Welcome to the BCB newsletter for October. Here’s just a few things that have been going on at BCB and some events that are coming up:
BCB move to Bradford Arts Centre! Yes its on the way……
We know that everyone is wanting to know when BCB will be moving to our exciting new premises at Bradford Arts Centre. And yes, its been a very long time coming! Just to give you an update. The BAC will open formally w/c 6 October, but our section of the building won’t be ready then. The BCB section will be the last part of the building works to be completed and this will happen after the rest of the building is finished and open for business. We envisage that the building works will finish by the end of October and then we can start to build the studios. This means that our move to BAC will be sometime in December – definitely this side of Xmas as we have to vacate Rawson Road by then! As you can imagine, there has been a lot of work going on negotiating the changing times of the move, but fingers crossed, we are definitely on the final stretch now.
BCB On The Move
Backup your own audio in October.
As part of our move from 11 Rawson Road to the Bradford Arts Centre at the end of the year, we’ll have new servers, new PCs and a new version of Myriad. If you’d like to keep any of your own audio including programmes, interviews, features and music, please make sure that you have exported your audio from the audiowall onto your own storage device or cloud backup before Friday 31st November
RadioBox
Our mobile radio studio, the RadioBox has been touring the district to celebrate Bradford’s 2025 City of Culture year with live outside broadcasts, radio workshops and taster sessions, recorded interviews and evaluations for the Bradford 2025 team.
In August, we moved from Cliffe Castle Park in Keighley onto Ladyhill Park for the Great Adventure Build, then onto Bradford Industrial Museum and The Adil Rashid Cricket Festival at Bradford Park Avenue cricket ground. At the end of August and the begining of September, the RadioBox was back in Centenary Square for Bradford Pride and the Baton of Hope.
The RadioBox is currently in Lister Park, next to the Beacon and on Monday, it’s making the short move next to the Box Office at Cartwright Hall for the Turner Prize.
As well as broadcasting live from events, we want to use these encounters to raise awareness of BCB, recruit new listeners and volunteers, talk to people about BCB,find out what they listen to now – and what they’d like to hear on BCB. This is a great opportunity to get in touch with our listeners and create new ones too. Thanks to everyone who’s been part of our RadioBox teams so far this year. We need a big team of BCB volunteers at every event to promote BCB – and to broadcast too! If you’d like to join us in the RadioBox, or suggest any communiity venues email: jonathan.pinfield@bcbradio.co.uk
Black History Month
We’re celebrating Black History Month throughout October with focussed programmes, features and interviews. If you’d like to broadcast a programme, interview or feature to celebrate the Month, please email jonathan.pinfield@bcbradio.co.uk
BCB’s very own Nigel Guy has also published a guide for the range of events and initiatives taking place throughout the Bradford district for Black History Month via here
Kath Quinn – RIP
It is with great sadness that we have to tell you about the death of long-term BCB Volunteer, Kath Quinn. Kath first got in involved with BCB in the 1990’s, as part of the Shipley Corner team. She was also central to our Shipley Community Radio project, based at New Start Centre in Shipley and kept the Shipley flame alive on BCB for many years. She was a really great woman, rooted in the Windhill community, and a committed volunteer for BCB. There is a party to celebrate Kath’s life taking place in November. If you’d like details please get in contact with mary.dowson@bcbradio.co.uk
Radio Times
BCB’s Radio Times project for the over 55’s is going great guns! The group which is funded through Bradford Council’s Commissioning service, meets weekly at BCB. Its open to new people all the time so if anyone in that age group wants to come and learn how to make radio, meet knew people and generally have fun at BCB do get in contact with dipak.mistry@bcbradio.co.uk. The group will be broadcasting their first radio programme at 2.15-3pm, live on BCB, on the world’s Day for Older People Wednesday 1st October
‘Hear My Voice’ – BCB Radio Project.
We are really pleased to have now started our Hear My Voice radio training project. This is for members of Bradford’s Refugee and Asylum seeking community. We have a great group of people who are now meeting every Thursday morning at 10.30, learning radio skills and getting ready to broadcast. This will be a great addition to our community voices on BCB, and we look forward to hearing them on BCB.
Radio 119
RADIO 119 have been really busy with interviews this month, we have interviewed Honk Bradford to talk about The Big Honk event happening this weekend with different bands around the world coming together to play music.
We have interviewed Shaping care and spoke to the director and co-founder this went out last week.
Hammad and Daniel visited The YOU MATTER exhibition at The Science and Media Museum and Wednesdays group have enjoyed working with Jenny and Tony at BCB and taking part in their show.
We also interviewed Mencap yesterday to talk about their work and upcoming event Bradford community conference coming up in October.
The Ark
Over the last couple of months, BCB has been a partner to the Ark Bradford project. This was a Bradford 2025 funded project engaging communities across the Bradford District in conversations about climate change. We hosted a meal at BCB for a group of volunteers to have those conversations together, which was a really interesting evening. The project then asked us to record 15 in depth partner conversations, which we did in our studios. These recordings were then used in the final Ark event which was held in the Beacon at Lister Park, and involved several BCB volunteers. We broadcast the event live on BCB on Thursday 4th September 7pm and is available on our Listen Again service if you want to have a listen.
