By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer
On June 23, CJSF Radio held their spring general meeting at SFU’s Vancouver campus. This meeting discussed staff and programming changes, updates on projects, and amendments to their bylaws. The Peak attended the meeting to learn more about the station’s recent activities.
CJSF has seen a number of staff changes. Last year, CJSF received funding from the Local Journalism Initiative, allowing them to hire a full-time journalist, Danny Nesvaderani, to cover local community news. With the closure of local newspapers Burnaby Now, Tri-City News, and the New Westminster Record by Glacier Media, CJSF is “the only Burnaby, New Westminster, Tri-Cities-specific” radio program, said Jesse Wentzloff. “Danny has been producing great work, 3–5 stories a week, about stuff going on in the community,” he added.
Nesvaderani has also contributed to CJSF’s tri-weekly talk/news radio show, Speak Up!, which airs on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. The show covered topics like the Burnaby Mountain fire preparedness town hall, the possible New Westminster safe drug inhalation site, and a transit deficit protest.
Additionally, Robin Eriksson stepped down as the station’s program coordinator after eight and a half years. Wentzloff, who previously worked as the public affairs and talk coordinator for CJSF, was hired to fill the role before the end of July. Volunteer coordinator Juanita Ndyamukama will also be leaving her position soon as she is moving to the US to start a master’s program.
On the topic of bylaw changes, the radio station, a non-profit that reports on SFU and the surrounding community, is required by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to have a board that’s balanced between campus and community representation. However, the station has had difficulty filling community positions because the current bylaws define a community member as anyone who has never been involved with SFU as staff, faculty, or student. This prevents alums from serving as community representatives, no matter how long it’s been since they’ve attended SFU. As a solution, a bylaw amendment was proposed to redefine community members to include people who have been alums for over two years.
“We’re really lucky to have the campus support through the student fee levy, but we really need to work on developing the community support. We’re a campus community radio station, we support the campus and community.” — Magnus Thyvold, CJSF Radio station manager
There have been a few programming changes at the station as well. Rad Radio with Jonny Bones, a long-running program that plays “classic punk rock, street punk, ska, oi, rockabilly tunes, with a special focus on BC and Vancouver DIY bands,” has left the schedule due to health issues. Oh No! Radio with Joey Chaos, another long-running show that “takes a deep dive into the realm of the creative, featuring new music and interviews from across the spectrum,” ended in May. With Eriksson’s departure, the Roots and Berries show, featuring “a special blend of fiddle and banjo music,” has been cancelled.
Earlier this year, CJSF radio partnered with Embark Sustainability, Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, The Peak, and the Simon Fraser Student Society in the Vote for Student Life campaign. This campaign asked undergraduate students to increase the fees for each group, considering they are run by “relatively small fee levies” and the fees had not “been adjusted according to inflation in 9–30 years.”
In the case of the radio station, their fee has not increased since 2009. The referendum failed by 43 votes, and there are plans to run another referendum in the future. In reference to their annual Fundrive, station manager Magnus Thyvold said, “We’re really lucky to have the campus support through the student fee levy, but we really need to work on developing the community support. We’re a campus community radio station, we support the campus and community.”
Also, after three years of dealing with SFU, working with tower engineers, and getting permits, exemptions, and approvals from the city of Burnaby, CJSF’s project of replacing their radio tower on the WAC Bennett Library is finally moving forward. If there’s no new complication, the new tower should go up later this summer or early fall.
Finally, a group of student volunteers and students in the Work-Study Program are working on revamping the CJSF website. Thyvold noted they’re “really doing a great job. Basically, what we’ve decided to do is start over from scratch using all current technologies and things the students are learning in school.”
