First Nations Media NEWS | Nominations closing soon :: CONVERGE Sydney Early Bird

At CONVERGE Brisbane in March, IRCA members voted on a new name for our organisation to better represent our role as a national peak body representing broadcasters and media organisations in remote, regional and urban areas. A broad list of suggestions was narrowed down throughout the conference until a new name was decided: First Nations Media Australia.

Over the months since our team has been busy preparing for this transition and developing the new logo you can see above. So now we are pleased to announce we are officially using our new name!

You can now find us at:
www.firstnationsmedia.org.au
facebook.com/firstnationsmediaaustralia
twitter.com/FNMediaAust

Our staff emails will now end with @firstnationsmedia.org.au as well. But don't worry, if you forget and use IRCA, you will get through to us for a little while yet.

As part of CONVERGE Sydney's program we're excited to be celebrating the technicians who get our media out to audiences across the country. In November we will be:

presenting a Technical Innovation Award as part of the inaugural First Nations Media Awards (get your nominations in this week!)
running sessions in the program focused on technical developments
welcoming our new event sponsors, Broadcast Components who will be showcasing new equipment and available to talk tech solutions for radio and television broadcast throughout the conference.

Nominations for the inaugural First Nations Media Awards have been rolling in over the last few weeks. With 18 different awards categories to choose from, the First Nations Media Awards aims to celebrate all areas of our sector, from the content-makers to the behind the scenes supporters and the people who deserve recognition for years of media service. Don't miss out on nominating a person from your team or a project you believe deserves recognition. Nominations close on Friday 31 August.

This week representatives from First Nations media organisations travelled to Canberra to deliver a Parliamentary Briefing to Ministers and their staff and to speak directly with members of Labor's First Nations Caucus Committee. A media conference was held in the Mural Hall with our Chair, Dot West speaking directly to the press gallery about our calls for action from government.

The delegation spent several days in the Capital, holding individual meetings with Members of Parliament, the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet, the Department of Communications and the Arts and other stakeholders.

This trip was a great opportunity to build on our existing relationships within government and to establish new connections. We look forward to sharing some of the outcomes of those discussions over the coming months.
#ourmediamatters

Garma 2018
Our General Manager, Daniel Featherstone headed to Gulkula in Gumatj country for Garma 2018 with a delegation supported by Telstra, who fund our inDigiMOB Digital Mentors program. This was a great opportunity to network with Telstra managers and staff and representatives from other Telstra funded programs including the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence’s IDX program, Queensland Library's Deadly Digital Communities and Financial Counselling Australia.
The indigiMOB project, now in its third year, is focused on building digital inclusion skills and tools for people living in 13 remote communities across the Northern Territory.

Garma is attended by about 2,500 people each year. This year, the key theme for the festival was yuwalk lakamara (truth-telling). Delegates were welcomed by Galarrwuy Yunupingu AM and Yothu Yindi Foundation CEO Denise Bowden, and we heard a powerful keynote presentation from Djawa Yunupingu along with presentations by Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson, Minister Scullion and many more. The cultural festival included artwork on display, Bunggul dance performances on the Gumatj nation ceremonial site, performances from Top End musicians and bands...all being broadcast out across the country live from ARDS and shared via Facebook Live by NITV.

Overall it was a great showcase of Yolngu culture and activities, a space for discussing Trbig ideas, and a reminder of the important role First Nations media plays in the truth-telling.

indigiMOB has begun its third year with program
(and possibly final) with team planning meetings and key stakeholder meetings. The inDigiMOB team hopes to consolidate the relationships it has in twelve communities across the NT, providing additional support to the Digital Access Workers and Digital Mentors on the ground to enable them to pass on their techy skills to other community members. Further effort will go into adding another partner organisation to the inDigiMOB team and delivering outreach workshops to some communities that are not part of the program yet.

Meanwhile, after contributing to the Darwin inDigiMOB Digital Mentor workshop in June, animation specialist, Jonathan Daw, started working with inDigiMOB in late July. He is now engaged in facilitating animation workshops to support our partners and increase remote community participant’s digital skills.

Some new resources

Violence against women is now recognised to be a serious and widespread problem in Australia. It is ultimately preventable, but first we need to understand it. Our media sector often plays in a role in bringing those difficult conversations to light. If this is something you're addressing, or considering talking about in your radio program, television piece or print article, you might want to take a look at the resources Our Watch has prepared for guidance on language, facts and figures, and a range of papers specific to the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children aimed to help change the picture.

Media Diversity Australia has created a handbook to help guide media professionals on reporting on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and issues. The document is intended as a introductory resource for media which might be useful for some of your mainstream media contacts, training projects with partner schools and/or program guests.

For Board members....

Leep Community has published this Quick Guide to Better Board Meetings which might be helpful to some of our the newer Board members in our sector. Or as a refresher for our experienced Boards!

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is hosting a free webinar on 25 September, 2018 (12pm-1pm AEST) to introduce new Board members to the responsibilities and duties of being a Director. This webinar will focus on good governance practices for people just settling into a Board position.

CBF GRANT ROUND 2

The Community Broadcasting Foundation Round 2 grants for 2018-19 are now open for application to support new Content project ideas (radio and TV) and/or Development & Operations requirements such as infrastructure, development projects and training. This grant round is focused on projects to begin in the second half of the 2018-19 financial year. It is also the last opportunity to request funding support for transitioning out of the 800MHz band.
APPLICATIONS CLOSE TODAY.