Radio collaboration between BU graduates, BBC volunteers and Age UK
30 November 2011
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BBC volunteers work with BU graduates and Age UK to create community radio. |
Volunteers from BBC’s Create and Connect scheme came last week to work with Age UK and graduates from BU’s media school, at the Bournemouth Skillset Media Academy in Weymouth house.
The scheme was conceived firstly at the Age UK conference also held at BU’s media school in June, where MA Radio Production graduates Hannah Rolfe and Mair Bosworth pitched and successfully won funding to host a community hub radio project.
Paul Hilton from BBC’s London 94.9 FM volunteered to provide training for the event through BBC’s create and connect scheme, a programme that recruits BBC workers to volunteer on charity projects, explained the training he was giving members of the older community who were recruited by Age UK:
“The idea of these two days are to help those with a little bit of radio knowledge, to try and understand the process of making radio, create together as many elements that are involved in programme making, to let them loose with all the equipment, challenging them to make a package with lots of vox popping, interviewing people and telling a story.”
MA graduate Hannah Rolfe said she was pleased that her and her colleague Mair’s pitch was accepted, and to be working with Age UK, explaining the main aim of the project:
“We are working on a project called community hub, working with local radio clubs, giving them some guidance to get their voice heard and what platforms they can use, to give people a voice and a generation a voice. Older people still have their faculties together and want to tell their stories so we are just getting them heard.”
Hannah went on to detail that the ultimate aim was to give older people the confidence to be self sufficient in community radio, to produce packages then create bonds with local radio stations to generate more community led content.
Paul admitted that Bournemouth was an obvious venue for the training, after visiting the Media School in the Summer, it had left a lasting impression:
“Bournemouth has got a fantastic reputation, the uni for this particular medium. I did a day here in July and when I saw it I thought that’s a brilliant place to go. Frankly puts the BBC newsrooms to shame!”
