the community radio toolkit

In December and January, BBC Audio & Music will be opening the doors of its Radio HQs for two evenings of networking and guest speakers:

1) 5pm-7.30pm, Thursday 6 December 2012 – New Broadcasting House, London

2) 5pm-7.30pm, Wednesday 16 January 2013 – BBC Quay House, MediaCityUK, Salford

Sessions on the evenings are:

a) The importance of community radio in the developing world and the work of BBC Media Action

b) My journey from community radio to the BBC, from 1Xtra’s newest signing Yasmin Evans

c) My radio career – Nihal, BBC Asian Network, London / Mary Anne Hobbs in Salford

Members of the Community Media Association (CMA) and their community radio colleagues are invited to attend.

Please RSVP to this email address (internal.communication@bbc.co.uk), indicating which date you would like to attend.

Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis to CMA members.

This post was submitted by Bill Best.

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Ex-BBC man starts community Former BBC Senior Audio supervisor and WRN founder Tim Ashburner has launched a new community radio station covering the town of Marlow. Marlow FM started broadcasting this week, after a journey which included two RSL broadcasts before being granted a full time licence in 2009. The station is serving 36,000+ listeners from converted changing rooms and toilets at a local activity centre. Marlow FM will broadcast 60 per cent of original programming a week with its 80+ volunteers. We’re told the playout system was written by a local IT volunteer and allows presenters to upload, edit tracks and create playlists from home before arriving at the studio. Marlow FM has also created a suitcase studio allowing anyone with basic training to travel anywhere with broadband or 3G and broadcast live. The case has Mics, Mixer, codec and track store and is totally self contained. Sky News is fed on the return link for inclusion in the OB Using BT private dc pairs. the station has low cost presence at local landmarks such as the local park, the football ground and river.

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The BBC College of Production website, part of the BBC Academy, was launched on 21 February 2011. The first of its kind for the production community in the UK, the website provides practical advice on all aspects of TV, radio and online production and will be available to the production community and general public for free.

It is hoped that the website will become a valuable asset not only for training BBC staff, but an authoritative and useful resource for the wider broadcasting industry, for people seeking to enter the industry and for other interested audiences.

We think it’s a potentially invaluable resource; what do you think?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofproduction/


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Building on the House of Lords statement on community radio last week, those in and around the London area in February may be interest in attending the following seminar and discussion.

Culture Secretary, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP to address viewers and listeners - Tuesday, 8 February, 6-7.30pm in Palace of Westminster.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt will speak and take questions from listeners, viewers  and media users generally at a Voice of the Listener Westminster Seminar in the House of Commons  on Tuesday, 8th February from 6 – 7.30pm.  There is no charge to attend but tickets must be obtained in advance from VLV. See details below. …

1 Comment | In: News | tags: BBC, jeremy hunt, licence fee settlement, palace of westminster, voice of the listener and viewer. | #

Dear all

The CMA will be meeting with the BBC early February to discuss how the operation of the Memorandum of Understanding is being implemented on the ground, both for community radio and other community media organisations.

Please do let us know examples of both the good practice/relationships you have with your local BBC and also any examples of issues/difficulties you may be experiencing.

You can find the latest updated MoU at:

http://www.commedia.org.uk/2009/12/11/cma-bbc-mou/

This gives examples of existing collaborations/assistance/relationships that you can use when approaching your local BBC editor,

We look forward to hearing from you,

Best wishes

Jaqui

–
Jaqui Devereux
Director, Community Media Association

This post was submitted by jaquid.

1 Comment | In: Community Submitted News | tags: BBC, CMA, feedback, memorandum of understanding, mou. | #

Hello everyone,

As you should all know, we have an agreement in place with the BBC English regions Radio stations which sets out good practice and ideas for collaborative working between CMA members and local BBC (English Regions only at present).

A copy can be found here: http://www.commedia.org.uk/2009/12/11/cma-bbc-mou/

This has now been in place for six months and is due to be reviewed by us both. Therefore would you be good enough to supply me with good and not so good practice? Has the MOU helped you get that ‘foot in the door’? Or has the door been firmly ‘shut’?

There are mutual benefits to be had with this collaboration as identified in the current MOU and it would be good to highlight other ways we can work together and share ideas nationally. Don’t forget – we have a great deal to offer BBC radio stations. I’ll kick it off with a good example:

As reported in Radio Today 19/04/10:

BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Somerset joined forces with Bristol community station BCfm 93.2 yesterday to broadcast a special programme to mark the funerals of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria.  The special programme was presented by BBC Radio Bristol’s Trevor Fry and BCfm’s Magda Bond. Trevor said: “The Polish  community here in the West of England is more than 20,000 strong. Understandably the sense of grief is huge. We’re pleased to be in a position to provide a programme brought that community together on such a sad and poignant day.”

The programme on Sunday, had reports from BCfm’s presenter, Basha Everett in Krakow, where the president’s funeral was held earlier in the day, from London where the service was being relayed on huge screens and from Polish communities across the West Country.

I think this is a great example of joint working and is something we are looking at doing in the future. Let me have em please! Good and BAD.

Regards, Phil
Phil Gibbons – Station Manager
phil@bcfm.org.uk

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The coalition have been busy posting up their programme of aims for various departments on their blog.

The most recent set of aims to be added are for the Department for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. You can read the statement of aims below. Feel free to comment about the programme in realtion to commuity radio here or enter the general conversation on the website.

…

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Earlier this year when the politics feature was being planned, we approached Arif to see whether he could provide some context. He gave us this interview. We hope you find it useful:

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Arif Ansari is the Political Editor for the BBC in the North West, working across radios Merseyside, Manchester and Lancashire; North West Tonight and The Politics Show. We thought he was just the person to discuss his experience as an interviewer and the process of reporting the political process.

Previously, Arif was a political reporter, working out of the BBC’s Westminster studios. For seven years, he was part of the regional unit, mainly producing political coverage for BBC local radio and regional news, as well as some network BBC output. During his career at the BBC, Arif has particularly enjoyed taking part in schemes which give young people the opportunity to train as journalists.

BBC Journalism School – General Election pages

The BBC made their training website open to the public recently and they have a whole section on reporting the general election. You can access the website here.

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