WGDR’s 51st Party at the Pratt

On Saturday, May 18 we’ll “Party at the Pratt!” 3-5pm.

The community is invited to come down to the station for a big party at the Pratt building (inside and outside). Folks will enjoy”

• live, local bluegrass music by the Grassers of Friday night’s Barndance Bluegrass show

• good food and good company

• tours of the station

• and learn all about how Central Vermont Community Radio is taking WGDR and WGDH forward for the next 50 years.

• We’ll have live “check-ins” from the party on the air during Boxful of Blues and Acoustic Harmony. This is a great way to meet fellow listeners and the many of us who do shows and volunteer to keep the station running.

• There will be an “after party” jam session and outdoor fire from 5pm until dusk, as well as an on the air “after party” with DJs spinning a dance party for all to enjoy via their radios and livestreams from 7-10pm.

Together with our three days of special live and local programming this birthday weekend we’ll raise community connections and funds, and have fun for the station.

We’re ready to party with you, tune in and come on down!

Important Event Details:

• Directions & Parking: Our GPS listed address of the station will take you to the main campus of Goddard (123 Pitkin Rd). The station is located on the far side of campus in the basement of the Pratt library building. To find us, follow the signs we will have up for directions and parking. Please note, parking near the building is limited and will be reserved for those who need close access for accommodation. There is plenty of parking down near the old art building (there will be signs). To get to WGDR off Route 2 pass the main Goddard campus entrance on route 214, continue about half a mile down the road and turn into the second entrance to campus on your left (signs for Pratt and WGDR are on a small sign). It is your immediate next left, down a paved and bumpy road. Follow the signs for parking and walking to the station’s building. We highly encourage carpooling with your WGDR loving pals.

• Rain location is inside the station (we have a large room we can use to gather and still enjoy music, food, and spaciousness).

• Collective Care: As a station, we are still being covid cautious with our in-person gathering. While we hope to gather largely outside, if we do move inside due to rain, we will have masks available for folks to use. We also will have good air ventilation going, with windows open and air filters running. We ask that all party attendees make a community-minded decision and not come if they are feeling ill in any way. We are committed to providing as safe a space for all of our community to gather as possible.

• Food & Comfort: We’ll have snacks, treats, and drinks for folks to enjoy. We encourage you to bring your own water bottle (to limit waste). In May, we might have a glorious day or a brisk day, please bring appropriate layers to wear and even your own lawn chair (we have lots of seating, but if we get a huge turn out, we may need folks who are able to bring their won chairs!).

WGDR’s 51st Birthday Weekend

Back in 1973, as the semester wrapped up (in early June), WGDR, Plainfield went on the air at 91.1 FM for the first time. Back in 2021 (in mid-May), 48 years later, the FCC approved ownership transition from Goddard College to Central Vermont Community Radio. To celebrate 50 years on the air for WGDR and three years of community ownership, we are coming together for a big weekend of celebrating as a community both on the air and in person at the station.

We’ll be live and local all weekend long with special programming during each show and a few extra surprises along the way. This includes:

• Friday, May 17 the weekend kicks off with A Station Managers Retrospective on Magical Mystery Tour, 9-11am, hosted by Tonio & Charles. Featuring the founding Station Manager, Kirk Gardner from back in 1973, Stu Batuz from the 1990s, and the Managers from the last two decades, Bon Kelly, Greg Hooker, and Kris Gruen.

• Three hours of Barndance Bluegrass! The Grassers will debut their new, extended three-hour show slot, now 6-9pm every Friday.

• On Saturday, May 18 we’ll “Party at the Pratt!” 3-5pm. The community is invited to come on down to the station for a big party at the Pratt building (inside and outside). Folks will enjoy live, local bluegrass music by the Grassers, good food, good company, tours of the station, and learn all about how Central Vermont Community Radio is taking WGDR and WGDH forward for the next 50 years. We’ll have live “check-ins” from the party on the air during Boxful of Blues and Acoustic Harmony. Rain location is inside the station!

• Boxful of Blues with host John Foster, featuring special party check-ins and guests celebrating WGDR.

• Acoustic Harmony with Mark Michaelis, featuring special party check ins and co-hosts from WGDR’s past. More info soon.

• 7-10pm tune in for the “After Party” - a dance party mashup of WGDR/WGDH DJs trading sets for three hours live on the air. DJs TBD

• Sunday, May 19 at 9-8am & 6-7pm - Special Shows, TBD

• Birthday wrap-up on the Revel Level & Spiral Galaxy, 7-11pm Sunday night.

All our regularly scheduled shows throughout the weekend will bring you extra surprises and content all weekend long to celebrate this massive milestone for WGDR, Plainfield.

As part of this weekend, we’re looking to raise $2,500 as a “birthday gift” for WGDR to support the ongoing upgrades of a 51-year-old station! We’ve got matching donors and sponsors ready to match every dollar raised over the weekend up to $2,500. That means if we find 51 listeners that give a $51 birthday “gift” to the station, we’ll double that to raise about $5,100 for the birthday. Thank you to our matching donors: the CVCR Board and others coming soon!

Together, this birthday weekend will raise community connections and funds, and have fun for the station. We’re ready to party with you, tune in and come on down!

Live from NOLA Jazz Fest!

We are very excited to provide special programming in partnership with our friends at WWOZ, New Orleans as part of the 54th Jazz Fest. 

WGDR & WGDH will live simulcast the Jazz Fest on the air a few times during the two week festival: 

Fridays, April 26 & May 3, 6-7pm and Saturdays, April 27 & May 4, 7-8pm. 

This year's Jazz Fest lineup includes dozens of New Orleans and Louisiana favorites, interviews with artists, and archival recordings of Jazz Fests from the past. The full schedule of live music will be posted at WWOZ.org, where you can stream the full festival.

We hope you enjoy tuning into this iconic Jazz Festival by way of your very own radios here in Vermont.

WGDR’s future on Goddard campus.

You may have heard the news of Goddard College closing and looking to

sell its campus. We want listeners to rest assured, we are not in danger of

needing to move right now.

Central Vermont Community Radio is an asset to the community and as a

renter on campus to any future owner. No matter what the future of campus

holds, we look forward to remaining a strong partner with whoever owns or

manages the Pratt building where we have been located for 51 years.

Goddard College gave us a generous lease for five years (2022-2027), of which we are

now in year two. They recognized that our success as a brand-new

nonprofit hinged on keeping expenses low for our first few years and we

are forever grateful for their thoughtfulness for our lease, but also for their

gift of the entire station to the community.

We want to assure supporters, listeners, and the larger community that the

station’s current arrangement has us where we are until at least 2027.

That said, moving a station of our size, age, and status as a brand-new nonprofit would be a significant undertaking. If you are interested in learning more about our planning process for what may come next, please reach out to Station Manager, Llu Mulvaney-Stanak: Llu@WGDR.org.

That Spring Fundrive was no joke!

UPDATED: Wednesday, April 10, 2024

We not only crushed fundrive goals, we set records.

❤️ 226 total donors (our prior record last fall was 157)

❤️ 68 new donors (25 goal)

❤️ 12 new sustainers (5 goal)

❤️ 32 returning donors (didn't give last year) (25 goal) (a new record!)

❤️ 56 streamers/out of staters (25 goal) (our prior record last fall was 29)

$15,871 of our $15,000 goal (a massive new record!).

Monday, April 1, 2024

Friends of WGDR/WGDH -

At our fundrive celebration party yesterday at the station, I told programmers that fundrives are about three things: raising money (of course), raising friends, and raising spirits. As you can see from the photo from yesterday (above), our spirits are pretty darn high, thanks to our fundrive donors. We also just had a ton of fun on the air, doing special shows, bringing in live music, hyping each other, thanking donors live, and ringing the cowbell - a lot. Truly, thank you to the programmers for making this a fun listening experience.

A special shout out to Chris Buckridge, host of Saturday's "Predictably Unpredictable," for logging 18 hours of live airtime and motivating donors to get us to key benchmarks during each of those hours. He won our first "Fundrive MVP Cowbell Award" which will be proudly displayed in the studio all year.

Gosh y'all, these last two weeks were no joke! 🙃

WE ARE REALLY PROUD OF THIS FUNDRIVE AND SO GRATEFUL TO ALL OF YOU WHO GAVE.

You heard us talk about it on the air. 84% of our funding comes from individuals like you. That's far above the 20% average for most non-profits. It is because of fundrives like this one, that bring in over 200 donors with modest gifts averaging $66, that we are able to be funded in this way. Nearly half of our donors this drive were the folks who give every single year, every single drive. We see you and we love ya' for it!

Those 68 new donors, combined to bring in $4K. New supporters ensure that we are building our capacity from community support. We are also so glad to have 26 donors who haven't given in the last year, to come back to support us with $1,500 toward the drive. Together, new donors and returning donors keep us rolling.

Looking ahead, our 12 new sustainers now join with the rest of our monthly supporters (77 in total) to fund over $1,400 a month (that's about 15% of our whole budget) - a huge deal for still such a young non-profit like us.

Lastly, our listening audience has exploded online. We now have over 3,000 folks listening each month - from far and sometimes not so far away (Richmond, Colchester, White River Junction, and other places around Vermont). These folks are investing in the station just as much as our broadcast listeners. The 56 streamers together gave $3K toward the drive.

These stats are not just for the fundraising nerds. They reflect a community that is stepping up to fund the success of WGDR & WGDH. Thank you all!

If you missed your chance to give, you still can! Just know that you can’t be entered to win the prizes. Give securely at WGDR.org or by check to “CVCR” and mail to 123 Pitkin Rd. Plainfield, VT 05667.

We will now return you to our regularly scheduled programming this week. Phew! 😊

As always, thanks for tuning in and supporting the stations.

Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, Station Manager

Llu@WGDR.org, 802-276-0365

April Special Short-Run Program: Uplift Conversations

As part of April’s Sexual Violence Prevention Month, we will air a short, limited-run series podcast from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence called “Uplift Conversations.” 

Over the course of the episodes, the Network discusses really big, overwhelming concepts with experts in domestic and sexual violence prevention across the state and beyond. Things like white supremacy culture, the patriarchy, and how can we support the survivors in our lives better. With the help of the experts, the co-hosts, Jess Barquist, and Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, attempt to break down these concepts into bite-sized nuggets of understanding that we can all integrate into our lives to make a big impact on ourselves and our communities. 

Tune in on Thursdays, 6-7pm, for the 6-episode series, starting April 4 and running until May 9. 

This series will temporarily pre-empt the rerun of Democracy Now on Thursday nights at 6pm. Listeners can listen to the Thursday show on our archives in the 8am slot at WGDR.org. 

Learn more about the Vermont Network at VTNetwork.org.