Behind the walls of Studio One Beating Conservatory Conversion Prices down Back Cover

by Lee Quinn

Like many businesses but actually as a not-forprofit organisation, run by volunteers, Eden FM restructured in a number of areas in 2020 and 2021.

And here is that line I’ve written so many times! Established in July 2010 as an idea Eden FM grew as a project and as team, then on the morning of the Friday 25th November 2011 it switched on for the first time broadcasting on a temporary 87.7 FM frequency. Permitted under licence to broadcast for just 4 weeks and due to further restrictions, it wouldn’t be back on the FM frequency until after a minimum period of six months.

It’s something we don’t talk about, but I think as we are moving on its important to share that nothing is simple about setting up a radio station. We need volunteers but you never know really who’s coming through that door. In light of recent events, I volunteered my time to ask all the candidates who were standing in the Penrith West Ward Eden District Council Elections to come into the station the week before the election to have some live on air time in the Drive Time show. It’s a show I host 4 times a week. All the candidates were given the opportunity to tell people about who they are, why they are standing and of course the pitch that use to be giving standing on the doorstep why you should vote for them.

We had also planned an evening in that week, which again would result in more voluntary hours which altogether was 12 hours in setting up, testing hosting a two-hour show, then editing for replaying which over the election period, with all the emails, phone calls and correspondence comes to in excess of 20 hours. Did we have to do it? No. However, in the current climate to help candidates engage with the community as a team we think yes. We did have to reschedule to accommodate as many candidates as we could, as the time was very short between candidates being announce and the election taking place.

The downside is we couldn’t tell everybody the changes because not everybody listens to the radio 24 hours a day. In providing these services, people forget we are a team of volunteers, doing our best in our own time to deliver ‘Local’ news and other services to the community for free. Is there any cost to the listen? We are not to the best of my knowledge using taxpayers’ money to deliver what we do as a self-funded community organisation.

In Ten years as a station we have had, I kid you not, some seriously big challenges. We have experienced individuals that we can only label as Narcissistic. Some of these ‘problems’ being online and that night we switched on for the first time in November one of these ‘problems’ was a volunteer, putting in their cameras and cabling in bid attack the station from within. Of course, it never made the papers, but as recent as 2019 we had the worst attack internally from a guest to the studio who tried literally to steal and takeover the whole station and they are still out there now.

So, here’s to the next ten years, because what we’ve learnt is what we do as volunteers takes quite something and 2022 is shaping to be very special. Of course, we’ll still have the battle of people, well keyboard warriors, hiding behind a screen, with no idea of what the real world is.

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