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The Foundation's largest grant round is looming - have you started your grant applications yet?

Amrap grants are all about supporting more airplay of contemporary Australian music on community radio - and we've just simplified our grant categories to make it easier for you to apply for funds to support the production, promotion and development of Australian music content.

General - Station grants can help your station to purchase up to $10,000 worth of studio equipment. You can also apply for a salary subsidy or other projects. Last year we distributed more than $190,000 to stations in this category.

Transmission Support - Equipment grants can help your station purchase and install essential transmission equipment or conduct activities that will improve your transmission facilities. Grants of up to $50,000 are available, with matched funding required for grants over $10,000.

If you have high resolution happy snaps of your broadcasters in action, we may include you on the cover or in our Annual Report for others to see the good things that are happening at your station.

We recently sent a letter to stations and organisations that received CBF grants in 2009/10 identifying all of the CBF grants that were paid in that financial year and notifying you if you are required to provide an Auditor's Financial Certificate (AFC) for the financial year.

The CBF is seeking feedback on what areas CBOnline should focus its funding on over the coming years. Please take the time to complete this short (5 min) survey. It's your opportunity to have a say as to how future CBOnline funding could be offered.

A new 'Community Media Training Organisation' will be set up to manage the National Training Project and act as a national Registered Training Organisation. The NTP will also introduce a new category of non-accredited 'Pathways' training. These initiatives were decided on at a special meeting of the CBF Board held last week to consider the redevelopment of the NTP.

The Foundation welcomes the Australian Government's ongoing support for the community broadcasting sector, as detailed in the Federal budget commitment of $12.5 million in 2010/11, including Digital Radio and RPH transmission support funding.

To get a picture of the Australian community broadcasting sector, check out the "snapshot" of sector statistics.

Getting Indigenous music on the airwaves just became easier thanks to Amrap’s AirIT and the Australian Music Industry Network.

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Hon. Senator Stephen Conroy has allocated spectrum and $2.6 million in funding to enable community television stations to commence digital broadcasting.

The National Training Project launched its website this week, community television and cross-platform media training are now included within the scope of the National Training Project, and a report has been prepared about the training of technologists in the sector.

The peak national community broadcasting sector organisations meet regularly with the CBF as the Funding Strategy Group (FSG) to consider sector funding needs. A submission formulated by the FSG has recently been lodged with the Minister for Communications, seeking his support for an increase in Australian Government funding support within the context of the 2010/11 budget and beyond.

This month Amrap has launched AirIT - a free online catalogue of Australian music for community broadcasters.

The funding allocation in 2009/10 for the Community Broadcasting Program is just over $16 million, the highest level of support the sector has ever received.

Funds to assist metropolitan community radio stations to establish the infrastructure to expand their services into digital transmission have been confirmed in the 2009/10 Federal Budget.

Funds totalling $2.5 million over four years were announced by the Government in the 2009/10 Budget to extend the sector's National Training Project which provides broadcast and management training to community broadcasters.