Social media surgeries – interview with Nick Booth

At UK GovCamp 2012 recently, I interviewed Nick Booth of Podnosh about social media surgeries.

This is a growing movement which provides support to people who are actively involved in their local communities and who want to extend their use of online and social media to network and publicise what they’re doing.

Click here for the interview (on Soundcloud) where Nick explains more.

Platforma

For anyone involved in refugee-related arts, the Platforma project is worth exploring. There’s a website where artists and organisations can upload work and connect with others around the country.

In November-December 2011 there was also a very lively and wide-ranging Festival, which took place in East London at Rich Mix and Rochelle School. Click here to read the report.

You can also click here for the interviews which we carried out with participants. These are available to download and share on not-for-profit radio programmes.

Radio 1812 for International Migrants Day

Radio 1812 is a global radio marathon which takes place each year on International Migrants Day on December 18th. The project is led by the Brussels-based NGO December 18.

Check out the main Radio 1812 website here or click here for links to contributors and contributions from around the UK.

Sound Women – update

Sound Women, the new network of women working in UK audio, now have a website, a LinkedIn group and a Facebook page.

They have also published the 200 list of women working in the audio and radio industry. Congratulations on a good start for a fiendishly difficult task (they acknowledge that it’s not yet finished).

Everyone is sure to have examples of omissions – so far, there seems to be just a handful from the community radio sector. This could be for a variety of reasons – such as a relatively small base to draw from, a general lack of awareness of Sound Women or the list, an unwillingness amongst community radio women to put themselves forward (hope not) – and even (again, hopefully not) a view among the selectors that community radio is ‘not really part of the industry’.

One woman who has achieved a great deal in community radio is Jennifer Ogole, Founder & CEO of BANG Edutainment and BANG 103.6FM in Harlesden, West London.

More suggestions anyone?

Switchover Help Scheme – how community radio stations are helping spread the word

There’s an interesting collaborative media project going on at the moment. Up and down the country, community radio stations have been creating and broadcasting CSAs (community service announcements) and interviews about the imminent TV switchover in their area – in particular about how eligible groups can get practical help to make the switch.

The BBC has an agreement with Government to run the Switchover Help Scheme: working with eaga plc(*) they are offering support for up to 7 million eligible people in switching one of their TV sets to digital – those aged 75 and over, those who are registered blind or partially sighted and people eligible for certain disability benefits.

As part of the publicity campaign to encourage take-up of the scheme, a number of Community Media Association member radio stations have been producing and broadcasting CSAs tailored to their particular audience. They have also broadcast studio interviews with representatives from the Switchover Help Scheme.

The CSA scripts are provided by the Switchover Help Scheme team, but the production style is very much down to the stations themselves – with some imaginative results, like Digital Woman (Switchover Girl) from the Leicester-based young people’s station, Takeover Radio.

Several stations have produced CSAs in the languages of their target audience, including Glasgow’s Awaz FM (in Urdu), EAVA FM from Leicester (in Punjabi) and Edinburgh’s Leith FM (in French, Spanish, Arabic and Polish).

Click here for productions from all participating stations – or click for those in Anglia, Central A, Central B, STV Central and Yorkshire.

*eaga is now part of Carillion plc