FILE PHOTO

Image Credit: PEXELS

A Shuswap community radio station that feared a sudden influx of new members was a coordinated attempt to take over the airwaves by people strongly opposed to pandemic measures, has been saved by an even bigger upsurge of new members who joined to save the station from being taken over.

At an annual general meeting, Feb. 16, Voice of the Shuswap members voted in five directors, none with dissenting views about COVID-19 or vaccines.

"I think maybe they fantasized that this would be the place they could go and their voices would be heard loud and clear, as it turns out cooler heads prevailed," Voice of the Shuswap president Warren Bell told iNFOnews.ca. "In the end, the vote was for the slate that (the radio station) had put forward."

The peculiar situation at the radio station in Salmon Arm started at the beginning of January when the decade-old not-for-profit group suddenly saw an inpouring of membership, many from outside of the Shuswap or even out of the province.

READ MORE: Hostile takeover? Anti-vaxxers move to overtake Shuswap community radio board

Membership went from 40 to more than 400.

The station feared it was a coordinated attempt to take over the station by people strongly opposed to pandemic measures.

"Some of the people involved we knew had some very conspiracy orientated ideas about what was happening and huge anger and frustration," Bell said.

However, on hearing the news about the huge increase in membership from those wanting to change the station, the community has rallied and more people have joined to counteract the takeover.

Bell said it's difficult to know how many people who joined were from the "dissident community" – as a physician he refuses to use the term anti-vaxxer or anti-masker – but he estimated maybe 40 or 50.

"It could have been 50 it could have been 100, but clearly on the night... it was the minority," he said.

More than 200 members attended the annual general meeting on Zoom and voted in five directors, out of six candidates.

The station now has a nine-person board.

Bell said it's normally difficult to get people to join, and prior to this year, the board only had six members, with the other three positions left unfilled.

He had a few anxieties before the annual general meeting, but the event was in part organized by the National Campus and Community Radio Association and everything went smoothly and no one tried to disrupt what was going on.

Now, the station will return to broadcasting as it always has, albeit with a 10 fold increase in members.

For more information about the radio station go here.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2022