In May/June, I offered several training workshops, likely the last round of dedicated sessions as my year of VISTA service comes to a close. The remainder of my year will be devoted to compiling the training materials I've written, and writing the manuals I haven't had time to compose yet.

Through March-April, a very intense month, I guided several initiatives to create new training programs for youth and adults, to build volunteer activities at the IMC, and to make general improvements to our facilities.

I feel pretty bad that keeping up with these field reports has been so difficult - and because I have the flu... but that gives me some time to catch up and explain what kinds of things I've been doing at the IMC, one month at a time:

Hey there,

From March 31-April 4 I attended the NFCB (National Federation for Community Broadcasters) annual conference in Portland, OR. What struck me immediately when I arrived at the Hilton was:

1. I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, person at this conference

Comment from Nickey Robare on May 11, 2009 - 4:45pm

Ha, I totally know that guy! He's big on the bike scene. He's pretty wacky, alright.
You should've emailed me, I woulda shown you around...

Comment from Megan Donovan on May 11, 2009 - 5:16pm

is your e-mail nickeyrobo@riseup.net? if so, then i totally did e-mail you on march 30th

The past month was probably the most successful for my VISTA project so far. While this was due in no small part to the groundwork of the previous months, over the course of only the last few weeks I trained (trainers and students), recruited volunteers, made new community contacts, and produced media.

Right now I'm working on our outreach campaign for our upcoming CALLS FROM HOME national holiday radio broadcast for prisoners and their families. And, since I'm spending time getting bloggers to embed this on their sites, it seemed appropriate for me to share it here:

http://www.appalshop.org/h2h/calls/audio/Calls%20House%20Party.mp3
(listen to it! It's cool! and then make your call!)

Month 3 (September 15-October 15) saw the growth of the IMC Production and Video News efforts that I began in the previous month. Together with other volunteers I recruited, we covered five on-location events where we recorded interviews, filmed, and took notes to share with other community journalists.

I am submitting two reports at once this time. The past two months were so busy that there was little time to reflect or to write about what was going on.

As part of my job as the Community Journalism Coordinator for MAIN, I will be reporting, writing and producing a local news show on our radio station, wpvm 103.5 fm. In order to prepare for this, I have been sitting in on other people’s radio programs to get a feel for the studio and to observe how to use the equipment.