On Monday 30th January, our group made its way to the Isle of Sheppey's own community radio station, BRFM (95.6FM or listen through the internet at BRFM.net), to chat with Daniel Nash on his Monday night community programme.
The radio station, as with most of Sheppey's gems, is hidden, high up in Minster, at the top of a farm track. Broadcasting from its vantage point on 'Windy Ridge' above the island, it plays music, details traffic and news reports, and interviews local residents about what they've been doing in the community.
Which is where we came in.
I think all of us (Geof, James, Bob, Jo and me) were a little nervous at the prospect of speaking live to the whole of Sheppey, and beyond, into Swale, since we are so passionate about our project, and were keen to let others know what we'd been doing, and what we planned to do.
But it went all right. In fact, it went better than that. It went perfectly!
Daniel Nash, the presenter, had some interesting questions for us, and we were able to speak about why we love writing, how we became involved in the project, and what we expected to do next. We could get our points across about enjoying the community, and about finding out more about not only the area in which we live, but more about ourselves as writers (and researchers!).
And then came the really exciting part; we were given the opportunity to read a short extract of our stories from the A Roof Over Their Heads anthology. This was a chance to show the community the result of all our hard work, and to get them interested in our stories.
I hope it did. I'm sure it did. If you heard it, and would like to let us know what you thought, please leave a comment on the blog!
If you missed it, you can listen at any time through the BRFM podcast, or on YouTube so why not download it and get in touch to tell us what you thought of it?
The details are also on Daniel's Facebook page and his own blog. There's a wealth of other local information on these sites as well, so it's worth clicking through.
The day was cold and the evening we needed to keep warm and by the time we did the broadacast the temperature was dropping rapidly but inside the studio we were warm and enjoying the warmth of each other's company. Thank you Daniel and BRFM for giving us the chance to connect with the community.
ReplyDelete