00:31S1
This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia Radio.
00:40S2
Hi, this is Sam.
00:41S3
And this is Lizzie.
00:42S2
And this is Studio One, your weekly look at live from a low vision and blind point of view here on Vision Australia Radio.
00:48S3
On this week's show...
00:49S2
Vision Australia Radio has been busy fundraising throughout April. We look at what has replaced radiothon.
00:55S3
As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience with any of the issues covered in this week's episode of Studio One, or whether you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know. Your story and insight may help someone who is dealing with something similar.
01:12S2
Please email us: studio1@visionaustralia.org ... That's studio number one at Vision Australia - dot - org.
01:18S3
Or you can drop us a note on our Facebook page at facebook - dot - com - slash - VA Radio Network.
01:24S2
Also, yes, we are still on Twitter. Well, what is now called X. We're probably one of three people still there. So same address x.com/va radio network. Hello, Lizzy.
01:40S3
Hey, Sam. How are you doing on this glorious day?
01:43S2
That's right. It's a special day, isn't it? It's an International Guide Dogs Day.
01:47S3
Yes, yes, it is an absolutely wonderful day to celebrate our lovely four legged furry companions.
01:54S2
So I'm presuming that Lacey has been getting special treatment on this special day, getting extra special treats and, uh, just lazing about, not having to do much at all?
02:04S3
Unfortunately, no, I mean, she is working as per usual today, but I did buy her some special dog yogurt to go with her dinner, so we'll see what she thinks about that dog yogurt.
02:14S2
What is that?
02:15S3
It's... I actually don't know. I think it's some sort of lactose free yogurt that Chobani makes. It's called Daily Dollop. You can find it in the supermarket.
02:25S2
But we're not here for guide dogs or for seeing eye dogs. In this case, we're talking about fundraising. All of April. We have Vision Australia Radio has been doing a fundraising drive. It's the first to a 100 K's, so helping us out to nut out what is going on here. We are joined by Vision Australia's own Jason Gipps. Hello.
S4
Thanks for having me.
S2
So what is your role in Vision Australia? I always wanted to know this. I mean, we seem to sort of see you in and out and everywhere. Everywhere. So what exactly is it that you do?
S4
Yes, I do feel more, I do like to think I'm more important than I am. But I have the wonderful, long title of National Audio Business development consultant. So, that is glorified sales guy. Effectively, I'm responsible for making sure that we find new and creative ways to bring revenue into keep our not for profit community radio network on air.
03:27S3
So sort of like a marketing genius then.
03:30S4
I guess. Yeah. Look, my my role is specifically to find revenue and keep our network operating. So we, we do run into operational costs of around $2.1 million a year. It is a costly business, a costly venture. Just, you know, transmission costs alone, I think cost us something around $750,000 a year. And they're unavoidable fees. So we do need to get more and more creative as the years go by on how to bring revenue in, because, uh, the market changes. People don't like to advertise. And, you know, here's a product and here's how much money I've got to promote it. I want to do really creative things for us. And I guess part of that role that I have is to find new and exciting ways to bring in fundraising dollars as well.
Hence 100 K away. The advent of the NDIS. That would have made things rather tricky as well. I mean, you can't just simply add into your plan radio station. Trust me, I've tried. It doesn't work, correct? Um, and my understanding without being overly qualified to comment on such, uh, vision, Australia used to, uh, receive a certain amount of block funding to keep all of the essential services like radio and like our library going and those client services. And yes, uh, the business model did change when the NDIS came along. A lot of good things, uh, incredible things, uh, when the NDIS launched. And we're still seeing that. But yes, you're right, you cannot charge people for something that is free and at the click of a button.
04:54S3
So speaking of changes, we mentioned before that the radiothon used to be a yearly event, but this year we've gone for the 100 Koa. And so why did we depart from the traditional radiothon and go for something with a bit more of an active twist?
05:11S4
It's a really good question, Lizzy. Thanks for asking. We are like any other community radio station where we are absolutely reliant on community support. So that might be through sponsorship, otherwise known as advertising on commercial radio, grants and fundraising and community radio stations often sort of go one way or the other. They tend to be more reliant on asking people to be members and charging a membership fee annually or monthly for that. Or it might just be donations. So tax deductible donations in its current form, our Vision Australia radio stations have gone down the. Please support us and give a tax deductible donation slant as opposed to having paid members.
But in any case, community radio tends to be going in the same way less donations being made by its supporters, by its listener base, and less membership dollars coming through. So I guess each year we focus on our radiothon, asking our community support us with tax deductible donations. But that messaging is getting challenging. Less and less donations. There is a cost of living crisis. People are doing it tough, and although they very much value what we do and would like to donate to us, it is a bit more challenging to simply ask people to donate. So we decided based on a rather successful, first time 100 K your way for Vision Australia last year that we would be more involved in that. And those that are join our Vision Australia radio team. So that's our Perth, Adelaide or Melbourne teams. Money raised will not just support in Australia, it will directly support our radio network.
S2
And how has that been going anyway?
S4
It's going right. I was just jumping onto the website to have a look at where we're at. So if anyone is interested in an up to the minute update, you can go to RVA radio org and click on the banner. At time of recording, I can say that our Perth team are so far raised $7,294, our Adelaide team 1300, nearly $1,400 and Melbourne, nearly 2500 dollars. So clearly Perth is miles ahead of us at the moment, but there's still plenty of time. I'm getting a beep here. Someone else is trying to join the meeting. Hello? Who is this?
07:30S5
Hello. Hi. I heard you having a chat about 100km away, and I thought I'd better jump on. It's Gemma here from from Perth.
07:38S2
So you are well and truly leading the way in front of the rest of us. What's the secret of your success?
07:44S5
Well. Well, it's it's not me. Sadly. I have raised some funds, but I can't claim this one. We have an amazing team of volunteers and staff who've joined the VA Perth team. And and one of those is is Kate Lever, such one of our volunteers, and she's raised $4,400 so far in her quest. So I'd have to say a lot of it's down to Kate and a few other volunteers. And I don't know, this is something great about being over here in the West.
08:15S2
I think you might have got yourself a ringing as well, because apparently one gypsy is a part of your team, and I don't seem to remember him being in Perth. What's the goal here? I'm very good at splitting myself two ways, aren't I? So yes, I am very much a part of the Perth team because I was assuming that we might struggle to get a team together in Perth. So I handed over team leader responsibility to someone else in Melbourne, even though I am Melbourne based. So today I'm representing Melbourne, but very proud to be a part of the Perth family for this fundraiser.
08:46S5
Yes. Thank you, team Captain Jace, you've done a wonderful job so far. And, on his profile photo, he's made himself into Spider-Man. He is a bit of a superhero being in two places at once. And yeah, we appreciate you being part of the team. Jace speaking.
09:01S2
You can't go to the gym to look like Spider-Man. You can certainly use AI to make it happen.
09:06S3
Speaking of team captains, I think we've got one in the studio with us at this very moment.
09:10S6
Hello? I'm sorry, I heard we're talking about the progress of the teams. Is. Is that what's happening here?
09:15S3
I think so.
09:16S6
Oh, well, you know, just, Adelaide's in. He's a bit behind at the moment, but, you know, we progressing. We're progressing, we're getting there. I don't know if you guys know, but in Adelaide, bands that tour Australia, they're always reluctant to come to Adelaide because people in Adelaide just never buy the tickets in advance, you know. And so tourists become a bit stressed about that. But the thing is, like one week before the concert, it's booked out and that's what's going on in Adelaide.
09:44S2
I'm telling you, it's a slow build up here. You know, we're just waiting for the last week and indeed we are in the last week of, of this promotion. So we shall see how we go. Lizzy actually has been doing a lot of exercise and started, um, on a quite a high. Apparently, according to the app, she is up to 6000km. I suspect that this is some sort of glitch, but...
10:11S3
Glitch in the matrix. You know.
10:15S2
Affecting to Perth. Are you walking here right now?
10:17S3
So. Yeah. So I've got my portable.
10:20S2
Sleepwalking.
10:21S3
Portable sound recorder in my hand, and I'm just jostling along. No, I don't know about the 6000km. I mean, that would make me an athlete of epic proportions, which I'm not quite there yet, but I think if I look at my Strava, which is what's linked to my account, I've done about 300km. Oh my goodness, I want to get 400 by the end of the week. Let's see if I can do it.
10:49S2
When you read the Vision Australia website and it talks about the logic of doing this, it is really about, well, people like ourselves, we don't drive, so we have to get around some other way. And usually it's, walking or whatever. And yes, some of us do ride bikes when we shouldn't be, but, I mean, so I decided essentially that I was not going to do anything different to what I normally do, and I'm just going to log the kilometres that I normally do just walking to and from work and going to going shopping and all that sort of stuff. So I just today broke, and this is, Monday for all our listeners because it's Wednesday for anyone who's listening in [on radio]. So I just broke the 100 K now just by walking to and from work and. Okay, yes, there was a train strike on Wednesday, so I walked home 15 K's. So wow, that was the only one way to get home.
But yeah. So what else have we been doing to get out our kilometres? Jason, I have to say I got a bit of a cold last week, so I was going so well for the first two weeks and then all of a sudden I put my brakes on, but I'm fit as a fiddle now, so I'm going to get the the thing that I really wanted to do was hit 100 k's of walking and also ten kilometres of swimming, because last year I did a challenge, the Klim Swim, which is another great foundation out there. And I did five kilometres. I thought, well, this year I'd like to double that. And I thought, why not put my energy into a fundraiser for Vision Australia? And yeah, so I've nine kilometres to go in the next eight days. So wish me luck everyone, okay?
12:21S3
... [?] a day, you can do it.
12:23S2
We're not going to ask you. I'm here because he's been playing support. He was the one that filmed that wonderful thing of me running past the studio, for example.
12:31S4 [?]
I was so impressed. I was so impressed. I'd never seen another talent. Well, I'd never seen you run before. And, so I was sitting there with the with the phone static, and we were thinking, I'm going to do this shot where, you know, Sam just runs from my left to my right and basically across the screen of the phone, right while I'm. Over the the Vision Australia entrance, the building entrance. And so that's what's the setup and say okay go. And I'm standing there and I was looking at the screen and I saw sort of a blur across the screen.
And actually laughed. I couldn't help myself. That first tech didn't didn't work because Sam ran across the street and I just loved it when what... was going. And move the cameras. All right, we have to make a second take.
13:17S2
So you might have might have heard about us having some seismic problems around about that time as well. So it's a 95 kilo person who used to weigh a lot less when they were actually running. And oh my God, I did feel that for the rest of that week. Lizzie can talk about that. She's the one normally complaining about soreness. But no, I felt that in a big way.
13:38S3
Yes you did. You had quite a few words to say about it.
13:42S2
So, Gemma, how what have you been up to during April?
13:45S5
So I've been counting. I'm using Strava as well. I've been counting my intentional walks and runs and things. I'm not much of a runner, I have to say, but I have lately been doing parkrun on Saturday mornings, so if you don't know what they are. Yeah, every every Saturday, pretty much around Australia, many parks at 8am you get together and just run a track around a park or multiple times around a park. So I do it at Champion Lakes here in WA and it's quite a lovely view, looking on the lake as I'm going around very slowly jogging around. It takes me quite a while to do my five Ks, but it has been quite motivating to have this, this sort of hundred K challenge, I suppose. And I have reached my 100k, but I do plan to still do as much extra kind of walking and running that I can this week in the final week.
14:35S3
That's fantastic. I missed walking, I used to walk a lot more than I do now.
14:39S2
So how do you get all these cases that you're piling up, sitting on the back of a tandem?
14:44S3
No, no, I actually you know what? I've only done one outdoor tandem ride, Sam, since this whole thing started. So unfortunately, most of my Ks have been done on the indoor trainer, which. Right. It's basically a road bike hooked up to a wall. Looks like a mini computer monitor on which I have to sit and turn the pedals, you know, so I don't get any stimulation. No, no, no mental stimulation or nothing. It's been torturous.
15:14S6
Have you thought have you thought of setting up maybe a little fan at the front? Just got a fan impression?
Have you thought have you thought of setting up maybe a little fan at the front? Just got a fan impression?
15:18S3
No, I got a fan. I got a fan and I've got music and okay, got plenty of. You know, Lacey's been quite good at, you know, keeping me distracted. But let's see if it helps.
15:29S2
We can hurl abuse and open car doors. That's the. That'd be great. That's what I was thinking. We can create a soundtrack album to go by with people. Yes, please. Look which way you're going. Bloody cyclists.
15:42S3
Yeah, well, I mean, that would be fantastic, Sam, if you could, if you could compile something like that for me. I mean, outside of this 100 K, I'd be very grateful for the, the interaction Radio production team.
15:54S2
Yeah.
15:55S3
Fantastic. I'd be for that.
15:57S2
Since we've got all three. Well, um, teams represented in some way or form. Are there any volunteers apart from our two wonderful selves who have stood out in this fundraising thing, Gemma?
16:09S5
So I mentioned Kate earlier. She's just done a fantastic job of. Yeah, as I said, raising over $4,400, which is brilliant. And she's been doing plenty of K's with her dog. So her dogs, a little worse for wear, and he needs some medication for his joints. So she gave him some of that this month, she said. And so he's been getting lots of walks on the beach as part of this. But no, no cruelty to animals has been has been happening, I promise. He's very happy. Uh, Elizabeth Borrello, who joined, I think maybe a week or two into the challenge, has already raised over $1,000, which is wonderful. Thank you. Elizabeth. And she is a volunteer with us at the station.
So, yeah, those two have been great. And there's been quite a bit of chat around here about the 100 K challenge. So, yeah, people getting on board in any way they can. You know, if they've got a few few dollars, they can throw our way. That's been great. And talking about taking part next year as well. Some people who didn't have the time this year to take part themselves. So feeling motivated for next year. So yeah, I think it'll be a regular recurring fundraiser for us.
17:17S2
That's the thing. You don't necessarily need to be involved with Vision Australia to be taking part. I mean, if you are, you know, a little bit worse for wear, as far as you know, age is not helped you. Then you can dob somebody else in to do it for you. That's one of the tricks there. So it sounds like Perth has found the right, uh, mixture there.
17:36S6
Uh, Guillaume. Yeah.
17:37S5
Well, I mean, Lizzie is definitely the leader, the lead worker in our team. There's no question. Ian Macmillan is a is a is another one of our volunteers who's stepped in right at the beginning. When, when? You heard about this challenge straight away. He said, well, I walk all the time anyways. And you know, just last week at the 30 K's and so, so he jumped in and he's been he's been walking a lot since and raising a lot of money. We have we have a volunteer in our team. And I'm going to put this out there because I want to try and solve this mystery. We have a volunteer. His name is John Braun and we have no idea who he is.
So he might be a listener. He might be a friend of some we don't know. And and we haven't been able to get in contact with him. So please solve this mystery for us.
18:29S2
So if you're listening and you know, John. Yes, maybe you can tell us who this John is or Johnny. Johnny, if you are listening, please give us a call.
18:37S3
Yes, we want to hear from you.
18:38S5
That's right. We're very grateful to John.
18:42S2
Went to the 100 K Your Way website and thought, you know what, I want to join a team. And I think radio is pretty cool. And he joined our team.
18:49S3
He joined the best team.
18:51S6
Yes. Well hopefully hopefully you'll hear.
18:53S2
So Jason, maybe you can tell us about our colleague Sam Collie, otherwise known as the other Sam - to how is he going?
S4
As far. He's his miles and he's fundraising. Yeah. So Sam has so far raised up $677, which is an incredible effort from Sam. He is tracking pretty well as well with his walking. I don't think he's updated it recently, but he's he's paid just certainly up to 60km. So he's really kicking goals there. He's been taking lots of lovely photos around his nearby lake, really having a good time and enjoying the fresh air. And, one of my other colleagues, leader, who is one of our admin people at VA... she has raised $415. And I have to say that there's a very obvious trend here, those with blindness or low vision or have someone close to them that lives with a print disability or blindness, low vision are definitely the front runners that are really having a wonderful shot at getting donations.
And I think that's the that's really the key for, you know, the messaging for this campaign, because we are an essential service for people living with print disability. It's really important to the community. It cost a lot of money to make it happen. And so having this opportunity to have the 100 K your way and having, uh, people volunteering their time to put in some kilometers, whether they're running, walking, swimming, rolling and asking their friends and family to support their cause, in turn supporting Vision Australia radio. It's just, uh, it makes sense. Everyone wants to support someone who, um, relies on our service. And I think that's that's where we're winning.
So, uh. Yeah. Can be. Congratulations to. To Lizzy, to Sam and to Kate, who's our daughter relies on Vision Australia services, which is why she's having some success there. Of course, some hard work asking friends and family, because it's not always easy to ask for friends and family to support you with donations. But what we find is people are generally, if they can afford it, quite willing to, you know, put their hand in their pocket, might be $5, might be $100. Everyone's willing to give what they can.
21:01S3
Well, the amazing thing that I've noticed too is even if my friends and family haven't been able to donate specifically, they've been more than happy to share the page with others that they think can donate, DOB.
21:14S2
Somebody else in.
21:15S3
Yeah, yeah.
21:16S2
And it's an interesting time, for for charities that rely on donations like Vision Australia. I guess one of the key findings is that people will still continue to give kind of amount they think is fair. So let's say it's $100 and they, you know, they might choose ten charities a year to give a $100 donation to, they still donate the same amount, but they just support less charities. So it is I guess it's, there's some challenges there for us to try and encourage people to want to support Vision Australia Radio when you know the money isn't going as far at the moment. But rest assured, any donation over $2 or more is tax deductible. It goes to a great cause. You help keep us on air, and in turn, people have access to information that they otherwise wouldn't.
So I presume we will be seeing this same thing happening this time next year. Yeah, I think it's almost a guarantee, Sam. I think it's worked well for us. People are having a lot of fun. And I have every confidence that, now people know how it works, because sometimes it's a little bit hard to commit to something and get something off the ground. I think everyone that's participated this year and had a lot of fun would love to do it again next year, so I almost guarantee it. The first year is always a tricky one. And so we sort of thought of this more as like the first pancake. It doesn't necessarily count. But next year, yeah, we all finally got it right. Yeah. And I might say, you know, we have said a few times that we are not going down the traditional path of having a radiothon, because that does take a lot of time and energy. People hear the same stories over and over again. So we are sort of moving away from that this year.
But of course we will be reminding our listeners before June 30th that we do rely on tax deductible donations, and that may support you at the end of the financial year as well. So we will continue to contact those people that have given us, uh, really kindly donations, um, in previous years. And we hope to sort of. Yeah, um, keep that relationship going so. Well, we've got you all together. What have we got to look forward to from Vision Australia Radio in the next six months or so? So I will start with Gemma. How are things going over in Perth and what have we got to look forward to?
23:26S5
So there's plenty going on over here actually, as of this afternoon, we're starting some serious work on our new AFL program. It'll be a reading space program all about the AFL, all the different leagues. So you've got the men's and women's. There's various disability leagues. Blind, deaf. And we'll be covering as much news as we can on all of the different leaks. So we've got a very, very excited and enthusiastic team of volunteers together who are coming in this afternoon. And we're going to sit down and work out what the program might, might look and sound like. And it's really great to have some low vision and blind volunteers involved in the program as well. And so I'm pretty excited about that one. Even though I don't know much about AFL, I know there's a few fans out there from what I hear in Australia. So it's one of the major kind of sports. So that's probably, yeah, one of the, one of the things on the new horizon that I'm particularly looking forward to.
24:21S2
Um, you take care of both Adelaide and Darwin. So is there anything that stands out that you're looking forward to or that's exciting coming up?
24:30S5
Oh yeah. Look, I mean, we're getting a lot of new volunteers joining the team, which is a testimony of how fun it is to be part of a of this team in Adelaide. So growing the team, we've got more volunteers joining in particular our program, in the morning, our advertiser program, these volunteers, you know, they get up maybe at five in the morning, they hear at six in the morning and, five days a week to... prepare the program so that it can go to air at about 7:30, one of our most listened to program here in Adelaide and Darwin. So we got more of more folks joining us. Another the program we have in Adelaide, Emerging Writers, which is another one that goes to podcast, and it's quite popular as a podcast. That team is growing. So far it had been only one volunteer. Now it's it's becoming two volunteers. So a 100% increase. Yeah. Lots. Lots going on. It's all very exciting.
25:25S2
Jason?
S4
Look, firstly, I would say, you know, obviously in my area of work, you know, revenue is really important. But the other thing that keeps us going absolutely is our 500 plus volunteers. And I'm very aware of the amount of amazing new programming that's coming from Adelaide and Perth are really kicking goals there. And thank you to Lizzy and Sam for what you do. I think, we've got some really exciting things happening. This year we had our first Midsummer Festival partnership. So in Melbourne we'll be back to that. That's Melbourne's, premier LGBTIQ+ festival, and that's going really well. In a few weeks time, we're going to have a presence at a disability expo impact conference. So that's a really important thing for us. And a lot of good should come out of that.
We've just, had an agreement with Amazon to, um, create some content around a program that they've got for children. So you're going to be hearing very soon about that. And again, a lot of these things don't happen unless we get, um, funding to do it because we are community radio. We've got a new podcast series launching soon in the carer space, which is relevant to a lot of our audience and, uh, one that we've been working on for about six months, which should be launching soon. We're going to be airing some mindful minutes. So that's they're going to run across the year and you're going to hear sixty second promos that are basically meditative, and will help you just zone out for a bit to relax and, you know, remind you how to apply self-care. So we've got some really exciting things coming up on Virgin Australia Radio. And your support really helps all of these initiatives.
S2
To round things off, if anyone's listening and they've gone oh 100 K, this sounds good, how do they get involved or how do they donate, Jason?
S4
27:06S4
So the easiest thing to do probably is to head to VA radio.org and to click on the banner 100 K Your Way banner that will take you straight to the page. You can search on the Hundred K Your Way web page for a particular team.
27:23S5
And I will tell Adelaide. Yes. Haha.
27:26S4
Nice try, nice try. And you can find the teams that way. You can also sign up if you would like to, and and join a particular team as well. So it's all quite easy to use I have to say quite straightforward. So just head to VA radio.org.
27:43S2
And we will provide a course links to those pages in the podcast notes and on the Facebook page when it eventually comes out. Well thank. You everybody. It has been a blast and keep on running. Thank you for having us.
27:56S4
Thanks, Sam.
S2
Let's see. That's a wrap for the week next week. Well, actually it's overdue. Lizzie.
28:05S3
Yes. Thanks, Sam. Well, we'll be talking to the founders of the sisterhood haircare company about accessible products for visually impaired women.
28:13S2
Between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One, or if you think there is something we should be talkinga about...
28:22S3
You can email us at studio1@visionaustralia.org ... That's studio number one at Vision Australia - dot - org.
28:30S2
Or perhaps leave us a note on our Facebook page. That's Facebook's slash VA radio network. Bye for now.
28:37S1
Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio One.
