General Election – Advance Warning
At the time of writing we don’t know when a General Election might be held but it feels like one is definitely on the horizon!
Obviously we have a six week ‘purdah’ period leading up to the election where we have to adhere to OFCOM’s election guidelines so we need you to be aware of this in any programme planning you’re doing. We will send out the election guidelines to you again when we know the date.
Black History Month
October is Black History Month
Here at BCB, we want to reflect and celebrate the contribution and life experiences of Bradford’s African and African Caribbean communities.
We’d like to encourage all people from those communities, and any others, to contribute to Black History Month broadcasting.
If you’ve got any ideas for programmes, stories or want to present programmes, please get involved by contacting jonathan.pinfield@bcbradio.co.uk or call us on 01274 771 677.
Youth Music Project
BCB is delighted that we have been awarded funding from the Youth Music Foundation to support the development of youth music in Bradford.
BCB will be supporting young people aged 12-25 to develop more opportunities for young musicians to perform live in Bradford, in venues appropriate for young people from diverse communities and backgrounds.
Through a series of regular workshops young people will learn all the skills needed to put on live events themselves, hearing from industry professionals, venues and promoters. Young musicians will also be mentored to develop skills around how they can promote themselves to venues.
If you’re interested in taking part in these sessions and being involved, please contact david.carpenter@bcbradio.co.uk
Channel 4 Visit BCB
As part of their Bradford visit, BCB hosted Sinead Rocks, Channel 4’s Head of Nation and Regions in August. While here, Sinead spoke to some of our young volunteers about what they do at BCB, their lives and their aspirations for the future.
Sinead herself started out at Belfast Community Radio, so it was great to have her tell that story to the ambitious youth of BCB!
BCB September Get Together: Wednesday 18 September 6pm
The next BCB Get Together is on Wednesday 18 September at 6pm. It’s a great opportunity to meet up with other BCB people, find out what we’re all up to and have your say about any BCB issues that you want to raise.
We are currently creating a BCB plan for the next five years for all our areas of activity – broadcasting, volunteering, training, community engagement, etc. and it would be great to have your input – including of course on new premises.
Do come along and have your say!
Featured Programme Of The Month
This month’s featured programme is Urban Vibes with Elton Munaiwa.
Urban Vibes broadcasts on BCB every Friday 11-12 midnight. The show aims to bring you the best music on Friday night – playing the best in urban music, hip-hop, grime, rap and drill.
Elton also brings in artists from all over Bradford to play their music live on BCB.
BCB Volunteer Receptionist – Wednesday mornings
Are you free on a Wednesday morning? Do you have a cheerful and friendly disposition?
BCB is looking for a volunteer to cover reception duties on Wednesdays 9am – 12 noon.
This will include answering the phone and the door, generally welcoming people to BCB. If you are interested or know someone who might be, please contact mary.dowson@bcbradio.co.uk
New Volunteers
We are always looking for new volunteers to get involved with BCB.
We have a new volunteers session on the first Tuesday of every month to meet people and for them to find out more about BCB.
The next session will be Tuesday 1st October at 12 noon so if you know anyone interested please contact jonathan.pinfield@bcbradio.co.uk
Exam Results
Congratulations to all the young volunteers at BCB who had exam results in the last couple of weeks. Good luck in your next steps!
Internet Woes
You may have noticed that our internet services have been disrupted recently. We’ve had significant problems with our internet service provider – problems they seem to be unable to fix. As a result we’re looking to change provider in the near future.
This has meant that Listen Live and Listen Again services have been disrupted. We’ve also been unable to reliably run outside broadcasts, and staff and volunteers have had to cope with loss of internet whilst trying to work in the building.
Big thanks to Richard Bruce for implementing resilience features that mean we’re less affected by an outage. We’re sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused, but much of it is beyond our control.
Minidisc Clear Out
We’ve got approximately 12 old minidisc players/recorders that we want to get rid of.
Before we put them on Ebay, we’re offering them to BCB members for the price of £20. Any funds raised will go back into the running of the station.
The models are Sony:
MDS-JE330
MDS-JE530
MDS-JE780
Looking at Ebay they do seem to have some value. Prices seem to be roughly £30 – £60, but can be much higher for mint condition examples (ours are not mint!). They have been tested as far as turning them on and being able to load, play and eject a minidisc – audio output has been checked via the headphone socket and phono connection. They were used mainly to load audio to computers when we had portable minidisc recorders.
If you do want one, please let us know by Friday 13th September 2019 – contact david.carpenter@bcbradio.co.uk (if you need one but can’t afford it, speak to us anyway). Any that are left after that date we will try to sell on Ebay.
They are currently piled up near the computers in the station if you want to check them out in person.
NB we still have minidisc players in the studios (and backup machines should they fail). If you want to just listen to some old minidiscs, or to record them to digital – you could also come in and do that in a studio.