Out & About: It's All About RedShift Radio's #BigBroadcast This Week!

Barry Ellams from the Chronicle with fundraiser Briar Hulme

We are now a week into our #BigBroadcast on RedShift Radio. This means that we have added six hours of live programming to our schedule. I am thoroughly enjoying my stint as a breakfast show presenter: I am even coping with the earlier start to my day, although perhaps not firing on all cylinders until my first brew during a long song!

Nantwich Police

We launched the Big Broadcast with our first guest, PC Matt Stonier from Nantwich Police who gave us an insight as to what’s happening behind the scenes with some of the recent crimes such as the car vandalism on Birchin Lane. PC Stonier also spoke about the great projects he and some of his team are involved in with our local schools, such as youth mentoring and supporting their residentials.

Chronicle Newspaper

I enjoyed very much welcoming the Deputy Editor of the Chronicle, Barry Ellams into the studio on Wednesday morning. Barry talked about the local Crewe and Nantwich headlines and each Wednesday at 9am you can hear Barry or Andrew from the Chronicle.

Fundraiser Briar Hulme 

Briar Hulme was one of my most inspiring guests of the week, Briar, aged 19, is raising funds to send six young women from an African refugee to university. Briar met these women during a two-month volunteering trip to Tanzania last year and she spoke passionately of her drive and ambition to help these young women carve themselves a better and brighter future. If you can make a small donation towards her £8,000 target then I know Briar would be over the moon. Her fundraising page is called Education To Empower on the www.gofundme.com website.

Hope House

On Thursday I was invited to host the Hope House Kids Ladies' Lunch at the Grosvenor in Chester. This was a super event, organised by the Hope House team, sponsored by Conwy based company CareLink and supported by Mococo jewellery from Chester and Tarporley-based Si Belle Boutique from Tarporley.

Highfields Academy ... Aided by Staffordshire University!

I was very tempted to bunk off work for the afternoon and have a relaxing wander round Chester but I had to dash back for the new group of Junior School Run children, this time from Highfields Academy. I needn’t have worried though. With Producer Steve and our two Staffordshire University students here on work experience, they were in good hands and I arrived four minutes into the show to find Joe and Libby in complete control of four very chatty year 6s.

Listen Live and Listen Again

Please do give RedShift a listen this week and let us know what you think. I am on air weekday mornings from 8-10am and we now have live shows right through until 10pm each day. You can ask your Smart Speaker such as Amazon Echo (Alexa) or Google to "play RedShift Radio" or you can find us on your mobile by downloading the TuneIn app or on your computer by going to www.redshiftonline.org/player.

I must say a big THANK YOU to Helen Gregory who has booked over 70 guests for our Big Broadcast and Steve Bebe who, despite doing an extra eight hours of presenting himself each week in March, is keeping up to date with uploading our shows so you can listen at your convenience.

Please visit www.redshiftonline.org/listenagain to find the links to all our broadcasts and keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter to find out about upcoming guests.

RedShift Annual Quiz

Now, if I forget to mention our REDSHIFT QUIZ again, I will get lynched! Join us for our “8 Rounds for £8” annual quiz. On Friday 23 March we will be at Nantwich Town Football Club from 7 pm with our unique quiz that includes a special “live” music round. To book your tickets, please follow the link on www.redshiftonline.org/redshiftevents.

Easter Weekend in Nantwich

Looking ahead to Easter Weekend, we are delighted to be supporting The Studio in Nantwich with their charity nights in aid of the Mid Cheshire Hospitals Charity Dementia Appeal. It’s Electro 80s on Thursday 29th March - always a great night for 80s fans!

I am especially looking forward to letting my hair down on Friday 30th March for the Gin & Jive night, again at The Studio, with two of my favourite local bands; Baxter and VaVoom … and I think I will indulge in a sprinkling of gin!

On Bank Holiday Monday, its the Acoustic Gin Festival from 11am at Residence. I will see you there!

Out & About: Interviewing Laura Smith MP at UTC and RedShift's #BigBroadcast

It’s been more “In and Around” than “Out and About” this week: I have enjoyed staying close to home and studio, avoiding the grotty weather and thanking my lucky stars that I have not had to do much travelling in the snow this week.

I did venture to the Crewe Engineering & Design UTC to interview MP Laura Smith during her visit to the University Technical College. It was also my first tour of the full site since the final phase of the build and what an incredible facility it is.

Having an education establishment here in Crewe that offers such a broad range specialist STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) training opportunities with industry standard equipment is quite remarkable.

The UTC has harnessed very strong links with local and national organisations such as Bentley Motors, Air Products, Arriva Trains and Siemens, all providing ongoing support and training to students with a specific desire to follow a career in STEM subjects.

You can hear my interview with Laura Smith and the students on Friday morning between 9-10am as part of #SunnySideUp, our new breakfast show hosted by yours truly and Jasper my trusty companion.

#BigBroadcast

On Monday we began our #BigBroadcast which is a 28-day trial of full time broadcast output (8am - 11pm everyday) until 31 March. As an internet station we have always respected the fact that listening to us has not been as easy as if we were on traditional FM radio.

Now however, with the arrival of wifi speakers, wifi in some new cars and mobile apps supporting our streaming, tuning into your local community radio online really has never been easier.

We are trying really hard to reach out to our community and ask you to give us a listen and give us feedback that will help us to keep improving. Already for this month's #BigBroadcast we have over 70 guests booked in and four key themes. Our theme until Sunday is #ApprenticeshipWeek, followed by #LocalMusic week, then #LocalSport week and March wraps up with #HomeGarden week.

I should mention perhaps, for those who may not use or know about social media, my use of #hashtags is relevant to the way we promote and discuss our programmes and themes in the online world.

On my #SunnySideUp show I will be joined by various RedShift presenters all ready and able to teach me a thing or two about music (I am rubbish at remembering names of songs or bands!)

I am also looking forward to having guests Barry Ellams and Andrew Cain from the Chronicle join me every Wednesday between 9am and 10am to talk exclusively about the news they have published.

Following SunnySideUp each morning, Helen Gregory will host a #FeelGoodDaily show from 11-midday. Helen will be keeping listeners motivated with great music and interviews with people from our community, as well as tips and tricks for feeling the best you can every single day.

Steve Bebe will steam into another new show, an extension to his #WhatsHappening show that he usually presents on a Tuesday, which now becomes a daily programme between 12pm and 2pm.

With the usual programmes and varying guests and themes, I feel confident that we appeal to lots of people in our community, so please give us a listen and let me know what you think. My email is hello@redshiftonline.org and phone number is 01270 440 750 if you would like to get in touch and share your views.

RedShift Annual Quiz

Finally, our Annual RedShift Quiz takes place on Friday 23 March at Nantwich Town Football Club. We are proud of our unique style of quiz that includes food and a LIVE music round for just £8 per person.

To enter your team, please visit redshiftonline.org/redshiftevents and click on the QUIZ link. This year we are raising funds to run another Football Commentators' course and replace equipment so we can train more commentators to support the club with home and away commentary.

Final mention this week has to go to my sister Poppy Philiben to wish her happy birthday and my Mum to wish her Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday!

Out & About: A Plethora of Guests on #LoveYourCommunity Month and a Shout Out for Support for CRY for Matthew

Love Your Community Month

#LoveYourCommunity has been a weekly theme at RedShift over Valentine's Day for a few years now. This year, as part of our #ListenOnline2018 campaign, we have made a whole month #LoveYourCommunity, as we believe there are hundreds of ways in which we, as a community radio station, can share and promote our superb community here in South Cheshire.

Already this month we have interviewed artists, performers, faith groups, charities, a chef, a food blogger, a pre-school, a hula-hoop instructor and a singer. We have also interviewed the Mayor of Cheshire East, Cllr Arthur Moran; the ex-Mayor of Nantwich and now Chairman of the Food Festival, Christine Farrall; the High Sheriff of Cheshire, Sarah Callander Beckett; the owner of Nantwich Bookshop & Coffee Shop, Steve Lawson; Michelle Shipman, owner of Offbeat Brewery in Crewe and Mike Lenz from the Crewe Heritage Centre.

Guests due in over the rest of our #LoveYourCommunity month include Camille Renaudon from Hibberts Solicitors, who are one of our longest supporting sponsors of both RedShift and numerous other community organisations; Peter Mascarenhas talking about the Primary School Enterprise Challenge; Chris Edwards, Dairy Trainer and new member of the team at the International Cheese Awards and Georgina Lamb, fundraising managhttps://www.mixcloud.com/RedShiftRadio/playlists/fresh/er for the RABI (Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute).

We are also running a competition each week of February to win a Google Mini speaker so you can listen to RedShift all around your home or office just by saying “Google, play RedShift Radio”. Please visit www.redshiftonline.org/google to enter the very easy competition.

Most of our programmes are made available via our Listen Again service found via our website: www.redshiftonline.org/listenagain. Hopefully this sample of diverse guests will inspire Chronicle readers to tune in and catch some of our community programmes which are all produced and presented by volunteers.

During March we will be hosting a #BigBroadcast month, this means that instead of our live programmes starting at midday and running until 10pm, we are going to be broadcasting live for an additional five hours a day. I will be swapping my night owl habits for early starts to present a daily breakfast show and Steve and Helen will pick up the baton with a daily mid morning and lunchtime show to take up through the day.

If you would like to join me on the breakfast show (or indeed, any other shows), please call 01270 440 750 and we can book you in.

Shows at Crewe Lyceum

Last week I experienced two very different moods when leaving the same venue. On Sunday 3 Feb, I took my mum and fiance Michael-John to Crewe Lyceum Theatre to see Totally Tina, the most superb Tina Turner tribute act (MJ is a big fan!). I have to say, she was brilliant and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and left the theatre on a high and singing our hearts out to Simply The Best.

Two nights later, last Tuesday, the three of us were back at the Lyceum, this time to see Birdsong, an adaptation of the WW1 story by Sebastian Faulks. This was a very powerful play that really hit home the horror of war. Needless to say, we left the theatre in a much quieter and thoughtful state than after Tina Turner!

CRY for Matthew

On Saturday night Michael-John and I ventured over to Oswestry to attend a dinner-dance in aid of CRY for Matthew, a charity that we have supported since our friends Sue & Chris Dewhirst lost their son Matthew to an undetected heart defect five years ago. We had a super evening, and although I fell off my extended “Dry January” wagon and had a few vinos, it was well worth it! I am not sure of the total raised but the raffle alone brought in £600 so that was great.

The charity is looking for corporate sponsors as well as raffle prizes for their Gala Ball to be held on Saturday 10th November at the Chester Grosvenor. If you can help in any way, please visit the website where Sue's contact details can be found.

Radio Stoke's Louise Stones on RedShift Radio

My final mention of the week goes to Louise Stones from BBC Radio Stoke who very kindly made time for our presenter Caroline Taylor-Mullington to interview her about her career in broadcasting. I gate-crashed as I had not visited Radio Stoke before and was overwhelmed with how welcome Louise and her colleagues made us. The interview on Caroline's show, Fresh, will be available very soon via the Listen Again function on our website.