Chris Hocquard, lawyer, interim LPFM chair and herder of cats.

I didn’t go to the follow-up meeting of Low Power FM broadcasters last night. I guess partly because I didn’t want to impose my own vision of what they should be, partly because I didn’t want to run the risk of being nominated for anything, but mostly, I guess, because having lit the fuse, my instinct was to stand well clear.

Chris Hocquard raced through the agenda in a single hour – a flurry of activity that rendered his involvement redundant by the end of the evening (which was part of the plan). Essentially, by the sound of things, Chris laid it all out, nobody particularly disagreed with him and it all seemed to make some sort of sense.

Debating possible structures and negotiating everybody’s suggested different permutations would have just been too much choice – and it sounds like everyone recognises that. As I said to Chris, sometimes you just want your mother to put a plate of food in front of you and tell you to eat it.

When the dust cleared, Peter Casey from Julia FM found himself to be the duly elected Chair, Peter Shaw of Waitakere City Country Radio is the Secretary and Aaron Skudder of Radio Chomsky has agreed to act as Treasurer. If nothing else, that seems to be a really good cross section of the kinds of station represented.

Looks like there was a pretty good turnout:

Broadcasters to the left…

Broadcasters to the right…

Broadcasters all round.

As I understand it, there are different levels of membership: full, associate and honorary. A full member represents a station and has voting rights. An associate member gets to go to the meeting, share in all the information and expertise, but can’t vote. That’d be your potential broadcasters and enthusiasts.

An honorary member is a person that doesn’t represent a radio station, but is deemed eligible to have a say for some reason. You have to be nominated and voted on to be an honorary member – so I’m flattered (whether it was simply decreed by Chris or a spontaneous suggestion from the group). Much appreciated.

Thanks to Secretary Peter Shaw for taking a few snaps to mark the momentous occasion. And special thanks to Chris Hocquard for making it all work.

They meet up again next week to sign everything and have their first real meeting as an incorporated society – and bloody good on them. I think there’s the makings of a really constructive organisation there, and I wish them all the best.