Welcome to the BCB newsletter for May. Here’s just a few things that have been going on at BCB and some events that are coming up:
Local Elections Live on BCB
BCB did a mammoth live coverage of the recent Bradford Council Elections, which saw a momentous change in the council’s political composition. Control shifted from Labour to no overall control with Reform councillors forming the biggest group.
We covered the counts from 11 am on Friday until 9.15 pm and on Saturday from 1 pm until the last count was declared around 7.15 pm. Our reporters at the two counting stations with Jenny Kean and John Brenan in Keighley and Jane Gregory and Piers Telemaque in Sedburgh.
This fantastic team kept our listeners up to date with all the results as they came in with insights from the counts. Through their efforts BCB listeners were able to hear the voices of many candidates from all political persuasions including Stephen Place, spokesperson for West Yorkshire Reform and successful candidate in Royds. They also heard from candidates who had been standing for the Conservatives, Labour, Greens, Your Bradford Independent Group, Independents and Liberal Democrats.
Our reporters interviewed two local MPs – Imran Hussain (Bradford East) and Anna Dixon (Shipley). Very graciously Susan Hinchcliffe, council leader spoke to us after losing her Windhill and Wrose. In the studio we had expert analysis from Ashleigh Stiles and commentary from pundit Dermot Bolton keeping us abreast of the national and local picture and the context of the elections. These mammoth programmes were anchored by Dipak Mistry, David Clapham, Fiona Thompson and Marcus Rattray with expert support from the whole of the BCB staff, but with special mention to Jonathan Pinfield who produced the programme and Richard Halfpenny who sorted the technology to allow seamless live broadcasting from multiple sites.
BCB is having a baby….!
As you will undoubtedly know by now, our very own Jo Kenyon will be leaving us very soon to take her maternity leave. To mark this exciting event in Jo’s life, we are having a little celebration next week to wish her luck and say goodbye to her for a ‘wee’ while. You are very welcome to join us at BCB on Thursday 14th May 3-4pm for cake and a cuppa! Please let us know if you are planning to be there so we can make sure there’s enough cake to go round…. Email mary.dowson@bcbradio.co.uk to RSVP.
Schools
Our latest team of young reporters from Rainbow Primary Leadership Academy have been busy in the studios creating their very first radio program. They’re looking forward to practicing their interviewing skills on their Headmaster, Jon Harris.
We’ve also been continuing our sessions with the Pupil Voice project featuring pupils from BDAT schools across Bradford. As we celebrate the National Year of Reading this year, the pupils were joined by Emma Price from Bradford Literature Festival who answered their questions and talked all things books!
You can hear the show this Thursday (14th May) at 6.30pm, right here on BCB Radio.
Studios Update
Studio 3 is currently our main “live on-air” broadcast studio with limited availability for presenters to record pre-recorded shows.
In studio 1, the mics, Myriad, telephone and Comrex are all fully up and running, the record decks are working on remote starts and as the time of writing, the CD players are working on bluetooth and for playing CDs – in the next few days the “remote starts” will be configured for the CD players too.
A new addition to the studios is that when you push up a mic fader on any channel the red (mic live) indicator lights up on the presenter mic and when studio 3 is completed we’ll have on-air and mic live lights inside and outside all 3 studios too.
You can also interview guests in “broadcast quality” on our comrex channel, by sending guests the following link: www.callme.fm/bcbradio or by using google meets on our VOiP channel, by sending guests a Google Meet link from the studio PC.
In studio 2, the RODEcaster kit is being taken out this week (w/c 11th May) and will go back into the RadioBox. Rich Halfpenny will start to build the custom desking in studio 2 this week, followed by the studio installation throughout the rest of the month.
In June, all 3 studios should be fully complete, with one of the best set ups of any radio station in the U.K. Massive thanks to Rich Halfpenny on an amazing achievement.
In addition to the 3 state-of-the-art radio studios, we’ll also be setting up our “podcast’ studio for production and voice recording with Myriad, which is ideal for one person – and might even squeeze in 2!
Michael Swires is studio managing every Tuesday from 6-8.30pm and Graham Glover is also available to studio manage on Thursdays from 6-8.30pm, by prior arrangement with the staff team.
If you’d like to book studio time, please speak to a member of staff or call 01274 771677 before you write in the studio book, so we can check you’ll be able to record your show in the way you’d like to record it in the correct studio and without clashing with other broadcast, project or training commitments.
BCB Website – are you on it?
We are aware that many of our volunteers do not currently have their photo or presenter profile on the BCB website. We really would love to have all our lovely BCB–ers featured on the website. The good news is that we can use any photo that you want to send us – it doesn’t have to be any particular size or specification so please do send us the photo that you’d like us to use. We’d also like a presenter profile to go with the photo. As well as describing the programme(s) you are involved in, it would be great to include a bit about how you got involved with BCB and what you get from your involvement with BCB. (If you want a bit of inspiration, you can always have a look at Jenny Painter’s profile). And if you need any help with this, just let us know. Please send photos and profiles to jem.emmett@bcbradio.co.uk
Radio Times – Get Involved
BCB is starting a new strand of a radio project for the over 55s. The project is called Radio Times, and will provide a weekly drop in session at BCB where people can learn radio skills, and ultimately present a new weekly afternoon programme on BCB alongside socialising and meeting people. If you know anyone who might be interested in joining the project or finding out more about it then please let us know.
We are having a taster session on Wednesday 3rd June between 2.00pm and 4.00pm come join us and find out more.
BCB is based in Bradford City Centre at St Peter’s House, 1 Forster Square, Church Bank, Bradford BD1 4T
For more information contact us:
dipak.mistry@bcbradio.co.uk mary.dowson@bcbradio.co.uk
Radio 119
Radio 119 is our project supporting adults with learning disabilities to have greater access to the media and they’ve had an exciting month as usual. For their regular Tuesday 11.30am slot they spoke with Stella Russo from Bradford Arts Centre as well as Seedlings Speech and Language Therapy. The team attended the Aware event where they interviewed some organisations for Autism Awareness Week. They also visited Bradford Library to get an interview about the National Year of Reading. Finally they’ve been working on shows for Refugee Week, Diabetes Week and have been creating music shows in BCBs new studios.
New Volunteers Training
Radio you say? Become a presenter you say? Interested in becoming a volunteers radio presenter?
Get in touch with us at BCB Radio to learn how to put a show together, record or present live from our brand new studios at Bradford Arts Centre! We will support you to plan and script a show, learn the technical skills to “drive” the desk in the studios, show you how to edit your work and support you to get on the airwaves!
Interested? contact Dipak Mistry – dipak.mistry@bcbradio.co.uk to find out more or register your interest.
Featured Programme of the Month
Every month we tell you about a programme on BCB’s broadcast schedule and this month we’re telling you about Keep Being You! The programme goes out every fourth Tuesday 9-10pm and is presented by Reyhana Laher and Jenny ZigZag. In their own words, this what Keep Being You! is all about:
“Keep Being You! It’s the show that celebrates what makes me ‘me’ and you ‘you’. Chat about things we’ve been doing, stuff we’re interested in, observations about life, things going on and people we’ve met. We’ll play some music and we may have guests…because everything you do makes you ‘you’!”
