Community Radio Station takes to the airwaves next week
Friday, 27 June 2014
Recycle Radio: Hebden Bridge's very own Community Radio Station takes to the airwaves early next week.
Your Town, Your station. Get involved!!!
From 3rd to 6th July 2014, Recycle Radio will be broadcasting to you from Hebden Bridge Town Hall. There will be a continuous online streamed broadcast from 8am Thursday 3rd July to 7pm Sunday 6th July, available at www.recycleradio.co.uk.
Recycle Radio is a vital new community project operating from Hebden Bridge, covering the Upper Calder Valley. Based on a successful model trialled in Leeds, Salford and Chester, our initial 4 day live-streamed webcast will eventually develop into a fully licenced FM station serving Hebden Bridge and surrounding communities.
Our output will include news, music and interviews along with a number of segments designed to actively showcase community interest groups, projects and events along with local businesses, artists and musicians. There will be a huge variety of content, covering many musical genres, with broad appeal, reflecting the diversity of ages and abilities of the people involved in running the station. Audio content will be augmented by and integrated with social media, as well as a live phone-in facility, creating a real life interactive experience. This will be a unique opportunity to create a focal point for the community and a voice for local artists and community groups.
A small team of experienced radio producers have been running free training sessions over the past few months, sharing their expertise with local people who have wanted to get involved. Among these are school age children, school leavers, ranging through all generations, also local DJ's, known for their music events, including Chapter 4 and Heavy Crates.
The Mayor of Hebden Royd, Jonathan Timbers will be officially opening the station on air at 11am on Thursday 3rd July. We are hoping that local shops, cafes and businesses will support us by playing our staition throughout the day, (and of course there will be shout-outs for any businesses that bring us any useful freebies!).
This project launch was made possible by grants and support from Hebden Royd Town Council, Hebden Bridge Town Hall, The Archway Project (Youth project in Halifax), plus lottery funding. Our funding has not been as high as we initially hoped for, so we are still having to beg or borrow equipment from local businesses. There is no advertising on the station. However people and organisations that have given support will be acknowledged on air. Most of the work behind the scenes is being done by a dedicated team of volunteers, who will also be DJ-ing and running their own shows throughout the broadcast.
We are hoping to eventually charge the station using bike-powered generators. However we will need 6-8 of these and only one is available at the moment, which will contribute to the electricity used to run the studio. Broken mobility scooters, among other things, can be recycled into pedal-powered chargers. We will need some extra funding and/or donations to make this happen!
For further information, and for full programme listings, visit www.recycleradio.co.uk or Facebook or on Twitter.