Trainer Janice Reid teaches creative scriptwriting to Indonesian radio announcers.

(Dec. 14, 2012 - by Harold Goerzen) The eagerness of a dozen of radio partners in Indonesia to improve their announcing skills was so great that radio trainers had trouble keeping up with them at a recent weeklong seminar.

"The participants were kept busy with an intense schedule that began daily at 8 a.m. and finished as late as 10 p.m. for seven days," said Janice Reid of HCJB Global's Asia Pacific Region. She led the training together with James Totton.

"By the time Sunday came, after five full days of classes and practical activities, everyone was in need of a break," she continued. "The students went to the beach after church while trainers took a more 'energy-conservation' approach and stayed at the hotel to rest!"

James Totton leads a class on multi-track editing.

The 12 announcers, representing 11 partner stations from across Indonesia, gathered for the October event having been "specially selected for their previous experience and/or attendance at training run by HCJB Global in the previous 18 months," Reid related.

The course, known as Radio 201, is intended to help announcers move on with more advanced skills of program hosting and production so they can take on responsibilities as senior staff members at their respective stations.

"The aim was that Radio 201 would become a natural progression from Radio 101-the training that mission staff designed to introduce new staff to good principles and practice in Christian radio," Reid explained. "In Radio 101, students were taught basic skills such as how to position oneself in front of a microphone; how to set volume levels on the studio mixer; and how to get to know the listeners."

Students work to complete their final projects.

"Radio 201 moves beyond that, introducing topics such as community involvement in radio outreach (for example, the local church, people living near the station, existing listeners or potential listeners); how Christian ethics applies to radio; how to do radio interviews; how to record and edit voice using appropriate software; and how to produce a 'voice-tracked' program so that it sounds nearly live, even when there is no announcer in the studio."

To conclude the course, each student presented a final project-a 15-minute radio program. "Participants had to plan the program, research and write creative content, record an interview, record and process announcer input, and then mix the whole using multi-track editing software," Reid recounted. "Evaluation of the projects provided useful feedback both for participants and trainers."

The training sparked numerous comments from students such as, "It's really helpful because we know how to be a better announcer and make better programs so that it can be understood by the listener and make their life better."

Plans are already in place to offer both the basic and advanced courses again in 2013 and in the foreseeable future.

Source: HCJB Global