Farewell to Ash

Some sad news... we are losing Ash.

Ash(ish) joined the Orange Ribbon team in 2006 after the program had been in recesss for a year. Both he and Ka Fam were initially trained by Allan, and introduced to program presentation on JOY with a 3-month stint on a Sunday-morning international music program called Launchpad, which ran from June to August, 2006. During this time Allan also introduced Ash to studio panel operations and he soon became a competent studio panel operator as well.

Then at the end of August, 2006, a revamped Orange Ribbon hit the airwaves again, and Ash has been a membert of the team since that date.

However, while Ash has been taking a recent break due to a visit from India by his family, he has now decided to take a break from Orange Ribbon altogether, so we will no longer have him working with us.

Thanks Ash for your work, and good luck for your future plans and activities. We will miss you.

A few opening remarks introducing this blog

The Orange Ribbon program began on JOY 94.9 around July, in 1998, and has continued as a weekly gay & lesbian multicultural program ever since, with just a few btreaks off-air during the intervening period.

The program was started in 1998 by Kim and Shanton, and they were joined in July, 1999 by Allan. In the meantime, both Kim and Shanton have moved on due to other commitments, work assignments elsewhere etc., and Allan remains as the sole (near to) original presenter of the program.

A number of others have been a part of the team over the life of the program, with the current presenters as per the composite photo at the head of this blog. These are:

• Allan: Australian who is now retired after 40 years in the I.T. industry. Allan lives with his Singaporean Chinese partner of 13 years.
• Aline: Of French origin, who joined the team in late 2007. Aline works in the accounting and auditing field.
• Ash: Born in India, but has been in Australia for several years now. Works in the service industry, and lives with his Indian partner.
• Hugh: Scottish, but moved to Australia several years ago. Hugh works in catering management.
• Ka Fam: Born in India of Chinese heritage. Lived in Australia for many years. He works as a horticulturalist.

Currently, the team is somewhat "short handed" because Aline has been moved to Brisbane for a 6-month assignment, but expects to be back in Melbourne, and re-joining the team, from sometime in November.

And Ka Fam is currently undertaking training workshops which just happen to conflict with our Wednesday evening broadcasts, so he is also currently absent but expects to be back on board in October, all being well.

And Allan heads off on one of his many/frequent visits to Hong Kong from 21st August. On this occasion he will be away for almost 3 weeks. But he heads off back to Hong Kong yet again from 16th October (this time with his partner in tow for the first week...) for another 4 weeks.

So Hugh and Ash will be covering the program during these two pweiods, although Ka Fam will have re-joined the team by October anyway, so that should alleviate the situation.