The station was founded by Jim Priebe, a Stouffville resident. Priebe started research for the station while studying Radio Broadcasting at Humber College. He developed the slogan “about people you know, by people you know” to reflect the local nature of the programming. Stephen Sword, who later became a Director, Membership Director and Vice-Chair, had independently come up with the name “whistle” as a play on the name of the municipality Whitchurch-Stouffville. With Sword’s permission, Priebe re-spelt whistle as “WhiStle” and branded the station WhiStle Radio.

Sword later organized a Guinness World Record event for “most number of people whistling in one venue”. The whistle off, as it came to be called, included 119 people and was held June 30, 2007 during Stouffville’s Strawberry Festival. The whistle off was the brainchild of Halvor Moorshead, an influential director on the WhiStle Radio board.

WhiStle Radio started as an internet station, webcasting on whistleradio.com. While at Humber, one of Priebe’s instructors was the late Marc Chambers, who was also a dee jay at 1050 CHUM. Chambers introduced Priebe to Paul Lico, who lived in Whitchurch-Stouffville and owned a broadcasting equipment company. When Lico learned of Priebe’s initiative to start a station with immediate plans to webcast local hockey, he donated several thousand dollars of equipment. Priebe asked one of his classmates, Ryan Fabro, self-nicknamed Fabs, to call live play-by-play of Stouffville Spirit OPJHL Junior A Hockey. Fabro started calling the play-by-play in October 2005. He was later joined by Jim LeMaitre, the station’s second announcer. They were soon joined by Daryl Macklem and Wayne Geen, who called the “away” games.

In the spring of 2005, Brian O’Sullivan, a Stouffville resident and musician, approached Priebe and offered to be a liason with Stouffville’s music community. O’Sullivan organized a concert fundraiser for the fledgling station, called The Stars of Stouffville. The event took place in February 2006. The funds raised were used to hire an engineer to perform the studies necessary for the radio broadcasting application. The musicians who played at the fundraiser included Grainne Ryan, Cris Cuddy, Marion Drexler, Justin Kerswill, Poor Tom (Wanda Stride and Susan Lukes), Carys Montgomery, Tom Pullin and Marcus Adrian.

During this time, in addition to Priebe and Lico, Lyons Asset Management, Barthau Jewellers (see also Whitchurch Stouffville Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award), Edward Jones, Moorshead Publications, Skywords Traffic, Caught-In-Motion Equestrian Photography, The Lions Club of Stouffville and Robert and Friederika Bental became the station’s founding sponsors by donating at least $1,000. Jay Mowat, founder of Erin Radio also made a substantial donation and provided invaluable assistance in a number of different areas critical to the launch of the station.

In November 2006, WhiStle Radio was granted a licence by the CRTC ^[1] to operate as a low power community radio station. Robin Steckly and Lins O’Connor came forward with an offer of assistance to help Priebe organize a fundraising and promotional breakfast, called The Breaking News Breakfast. Approximately $500 was raised at the event, held at Sleepy Hollow Golf Club, but more importantly to the station, an offer of premises was made as a direct result of the event.

Guerin Barry, a professional whistler, came across the whistle radio website by accident, confusing it with Whistler, BC. He contacted Priebe suggesting a fundraiser. It soon became clear that WhiStle Radio was too far away. Barry did agree to do some pro bono stations ids for WhiStle Radio, in keeping with their name. Later, Priebe would send Barry the complete recordings of The Whistler Old Time Radio show as a thank you.

The station formally launched on March 17, 2008.^[2], after receiving a $15,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant (a second successful Ontario Trillium application was submitted in November 2009.), materials from Schell Lumber, and technical assistance from Tom Richmond (founder of CJAI, Amherst Island Radio. The Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville made significant contributions in 2009 and again in 2010.Stouffville’s Boston Pizza (see also Whitchurch-Stouffville Chamber of Commerce Corporate Citizen award for 2010) helped with a fundraiser on several occasions, offered up their location for the WhiStle launch party and purchased substantial advertising to help the station. Sandy Mackenzie’s State Farm Insurance purchased significant advertising starting in 2008.

From the station’s launch to Priebe’s last day, in addition to Spirit Hockey, the programming schedule included Dave’s Jukebox (host Dave Booth), Howdy Neighbor Howdy (host Gary Tate), Asylum for your Soul (host Ken Cowle), Artists’ Corner, Vinyl Vault (host Gord Bibby), a feature by the Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library, a local history show (host Stephen Sword on behalf of the Whitchurch-Stouffville Museum), The Art Studio (host Valeris Ashton), Dee Jay for A Day – a hour dedicated to those wanting to host a single show of their own design, Race Time Radio (host Joe Chisholm), Honky Tonk Outlaws (host Lloyd Welke), a weather report by Brenda Amelard, The Pub (Bill Perrie), Auto Talk, Edge of the Cliff (host Steve Cliff), The Village Pump, Swing with the Big Bands, live coverage of Al & Trudy Yetman’s jam at Cedar Beach Grill, Monday Night Blues (music chosen by Dave Booth), and a Children’s show by Children’s librarian Ann Houle. Micole Ongman did a series on health and recreation. The students at Whitchurch-Highlands Public School also produced and hosted a show titled The Howl Hour for a short time. The SOWNY Show, (Don Andrews and the late Craig Smith), and Rock of Ages (Steve and Marcello Sperandeo) aired through 2009. Priebe hosted Live to Five, and before that,  On The Air. Tara Donaghey took over as host of Live to Five.

Behind the scenes, Gary Burke provided invaluable technical support, making it possible for the station to accommodate the wide number of hosts that it does.

In January 2010, Jim Priebe announced his resignation as Chairman. A new board was elected at the Annual General Meeting in February 2010 .

WhiStle Radio was awarded the Hall of Fame award by the Whitchurch-Stouffville Chamber of Commerce in September 2010.

You see, over the last several months I have been developing a show in conjunction with Rogers Community – gasp – Television. Yes, you read that correctly. Television. Obviously I’ve been corrupted from my radio purity.

The show looks like it is a go. To start it will be a “mini-series”, probably six episodes, and each episode will showcase York Region musicians. I’ll be the host and each episode will be a mixture of interview and musical performance. I’ve already got a number of excellent musicians on board for the project, but I still need some more.

That’s actually why I’m blogging about this now – if you’re a musician living in York Region please contact me (jim @ yourownpodcast . com), or if you know of someone have them contact me. I’m especially looking for some high school “garage bands”.

Ah well, even Darth Vader found redemption.

Jim

I’ve been developing a white paper, Podcasting for Business Success, (a draft version is available now upon request) and I’ve given some thought as to whether this idea can actually be brought to life in the form of a viable company.

The mission of Your Own Podcast is to help organizations use podcasts effectively and profitably in their marketing and customer service mix. My motivation is that I love producing audio, and I have a passion to bring others to this media.

While I’m not at the stage where I’m marketing my services, I would really like to answer any questions you may have about podcasts. This will help me understand the interest level out there, and how, if at at all, to position the company.

There’s no charge for this, and send me any questions you may have, even if it is “what’s a podcast”. Send ‘em to me, jim @ yourownpodcast -dot- com (you’ll need to edit that e-mail.)

~Jim

On Thursday May 6, starting at 8:00pm, Doc Snake will give a history of the Blues, from his perspective. The fun takes place in Stouffville, at the Earl of Whitchurch pub. A blues jam follows, starting at about 9:30pm.

Doc Snake is the creation of Hurricane Mike Thompson.

Tickets are $10. Contact me for tickets.

Thanks to the York Region Fingerstyle Guitar Association for their sponsorship and support of this event.

Yours in Radio,

Mark your calendars for Thursday May 6. I’ve got a great evening of the blues organized at the Earl Pub. Starting at 8:00pm Hurricane Mike Thompson will be giving his take on the history of the Blues. He’ll be playing as well as talking and this is sure to be a informative and entertaining time.

After the Hurricane we’ve got a blues jam planned, so don’t miss out.

Tickets for the evening are only $10. E-mail me or leave a comment on this blog to order.

Hope to see you!

Yours in Radio,

Jim

The Stouffville Sun wrote a great article about Verity, his Dylan influences, Verity’s rock band years and the journey back to folk & roots. Read the article at http://www.stouffvillesun.com/News/Whitchurch-Stouffville/article/93934

Tickets are $10. The show starts at 8:00pm, and the venue is 19 on the Park. Tickets are available at the box office in person or by calling (905) 640-2322, Barthau Jewellers, Candlelight and Memories, Cedar Beach Grill, and 410 Auto.

Peter Verity  knows how to pack lots of drama into the songs he sings … Verity passes  as folksy-version of Steve Earle RL, Sing Out! Magazine Fall 2006

The next WhiStle house concert is Friday August 14, featuring Grainne Ryan.

The WhiStle Radio House Concert Series is inspired by The Greenbank Folk Music Society. The Greenbank Folk Music Society is a volunteer, non-profit group that has been dedicated to bringing the best Canadian roots and traditional folk and blues music to small town Ontario since 1993.

Jim

CTV Anchor Bill Hutchison dropped by our studios and did a nice feature about us. Visit http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip150107#clip150107 to view.

Jim

Well it is good to be here and good to see you

If I were to give this project and official start date, I’d say May 2005 when I first went to council. The plans that I announced there were for a five watt station under a so-called developmental license.

I was convinced by the engineers to go for 50 watts, which took a bit more money, more time and a more detailed application but their advice was good … even 50 watts isn’t enough …

From there we got some key supporters at an early start Barthau Jewllers, The Lions Club of Stouffville and Lyons Asset Management put up funds for the necessary engineering study.

Paul Lico at Pro Resolution Audio made what I consider to be a pivotal donation because he gave us the necessary equipment to start webcasting Spirit hockey games … which is how WhiStle Radio began.

Donations have been steadily coming in … we received a Trillium Grant at the end of ’07, a donation of premises, a place for for our antenna and Schell Lumber donated material for our studios … membership dollars and advertising dollars keep coming in and that keeps us going …

A community station is a different kind of station … we’re not for profit, and we provide community access to programmin , as required by the CRTC … the challenge has been and will continue to be to provide something that people will actually want to listen to …

One of the most satisfying aspects to me was something I never anticipated – I can’t tell you how much I admire the volunteers that make the station run … from board members who I see regularly to show hosts who I almost never see, the time commitment provided is phenomenal … and greatly satisfying …

I also like how WhiStle Radio is bringing in many different generations from the community … we’ve got regular volunteers from teens to seniors … and everyone in-between. I am personally working to develop a children’s show

To me the main thing about community radio is that it is some kind of a mix of public service and good fun … on the one hand we want to provide something to listeners that is local in nature and different from what’s on their current menu of choices … we also want to service local businesses that want to advertise and local charities that want to get their message out … on the other hand we want to provide a space where people can create radio shows because creating radio shows is an enjoyable thing to do.

Thank you.

Jim

WhiStle Radio has received a donation of 100 CDs, consisting mainly of folk, blues and roots music from Brian Gladstone. Brian is big in the Toronto Folk scene, and is creator and organizer of Winterfolk, an annual folk festival held in mid-winter in Toronto. More information about winterfolk can be found at http://www.winterfolk.com/WinterfolkV.htm.

I’ve been one of the MCs for the past two years, and can tell you it is an excellent event.

The CDs are being sorted & categorized and will be making their way into our playlist in the coming months.

Thanks Brian!!

Jim