Job done in Malawi

About to leave Blantyre for Joburg. In typical Air Malawi organisation I needed to check in at a counter that said “lusaka” to fly to Joeys, and the flight which is meant to be via Lilongwe is now an hour late and not stopping at Lilongwe. Wonder where we will land, and if our bags will be in the same place?

Posted by Mark Posted in: Projects No Comments » July 2008

Going on air at Ndengu

One of the last items on our agenda for our gathering in Malawi has been to establish an ON AIR date for the station. There are numerous obstacles to overcome, including university exams, a new baby coming to a missionary couple, a long overdue holiday for another missionary couple! So here is what we have decided to do:

1. Buks van de Merwe will accept appointment (by FRSA) as Station Development Manager at Ndengu, and will try to be in Malawi and on-site by the first week of September 2008.

2. Test transmissions will commence unofficially anytime after Buk’s arrival, to allow Graham to check all technical systems.

3. Official test transmissions, with a schedule of Yawo language broadcasts will commence on Monday 22 September 2008. There will be some tests also, of switching between the TWR network and the studio at Ndengu. Graham will use September to train Buks on all technical matters and studio equipment.

4. Anton Meyer will pull together a date for an official opening ceremony, plan the event, invite special guests from local and national radio. This date will likely be very late November or early December.

These dates are very tight, and a significant amount of faith is involved! Prayer needs:

1. audio and power cable between studio and tx hut arrives onsite from South Africa in less than 4 weeks

2. that Buks can get his exam centre changed from Pretoria to Zomba (Malawi) for his UNISA exams

3. Anton’s coordinating of an official opening ceremony nearer Christmas time

4. Buks can complete his support-raising goals in South Africa, for help from FRSA staff in this

5. Additional funding can be raised to purchase a generator set for the project

Posted by Mark Posted in: Newsworthy, Prayer, Projects No Comments » July 2008

Revised MOU signed for Ndengu project

Two and a half days of hard-talk, prayer, and desire to make the project happen, has resulted in a revised Memorandum of Understanding between the three Ndengu Project partners (Feba, TWR and SABU/BUSA). The document was put through a final discussion and edit this morning, and signed on behalf of partners by Mark Taylor, Keith Moller, and Patrick Semphere. The new agreement moves the project from construction phase to operations stage, and includes agreed partner values, functional issues of programming, technical matters, administration of the project, relationships between partners, compliance with Malawi government regulations, staion identity, and culural sensitivity.

 

 

Posted by Mark Posted in: Newsworthy, Projects No Comments » July 2008

New ‘correct names’ for Malawi

I was interested today to hear that the ‘official’ spellings have changed: what we have always spelled as Yao now needs to be rendered Yawo. In a similar way, referring to the language of the Yawo people, we now need to say CiYawo instead of the original ChiYao.

Posted by Mark Posted in: Newsworthy, Projects, Uncategorized No Comments » July 2008

Breakthrough in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe National Director, Kurai Madzonga, told me with great excitement today that discussions with the General Manager and Marketing Manager of the National Broadcaster seems to have resulted in agreement that Feba may resume 250 minutes of programming per week from 01 August. This agreement is not yet in writing so please pray for that to happen, and that encouraged, the Zimbabwe team will produce quality content.

Posted by Mark Posted in: Newsworthy No Comments » July 2008

Jesus water

I ocassionally like to listen to real old style gospel music and early today I heard these words about the time Jesus met a woman at a well:

“Jesus gave her water, but it wasn’t from the well”

And that spoke to me. We need water to live, and naturally we go to the place we expect to get water. Jesus offerred a very different kind of water, something she needed, something that would last. Today, I am thinking about my own usual watering holes, and how some of these dry up from time to time, and I am thankful that Jesus water is not from the well.

Lord, help me to trust you more completely with my life and what I am on earth to do. Amen

Posted by Mark Posted in: Refresh No Comments » July 2008

Cybertalk and face-to-face

Just a comment after a productive day of meetings in Pretoria that although we tried to talk a number of things through over Skype, last week, we accomplished so much more face to face today. Skype is great for regular team collaboration and I have several projects with disbursed teams that are really working productively using a combo of Skype and Basecamp.

But for dealing with emotive and sensitive matters, the body language, and subtle inflections are missed in Skype. Wonder what others experience is?

Posted by Mark Posted in: New Media No Comments » July 2008

iPhone worth the wait

I don’t expect too much oohing and aahing from most work colleagues, but I have my shiny knew iPhone 3G and I like a pig in mud. This is sent from the phone using the mobile option when entering Site Admin from any Feba blog.

Posted by Mark Posted in: Personal News No Comments » July 2008

Testing

Posting via GPRS to WordPress on Train to London Victoria.

Posted by Mark Posted in: Blog Design, Site Administration No Comments » July 2008

Could ‘categories’ help us work smarter?

I wondered last night about categories as a means of seperating posts on our blogs into some clear, well-defined, and purposeful compartments. For example, if we had a category we called newsworthy, anyone writing a post they consider has potential for I&C to pick up as a story lead, could find it there.

There might be a debate over whether categories or tags will do this best – I imagine having the facilty where I&C are able to quickly access all posts from all blogs that are categorised or tagged as newsworthy and then take things from there.

Once we establish how this can work, it could generate more story leads, and give Feba staff more of a hands-on involvement in developing the kinds of stories that stir people’s hearts, imaginations, and support of our work.

It could also be something of a model for how we might define other helpful categories to include as default categories in our blogging system.

Posted by Mark Posted in: New Media No Comments » July 2008

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