mette, Cath and Tristan are regular performers on Karamea Radio.

Last December, Sylvia Raikes and Alysha Harmon led us into the festive season with Christmas music from around the world and read out lists of good deeds done by Karameans throughout the year––a great idea that embraced the concept of community spirit and community radio.

Poet Sam Hunt and blues guitarist Paul Ubana Jones are two of the N.Z. celebrities who have dropped in to Karamea Radio to say hello to the community over the airwaves and the station also broadcast the world premiere of a German punk bands new album––the musicians just happened to stay at Rongo last summer.

Karamea Radio is non-commercial and has been established by the community for the community, there is no advertising, no sponsorship and no censorship; it is truly free radio, which is very rare in this highly regulated world. Many international visitors, Germans in particular, often comment how envious they are of our radio station and how impossible it would be to establish such a station in their country.

Backpackers staying at Rongo love the radio station and many of them have MP3 players, which allows them to carry their favourite music with them on their travels. This is a boon for Karamea Radio as guests at Rongo can plug in their MP3 gadgets and play the latest tunes from their respective countries. The ease at which MP3 flies can be copied has enabled the station to compile a huge collection of music from the world over on computer hard drive, an archive that is growing rapidly and covers a broad spectrum of musical genres.

As a result, Karamea Radio has probably one of the most contemporary and international play lists of any radio station in the world.

Karamea Radio has made great progress in its first year, but to maintain the growth, development and improvement of the station, additional equipment must be purchased. Main objectives include; boosting the broadcast output to enable more homes to receive the signal, purchase new computer equipment to store and play music, the building of a DJ booth around the equipment to minimise dust and sound interference and to allow DJs to do their thing without distraction.

There are also several building plans to make the radio station more comfortable, for example, the construction of a deck on the sunny north side of the building, painting and insulating the station and the installation of heating to make the chilly winter nights more comfortable.

Talkback radio would be made possible by connecting a phone line to the station, which could lead to Internet streaming and the ability to broadcast Karamea Radio on the Web so that people worldwide could tune in and listen to what’s playing on 107.5FM.

Radio is an excellent medium for entertainment and not too many years ago, sitting around the radio would have been the principal form of entertainment for many Karameans.

In its second year, the radio station will have regularly scheduled programmes that will enable listeners to tune into shows of interest to them whether it’s blues, jazz, rock’n’roll, funk, hip-hop, metal, talk-back, news reports, humour, story-telling, Broadway tunes, classical, Latin, world music or punk, Karamea Radio will continue to improve and grow to provide a valuable service to the Karamea Community.

So tune your radio to 107.5 FM and rip the knob off…if you haven’t already!

Karamea Radio 107.5 FM: http://www.karamearadio.com

By Raving Auckland Correspondent “Flying” Phil Jackson

Flying Phil Jackson

The Beehive in Wellington is a hive of activity. It’s occupants are the humble bumble bees and in this peculiar little niche they have organised themselves into an established hierarchical order with one Head Bumble Bee, and a bunch of tireless workers, drones, zombies and food gatherers all bumbling over themselves in the pursuit of bumble bee nirvana, which is the total domination of all animals outside.

In the main chamber, they take turns at strutting around, wiggling their fat lazy abdomens and flapping their wings incessantly in order to get attention. The hot air created by this excessive posturing is funnelled from the top of the chamber to the nursery where it keeps budding bumble bee eggs comfortable despite the ferociously cold winds that regularly blow outside their haven.

Wonky Jonky

Today, the Head Bumble Bee, Wonky Jonky has a strategy meeting. Wonky Jonky has been the Head since the big clean-out three years ago when the previous head, HellAnchorLark, was unceremoniously dumped when the outside barbarians got their way and pillaged their ranks mercilessly. HellAnchorLark’s was an exceptional leader who brilliantly used lies, deceipt, lowly ideals, her position, and her power to change the rules that governed how outsiders lived, despite having the ugliest proboscis and antennae imaginable despite many alternative treatments. Wonky Jonkey was so much in awe of her abilities that he sponsored her to go and use her skills in the big beehive at the United Nations. He felt that he might be able to one day have the same respect as his predecessor and that what she did was worth emulating.

HellAnchorLark

With Wonky Jonky is Blinglish, his crusty second-in-command.

Blinglish: I think we need to change the way you smile. Our latest opinion polls are showing that you come across as some sort of simpleton or more like a stupid Cheshire cat.

Wonky Jonky: I thought that Cheshire cats are quite intelligent actually. My aunt had one and it was very popular with children and adults alike. It was able to eat out of a tin using one paw and play dead when it was attacked by dogs. It did such an efficient job of cleaning and preening itself that the faecal bacterial count under his tail was almost undetectable.

Blinglish: As you know, the outsiders are gearing up for another rampage at the end of this year and we don’t want you to be tossed out to the elements like your predecessor. So I think that we need to take this seriously.

Wonky Jonky: I suppose I should then, although the alternative to us under Filgoff isn’t exactly popular. What do you suggest I do?

Blinglish: I suppose that you could copy a confident salesman’s smile. How about a car salesman? When I bought my last car, I was completely reassured by the salesman’s smile that I was getting a good deal and you want to come across like that too.

Wonky Jonky: But didn’t you find out later that it needed significant mechanical repairs?

Blinglish: It was too late by then to do anything, but the point I’m making is that it is only important to deceive the people leading up to the election. What happens after is irrelevant. Remember when HellAndLark told everybody that students would have student free loans and that they could afford it. It helped her get back for one more term before people found out that it had became a large drain on the coffers.

So this is what I’ll do. I’ll send my secretary around a few car dealers and get her to take someone with a camera to capture their smiles. We’ll then pick the best photograph and you can practice copying it.

Wonky Jonky: That sounds great. I can almost feel one of their smiles coming on now. Won’t the public be impressed when I have perfected it. I might just whip into my private bathroom suite and do some practice now. I just can’t wait now. Hurry!

The Green Thing

In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she
should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good
for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green
thing back in my day.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did
not care enough to save our environment.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to
the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and
sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and
over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every
store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t
climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two
blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the
throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry
the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or
sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we
didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every
room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief
(remember them?), not a screen the size of movie theatre screen.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have
electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded
up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut
the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised
by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on
treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup
or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we
replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the
whole razor just because the blade became dull.

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their
bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour
taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets
to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget
to receive a signal beamed from satellites 3,000 kilometres out in space in
order to find the nearest pizza joint.

Isn’t it interesting that the current generation laments how wasteful we old
folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

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ISV Crew Helps KEEP

A keen group of nine international student volunteers from North America braved a chilly winter morning in otherwise Sunny Karamea on July 27, 2011 to meet with Department of Conservation (DOC) representative and members of the Karamea Estuary Enhancement Project (KEEP) team to plant trees and weed existing plantings along the Karamea Estuary Walkway.

 The group were given a traditional Maori welcome by KEEP Chairman George Snowden and a traditional procedural safety lecture by DOC’s Penny McIntosh, who then demonstrated the art of tree planting, fertilising and weeding. The volunteers then split into two teams, one group began planting and weeding, the other assisted KEEP member Hamish Macbeth in preparing flax plants that had been donated by Karamea Village Hotel owner Diana Storer for transplanting.

KEEP Chairman George Snowden (left) greets ISV team leader Steph Watts (second left) and members of the ISV team

  KEEP is a collaborative initiative between members of the Karamea Community and DOC to protect, enhance and promote the Karamea Estuary environment and to make it accessible to members of the public, Karamea residents and visitors to the region to enjoy. Work began in 2007 and thus far several hundred native trees have been planted, and about 500 metres of walkway formed, boardwalks constructed, historical monuments and information boards erected and tourist information brochures compiled and published. The project is ongoing and KEEP is grateful for the financial and logistical assistance provided by HTF, BOC and DOC and the International Student Volunteer organisation.

Megan Bean, a student from Indiana, United States, said, “New Zealand is just so beautiful and I’m meeting some awesome people, learning about Kiwi culture and having experiences I wouldn’t have had as a tourist, I think the ISV programme is the perfect mix of culture, work and adventure.” Californian Kevin Liu agreed and said, “I became an International Student Volunteer because I was looking for experiences I couldn’t get as a tourist.”

The ISV group will spend a month in New Zealand, two weeks doing voluntary work and two weeks of travel and adventure before returning to the United States and Canada to resume their studies.

International Student Volunteers planting trees that were kindly provided to KEEP by the Honda Tree Fund and the British Oxygen Company

ISV Tree Planting Team

 Many thanks to the ISV group for coming to Karamea and for their effort to assist KEEP with the Karamea estuary enhancement project and to the Honda Tree Fund and the British Oxygen Company for providing funding for the project and for ongoing support from the Department of Conservation.

The Rongolian Star

John Clarke: Honest Used Car Salesman….

A Likely Story….

News Flash:

Conclusive Proof of the Health Benefits of Excessive Alcohol Consumption…

Malasana: This position, for ankles and back muscles.

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana: This position calms the brain and heals tired legs.

Marjayasana: Position stimulates the midirift area and the spinal comumn.

Salambhasana: Great exercise to stimulate the lumbar area, legs, and arms.

Balasana: Position that brings the sensation of peace and calm.

Savasana: Position of total relaxation.