Soundwave Radio is a new community station for North Devon broadcasting over the Internet from studios in Bideford. It is due to go live in early 2021. It was initially due to go live this year, in early December, but because of Covid- 19 restrictions unfortunately the start date has been delayed until early 2021.
I got to hear about this exciting prospect of a new radio station happening right here in Bideford a couple of months ago, so I went to an initial meeting to find out more. In the past I have always enjoyed being a guest on local radio stations, often talking about my work areas and projects. For example, when I was arts and crafts development officer for Northamptonshire, I did a weekly slot on a local radio station in Northampton to talk about arts and cultural events and activities. At the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon, I regularly ‘appeared’ as a guest on The Voice FM, to give updates about the Pop Up museum’s activities and how the new extension building was progressing.
When I went to the meeting at Soundwave Radio, it was in my head to be a guest at some stage on someone’s show, to come in and talk about projects, local history, arts and cultural events – sometimes bringing a guest with me to hear their stories of living and working in North Devon. It soon became apparent that there is enough material here for me to run my own show and become a presenter! Following that initial meeting I had a follow up with Mark Clark-Ludlam and Peter Lawrence who are the inspiration and brains behind this new station. They persuaded me to commit to becoming a radio presenter. I got all excited and nervous all at the same time as I have never done radio presenting before but very much enjoy being in a radio setting and talking to people.
The outcome is that I will do a fortnightly show, probably on a Tuesday evening.
The first phase is to get some training so that I can become technically proficient in being a presenter and I have done one introductory session just before lockdown which was good timing.
I’m looking forward to the present lockdown being lifted so that a programme of training sessions can run and I can be preparing myself to start my show, hopefully in February 2021!
