Amanda Knack discovered CKUA around 2007 and quickly fell in love.
She had just had laser eye surgery and couldn’t work for a few days.
Then she heard that she could go on a tour of the old CKUA building. “I thought, ‘that sounds amazing!’” she says, from her home in Edmonton. “So I came and just fell in love with CKUA even further.”
There are many reasons she fell so hard, she says.
“I just love the variety. I’m never bored and I just love the hosts.”
It didn’t take her long to start volunteering. “I signed up right away, pretty much the day after the tour. I was just so enthralled with the place.”
Knack, who is also a donor, has helped out in almost all departments, she says, including answering phones at fundraisers, making thank you calls and event volunteering.
Her favourite thing about her connection with CKUA is the feeling of community.
“Even just as listeners, I feel like we’re all sort of part of a family. And there’s something really special about that.”
When it comes to volunteering, Knack is a people person, first and foremost.
“I like anything that’s people-facing so I love doing events, I love Folk Fest, working the tent, giving away swag and seeing people,” she says. “Some people just come up and want to hug us, want to just love on us because they love CKUA so again, the common thread of that family feeling is there.”
When it comes to the on-air side of things, Knack enjoys it all.
“CKUA is literally on in my house 100% of the time. And there’s never been a time where I say, ‘I don’t like that, I’m turning that off,’” she says.
Knack’s business, The Blonde Leading the Blind, a window-covering company, keeps her busy but she finds time for all kinds of other passion pursuits beyond CKUA. One of her favourites is hosting house concerts in her home.
“I just love the intimacy of a very small show and bringing someone’s words and feelings and music to a crowd of really attentive people,” she says. “Strangers walk into my home and it’s like we’ve been friends all along.”
She also loves to get crafty and to play her many instruments, piano, banjo, and ukulele among them.
Knack says that she’ll always be grateful for the friendly, music-loving community CKUA creates.
“I work on my own so I don’t really have a workplace family or a group of people I see all the time, so it’s really special to have the people of CKUA sort of be my family.”
Thanks for all you give back to CKUA, Amanda!
Interested in donating to CKUA? Click here. Maybe you’d like to volunteer! Click here.
“Bang Bang” by Sarah Jane Scouten, who will be Knack’s next house concert performer:
Park Power
