For those who attended last years CBAA conference in Canberra, you may remember the strategic planning workshop that was held by Colin Pidd. Those who attended the workshop gained much insight into the process of strategic planning and discovered that it's not as dull as it all sounds.

Strategic Planning always sounds so daunting and boring - so you'll be relieved to find that these notes explain "strategic planning" in plain English and give tips on how to run an inclusive, interesting and dare we say - "enjoyable" process!

Many thanks to Colin who spent some extra time fleshing out his notes so they would make some sense to all CBAA members - not just those who attended the workshop.

The notes are a collection of ideas from planners and community builders from all over the world and they are for CBAA members and other interested organisations, to be freely distributed. So photocopy as often as you like and give them to anyone you think may be interested.

Business planning may sound incredibly boring, or like just another bit of naval gazing - but the reality is, it's very important process that can really give you some direction, and point your station down the road to success.

Increasingly grant bodies, including the CBF, are requesting business plans from organisations as part of the grant application process. This is one way they have of assessing how effective an organisation is and how seriously it takes the "business" of running a radio or TV station.

So we have developed these pro-forma's to support you in an area of work that is of increasing importance - and is much simpler than most people first think. Feel free to copy, edit and restructure them to suit the culture of your station. We have developed a range of pro-forma business plans, illustrating a variety of styles that may inspire you to redesign your plan - or get started on your first one.

Enormous thanks to 3MBS, 4MBS, 4NAG FM, the City of Darebin in Victoria, David Melzer for their expertise and support in the development of these pro-formas.

There are three documents below you can download to get you started on your planning process. Firstly, there is a pro-forma business plan which virtually lets you fill in the blanks to make a full business plan, relevant to your station. The other two documents are examples of finished plans for mock community stations, to give you some more ideas of what you might want to include in your stations plan.