10/22 - Station Volunteer Work Day

🪣​ Station Volunteer Work Day

Sunday, October 22, starting in the morning and going until mid-afternoon, we're hosting a station volunteer work day. Join our many programmers as we tackle some fall projects to ready the station for a cozy winter. Painting, storage sorting and clearing out, cleaning, and a donor mailing are just some of the projects we'll need help with. There is something for everyone to help with, and we'll have a midday break with a pizza party. If you are interested in helping, please RSVP so we can plan for the help and the pizza slices: Llu@WGDR.org. 

Extra Local Programming for the FUNdrive

Friends of WGDR/WGDH -

We’re doing some really special things for our Fall Fundrive this year. We hope you will tune in and hear some fun and help us drive toward our $10,000 goal with a donation of any amount that is meaningful to you. Read on for the dish!

Together, we're aiming to raise $10,000 by October 15th through:

• 25 first-time donors, including 10 from the WGDH listening area

• 5 new sustaining donors

• 10 out of state donors (from our streaming listeners!)

• a suggestion for a $50 gift (if you can swing it) in honor of WGDR's 50th this year.

Special Locally-Made Programming

Over the next two weeks, our programmers are preparing some extra special programming to show our gratitude for everyone who tunes in and supports WGDR and WGDH. This will include:

• Many locally-made music shows going an extra hour longer (or earlier!), with themes, live performances, special guests, and more.

• “Voices of Central Vermont Community Radio,” a special drive program featuring short interviews with 10 people who are part of WGDR & WGDH under community ownership. Guests include: Sally Kane, Erica Heilman, John Dillon, Reuben Jackson, Mark Michaelis, Suzanna Jones, Greg Hooker, Ken Hagget, Chris Buckridge, and Les Aldridge. Hosted by station manager Llu Mulvaney-Stanak. Catch the show airing Wednesday, October 4 at 6pm, Thursday, Ocotber 12 at 5pm, and Saturday, October 14 at 8am.

Sundays

• Alan LePage, long-time host of “the Curse of the Golden Turnip” is providing donors of larger amounts with a pint of his handmade Baba Ganosh or a secret trip to source Italian marble hidden in the hills (seriously). To qualify, you must email Alan with your info and amount given (at least $50 or potentially more). Email him at AlanpLePage@gmail.com..

• Rick Agran & Stefanie Lingenfelter reading poems on “Bon Mot” at 5pm on Sunday, October 8.

• An extra episode of “Gilded Splinters,” 6-7pm Sunday, October 8.

• DJ EhMmAhh of “The Revel Level” is going an extra hour early with a special “name that tune” game for listeners, Sunday, October 15, 6-9pm to help wrap up the drive.

Monday

• DJ Sacramento of “All the Crooked Saints” has a special guest, BoyJr joining them to speak on being a musician and a non-binary human on Instagram. Tune in 10pm-midnight on Monday, October 9.

Tuesdays

• DJ Llu will be going an extra hour early, 11am-2pm during the drive with special live DJ sets (hello lunchtime dance parties!) and the following week a special covers show and tribute show to their fellow music programmers. During each week give and get the show perk of a mixtape for listeners.

• Brian Aust extending “Woodwarbler’s JazzGrass” an extra hour, 2pm-5pm” on Tuesday, October 3. And will have a special theme show, “JazzGrass ~ FUNraiser!” with the song content hewing to the theme of having fun on the radio. on October 10.

Wednesday

• Sydonia Axis, host of “Theme Time Radio” on the 1st Mondays of the month, 7-9pm, jumps on the air for a special live show, October 11, 5-6pm for you with tunes and drive surprises.

Fridays

• At 7am, “Rumble Strip” will begin airing a special multi-episode series.

• Tonio Epstein’s “The Magical Mystery Tour” will have special guest Erica Heilman, producer of the Peabody winning “Rumble Strip” (airing Fridays at 7am), which will be on Friday, October 13 at 9am, along with other surprises.

• 11am-1pm, Turkey Joe is going live for 2 hours with “the Jive Turkey Show” with movie soundtrack themes.

• 6-9pm, enjoy a 3-hour special “Barn Dance Bluegrass” with the Grassers during the drive. October 6 tune in for show perks. Give $150.00 = Farm Basket - 1 available, give $100.00 = 3 Oak Trees - 2-3 year old, Bare Root. Delivered to your home in the spring or pick up at the station (They will will need your telephone info - 3 bundles available). October 13 show perks, heirloom seeds off the farm!

Saturdays

• Maria Schumann, host of “Bread and Salt” will have a special show where she tells her grandmother's story, bringing in 2 stories from her life about radio-- one from 1910, one from 1973.  You will also hear special cave singing and info about rites and rituals associated with this time of year in Eastern Slavic folklore. Catch the show Saturday, October 14 at 9am.

• Chris Buckridge, host of “Predictably Unpredictable” is bringing in the big guests with his dad, a musician from Ohio, on Saturday, October 7, 10am-noon and Lou Barlow, of Dinosaur Jr. on Saturday, October 14.

• Catch John Lackard playing live music at 3pm on October 14 for "Boxful of Blues."  ​

• 4-7pm catch "Acoustic Harmony" with Mark Michaels and live musical guests. October 7,  Cliff Eberhardt & Louise Mosrie Coombe will be joining Mark live on air at 5pm for an interview and live music. October 14, Vermont singer-songwriter Phil Henry will join Mark at just after 4pm.

• 10pm-midnight, DJ Z-Point of “the Beatdown” will have special guest DJs in the studio.

  And more coming soon!

Donor Prizes & Station Perks

• 2 tickets to see the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Kat Wright, on Friday, November 13 at HigherGroundMusic.com.

• A banner or poster from the Bread & Puppet print shop.

• 2 tickets to Swedish Folk'appella group Kongero on December 8 at the Highland Performing Arts Center.

• 2 tickets to see Natalie MacMaster at the Flynn Theater on December 13.

• Show incentives: If you call in and pledge a gift during certain shows, you could get a pint of baba ganoush or a secret trip to Italian marble from the "Curse of the Golden Turnip" or custom mix tapes made by participating music programmers on a streaming service. (Info coming soon). If you are giving for one of these incentives, please make a note in your donation message box! 

Give Today!

You can give securely online (and follow our progress there too) or give by check, made out to "CVCR" and sent to WGDR, 123 Pitkin Rd. Plainfield, VT 05667.

We’re gonna give you our best in locally-made programming these next two weeks. Tune in, enjoy, and thanks for considering a gift too.

As always, thanks for listening!

In great gratitude,

Llu Mulvaney-Stanak

Station Manager WGDR/WGDH

Fall On Air Drive 10/1-10/15

On WGDR & WGDH you are hearing more than 50 locally made programs, focusing on what is happening right here in central and northern Vermont. With another 50 syndicated shows to help cover the news of the day and deepen dialogues, the stations sound better than ever. 

Our Fall On Air Drive is aiming to raise $10,000 from individuals like you between October 1-15, 2023. This funding allows us the freedom to curate the programming you have come to love and expect from the station and bring on even more locally-made programs in 2024. 

During the drive, we try to make the programming extra special with additional guests, live performances, themed shows, and lots of surprises pre-empting regular programming. Be sure to tune in to hear all the fun!

There are four easy ways to give:

1. Make a gift online today. We’ve upgraded the Drive platform to a site that lets donors pay our credit card fees and keeps it free for us (skip the GiveButter “tips” prompt).

2. Text “WGDRDONATE” to 53-5555 and you’ll get a donate link right to your smartphone.

3. Give by check and make it out to “CVCR” and mail it to WGDR/WGDH, 123 Pitkin Road Plainfield, VT 05667.

4. Give by Venmo: @WGDRWGDH - Central Vermont Community Radio

Drive donor perks:

• All donors who give during our two-week drive will be entered to win prizes donated by Vermont businesses and organizations. All donors will also receive a free WGDR & WGDH sticker in the mail along with a thank you note.

• If you give $50 or more, we'll add in a limited edition 50th anniversary full-color sticker and a copy of our program schedule.

• If you give $200 or more, we'll send you a 50th-anniversary full-color t-shirt from our swag shop!

Drive Prizes List

• 2 tickets to see the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Kat Wright, on Friday, November 13 at HigherGroundMusic.com.

• A banner or poster from the Bread & Puppet print shop.

• 2 tickets to Swedish Folk'appella group Kongero on December 8 at the Highland Performing Arts Center.

• A bright green Dean electric guitar!

  Show incentives

  If you call in and pledge a gift during certain shows, you could get heirloom seeds during "Curse of the Golden Turnip," or custom “mixtapes” made by participating music programmers on a streaming platform. (Info coming soon). If you are giving for one of these incentives, please make a note in your donation message box! 

Crush These Drive Goals with us!

• Raise $10,000 (or more!) to pay the everyday bills that keep the station rolling.

• 5 new sustaining donors, to help sustain our work all year long by a monthly donation. Think of it like one of your many streaming services. What monthly value do we provide to your listening needs? $10? $15? $25? 

• 10 out-of-state donors. When our new schedule came online, we increased online listeners by over 1,000 streams a month. Wow! If you tune in online and from out of state, consider kicking in to fund what you tune in for. This goal also highlights WGDR's 50th year on the air! 

• 25 new donors. Maybe you've listened for years but never gave. Or you just found us and want to learn how you can help us keep up the great programming. First-time donors are a key way we expand our capacity.

• Find 10 new donors from the WGDH listening area. We're working hard to increase our listeners to 91.7 FM through increased community outreach this past summer and in the future. This year we invested in more upgrades to make this signal more reliable on the air. Help us keep it up by funding your local spot on the dial for Hardwick, Morrisville, Stowe, and beyond.

Take the Listener Survey:

Before you go, please also consider giving us feedback as a listener. Everyone who participates will also be entered to win prizes for giving us your thoughts on what you listen to, when, and why. Thanks!

Try A New Archive Feature

Help us test a new archiving feature through our Spinitron platform. Spinitron is the web platform that produces the schedule you see online, music playlists, and show pages.

The way this archive works is through an embedded player that sits on the top of the schedule page, playlist page, or show page. You can insert a date and time to go back and listen to any show or push play, if on a show page listen to that actual show. Note: Archives will still only go back for two weeks and we just began this Spintron archiving on 8/20, so shows prior to that are not available on Spinitron.

This integration of the recorded shows within the schedule and show pages we think will make it easier for online listeners to find what they are looking for, see playlists, and get more info on the shows. But, we want your feedback! Give it a go and send feedback to Llu@WGDR.org. We will leave our current archiving system up while we are considering this change.

Support Our Underwriters

We’ve been steadily building our family of underwriters over the last 2 years. These are generous businesses, organizations, and individuals who are helping us build our capacity so we can do more with and for our community. In short, money and resources move our mission to be a platform for sparking social change, creating human connections, and amplifying local voices and content.

Please support those who support the stations.

If you are interested in underwriting or sponsoring the station this year, check out our rates (we are the most affordable way to get the word out in our area—we checked!) or reach out to station manager, Llu Mulvaney-Stanak at Llu@WGDR.org. Thanks!

WGDR’s 50th Celebration Postponed Until 2024

August 9, 2023

You all know that we had been planning to hold an event this fall, celebrating the 50 years that WGDR has been broadcasting and providing an alternative source of media for our listeners.  There have been many changes over these 50 years at the station, and reaching this milestone has only been possible because of the efforts of everyone that has been involved with WGDR over these many years.

You also all know that the recent flooding in our community has had a devastating impact throughout our listening area.  Countless listeners and local businesses have suffered damages, with many having lost everything.  The ripple effects from this flood will certainly be felt throughout the community for some time. 

In light of these recent weather events, and wanting to stand in solidarity with those in our community that have suffered so much damage, the CVCR Board and Planning Committee have together made the difficult decision to postpone this event to a future time when all the needed resources and full attention of the station are available to organize the type of event that this milestone deserves.  We hope this event will be a true celebration and coming together of our community, as well as an uplifting experience for both the station and our listeners.  The timing is just not right for that to happen this year.

The Board certainly recognizes that planning efforts for this event have already been underway for some time.  We very much appreciate all those efforts and want to acknowledge all the folks that have been involved in that process.  We hope you all will continue to be involved in planning and conducting this event when it does occur.

We hope everyone understands how difficult this decision is, but we look forward to holding a wonderful event in 2024 when we can all fully celebrate together!

Mark Michaelis
CVCR Board Chair

p.s. In the meantime, it is still the 50th year and you can celebrate, and support the station, by buying one of the new 50th-designed t-shirts, sweatshirts, or tote bags from our swag shop. This is a special 50th anniversary designed by Vermont cartoonist and author, Rachel Lindsay.