Stephen Poole, Co-presenter

When I first saw a leaflet about Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association (BSCRA) in 2009, I thought the station was up and running!
Thinking this might be a useful advertising medium for my clients (I’m a freelance marketing consultant) I attended a meeting to discover it was still in an embryonic state.
In what turned out to be a last-ditch attempt to enthuse local residents, Winsome from Southern Brooks Community Partnership organised some free Radio Workshops and I went along.
Those workshops gave everyone a taste of what we might be able to achieve if enough people stepped up to the mark to help push the project forward.

The evening of 19th April 2010 is one I shall never forget. Leaving the church hall meeting as the new ‘Chair’ of BSRCA with a dozen names and a handful of telephone numbers I remember thinking ‘How hard can it be to set up a radio station?’ Well, now I know…it took a lot of hard graft to get the station on the air, and it was from a relatively small number of volunteers who had careers, partners, children and a myriad of other personal commitments.

In the 15 months leading up to the first broadcast, I led this ‘merry band’ (well, mostly merry) of volunteers to raise sufficient funds to build, furnish and equip a studio; train the membership (which blossomed to over 70, ranging in age from 14 to 91) and promote and produce a 2 week ‘live’ FM broadcast in June 2011. At which point I must say, we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. We’d finished our first broadcast, still had a little money in the bank, and were situated in a fantastic location, courtesy of Scott and the Willow Brook Centre team. We had our eyes on a few possible ‘permanent’ locations for the studio and, due to some incredible technical support, were able to broadcast online 24/7, 365 days a year.

In July I stood down as Chair and handed the baton to Lucy. Now, as a ‘normal’ member – if there is such a thing, I’m enjoying co-presenting a BSR/BCfm simulcast show with Matt ‘double’ V and helping out with radio advertising. Now into our second FM broadcast we are ‘live’ on 87.7FM until the 17th of December and I can tell you it makes me very proud to turn on the radio in the house, or car, and hear our members putting out some great community radio content. Shortly after the Christmas / New Year break we shall be moving to our new home so, be prepared to lend a hand in what promises to be the next big step in the development of Bradley Stoke Radio.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!