Our Mandate to Educate
Hello WABE members! As you may know, the WABE constitution clearly outlines the purpose of our organization which put simply, is to educate our members! Over the years the main forum for education has been provided via our yearly WABE conference. Way back when, the conference was held in all major cities in Western Canada, but due to reduced attendance in some of the cities, a four city rotation was adopted (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria). Unfortunately Victoria also proved to be a challenging city to hold the convention in, so we have now adopted a three city rotation.
With this rotation it was obvious to the WABE committee that we would be missing opportunities to educate folks in the cities that our convention didn’t travel to. In an attempt to reach out to our other WABE members, two educational initiatives were started. The first was our WABE/SAIT training program. This program provided outstanding hands-on technical training to Television and Radio broadcast technicians at an extremely cost effective price, in a week long format. Originally launched in 2004, this program was very popular and well attended. It ran until 2007 when the facilitator of the program, Wayne Watson, could no longer be utilized as a resource. WABE is interested in reviving this program - perhaps in a different form, so if you have any interest in running this program for us, please let one of the executive know!
The second initiative that WABE launched was to form an Education Committee. The Committee started out with a single purpose; to bring technical education to the technicians throughout Western Canada. As the committee met, several other equally important educational goals also became apparent; the desire to encourage young people to pursue broadcast technology as a career, the desire to expand WABE’s presence in the industry, and the desire to enlarge our membership by expanding into similar under-served areas such as Telcos, Cable, and Production.
The goal of getting young people into our industry has became paramount as enrollment is seriously declining in our educational institutions such as SAIT. As such, we have appointed a chair solely for this initiative – Jonathan Hutchinson. We call his committee the WABE ‘Direct Connect’ committee! Direct Connect plays a role of recruiting young and young at heart people into our industry through the beginning process of education. We have a proven track record with SAIT as an excellent entry point into our industry. With the lack of students signing up for the two year BXST program however, the program is under threat of being cancelled which of course, would have a major impact on our industry. WABE wants to help encourage potential students to enroll in SAIT, so with your help we are hosting orientation seminars. In these seminars you showcase your facility then share information on how SAIT can get them started on a great career in broadcasting.
We already have plans for a program information night at A Channel in Victoria the evening of January 18 2010 and another information night on the same evening at KRAZE Radio in Red Deer. Jim Murtagh from SAIT is attending the information night in Red Deer. Remember SAIT provides all the support information and advertising and WABE will provide snacks and refreshments! So if you are able to host one of these events, please contact me for specifics!