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: 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.

Out & About

Win a Google Mini Speaker!

#ClimbKili2017

It’s been a long time coming, but finally we have gathered in all the remaining donations for our #ClimbKili2017 campaign and I am delighted to announce that the total raised by the 13 walkers was £18,752. This total has been split equally between four organisations so CRY for Matthew, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Charity (the Dementia Appeal), the Wingate Centre and our Youth Activities at RedShift Radio, have now received a donation of £4,688 each.

At RedShift, we are using the funds to continue the opportunities we provide for 8 - 18 year olds to help improve their confidence, communication and collaboration skills by training them to produce and present radio shows, learn how to use industry standard media software to prepare them for (or support in) further higher and education and employment. This will allow us to work with eight young people this year.

On behalf of all the organisations, once again I would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone one who donated, sponsored and supported us walkers in our challenge of a lifetime. Thank you also to each of the walkers who made the commitment to each raising at least £1,000 for our campaign. Kilimanjaro has left a lasting impact on all of us (especially my hip!) and really was a gruelling challenge.

#ListenOnline2018
At the beginning of January we began our #ListenOnline2018 campaign to deliver 365 days of engaging, uplifting and informative community broadcasting. Now we have completed the first month, I think it is time for a review.

We use the #hashtags so when on social media, all the conversations relating to each theme and show can be found easily. Try it for yourself and have a look on Facebook and Twitter to see who we met during our #WellbeingFortnight and our #HistoryCulture, #WildlifeNature and #StorytellingTheatre weeks.

Highlights for me include interviewing Doug Butterill on the #CharitiesToday show with his amazing bird box and hedgehog home. Doug was joined in the studio by Graham Dodd from Nantwich Museum and we had a good chat about the history of Nantwich Mill and the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch last weekend.

Ben Rafferty from Residence joined me on #BusinessDay and failed in his attempt to knock me off my Dry January challenge by bringing in a very tempting array of gins!

I enjoyed listening to Lucy Siebert from Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker chat to Chris Ridge from Air Products on the #BigBangQuery giving us numerous reasons to visit the hidden gem in our South Cheshire countryside.

We also welcomed some animals into the studio in January with Jess Wood from Zoo2U who

Ben Davies, presenter of
Musical Monday with
the Zoo2U kestrel

brought in a kestrel and tiny little hedgehog-like creature called a Tenrec and Lisa Webb, who runs canine behaviourists Canine Thinking and who brought her gorgeous dogs in for a grilling by our teens Orlanda and Harvey.

Going into February, the whole month is #LoveYourCommunity and we are aiming to have guests on the radio from all walks of local life. Pamela Adams who runs Kane Funeral Services in Crewe and Steve Lawson from Nantwich Bookshop will both be on #BusinessDay on Wednesday 7 Feb from 12pm and Betsy Clewlow, a very interesting local octogenarian who was an army PE instructor and subsequently a jazz singer, poet and actor will be appearing on #WellbeingWeekly at 5pm on Sunday.

Don’t worry if you have missed one of our shows, we repeat everything once a week and most programmes are available to #ListenAgain via links from our website. Pop on to www.redshiftonline.org/listenagain.

Did you know that listening to RedShift online has become so much easier with the advent of Smart Speakers such as Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google. You simply say “Play RedShift Radio” and hey presto, RedShift will begin playing! If you don't yet have a smart speaker, you can still tune in online at www.redshiftonline.org/player or on your mobile via the TuneIn app.

This brings me on nicely to the launch of our competition for February. Each week, we are giving away a Google Mini speaker worth £45 to one lucky listener. To enter, visit the competition page on our website and tell us the answer to this question: Who sponsors our "What's Happening" show and what is the presenter's name?

Submit your answer via the contact form on the website by midday on Thursday 15th February and we will announce the winner on Thursday's Big Bang Query at 6.45pm.

Out & About:

I have realised this week that I rather like January! Most people don’t really get going until this week so events and meetings have been minimal and on the whole, my time has been my own.

RedShift Update

This has given me plenty of opportunity to batten down the hatches and beaver away behind the scenes making the RedShift website much cleaner and easier to navigate, please do take a look at www.redshiftonline.org.

Our presenters are refreshed and enthusiastic about the new year and have embraced the #ListenOnline2018 campaign well. Our #WellbeingFornight theme came to an end on Sunday and we are now into our #HistoryCulture week, followed next week by #WildlifeNature week and crossing into February, we have #StorytellingTheatre week.

If you would like to be a guest on any of our 40+ community broadcasts then please call Helen on 01270 440 750 and she will arrange this for you. Incidentally, if you are ever listening, we would love to see you use the #ListenOnline2018 tag on your social media so we can give you a shout-out.

Nantwich Young Farmers' Panto

One event I did go to last week was of course the annual Nantwich Young Farmers Panto at Acton Village Hall and once again, it did not disappoint. This year we took along RedShift Radio presenter Paul Boniface who had interviewed Lady Chair, Becky Holman last week about the panto. He certainly enjoyed it (as you can see from this photo of Paul and some of the cast).

It has reminded me that I must find an old VHS machine so I can have a good old giggle at my fiance Michael-John from his Young Farmers panto days, some 30 years ago!

I have said this before, and will say it again, the Young Farmers is such a brilliant organisation, which although based around the farming communities, does welcome young people from non-farming backgrounds to get involved.

Events throughout the year are varied and include dinner-dances, debate competitions, quizzes, rallies, homecraft, sporting and farming competitions, and lots of socialising. It’s an organisation that builds confidence, skills and friendship in young people and absolutely puts them in good stead for their futures, whether it be in farming or not. To find out about Nantwich Young Farmers, take a look at their Facebook page or contact me on 01270 440 750 and I will pass you on to Becky and the team.  

Battle of Nantwich

Looking ahead to this weekend and you will find me in the Town Square in Nantwich between 10.00 am and 2.00 pm on Saturday selling tickets for the Battle of Nantwich. For the second year now, and thanks to our main sponsors Applewood Independent, we have produced pre-paid tickets which helps alleviate some of the congestion getting onto Mill Island for the Battle the following week (Saturday 27th January).

As a member of the Battle committee, we are all looking forward to another successful event. We met last week with some new volunteer recruits and are always keen to hear from more volunteers. We could do with some extra help between 1.00 pm and 4.00 pm on Mill Island to help with marshalling and clearing up. Please call me on 01270 440 750 if you'd like to volunteer.

We would also love help promoting the event by sharing both the Battle of Nantwich website www.battleofnantwich.co.uk and the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/battleofnantwich,or by popping into Nantwich Museum and taking a few posters or programmes to share about.

The day is once again packed with activities and entertainment. We kick-off on the RedShift Community Stage at 10.00 am with local performers, whilst over at the Museum there are exhibitions depicting the fashions during the English Civil War and a lovely display of local Cheshire art.

At 10 am the Civil War Tour leaves the Museum (£3 per person) and between 10.30 am and 11.30 am the Sealed Knot troops lead a Pike and Musketry demonstration. The popular Forlorne Hope will play 17th century music between 11.30 am and 12.30 pm.

Just a 10 minute walk away at St Mary’s Church Acton you can enjoy refreshments and tours of the actual battlefield which is situated in Acton. Nantwich St Mary’s will host their usual tours of the church and the bell ringers will be ringing a special ensemble as the troops arrive in town.

If you are a fan of historical novels then be sure to visit my Battle committee colleague David Wilson who will be signing copies of his new book (he writes under the name of DW Bradbridge) before taking part in the battle himself as a member of the Sealed Knot.

The Sealed Knot troops leave Malbank School and head into Town for around 1.00 pm where there is a short wreath-laying service and departure to Mill Island ready to do battle around 1.50 pm.

It promises to be another spectacular event in Nantwich's thriving calendar. Fingers crossed that the weather is good!

Out & About: Listen Up, #ListenOnline2018 is here!

Put your hand up if you received a Google Home or Alexa speaker for Christmas? If you don’t know what I am on about, then let me explain.  I bought two for my fiance and they are ace (one was only £35). Suddenly it makes listening to RedShift so much easier! We just walk into the kitchen, or upstairs landing (where we have the Mini speaker) and say “OK Google, play RedShift Radio” and within a few seconds, RedShift is broadcasting loud and clear around the house.

Of course, I am already an avid listener of RedShift, however the “old fashioned” way of pairing my
phone to a speaker, or opening my laptop to listen was indeed a bit clunky, compared to the genius
simplicity (and not to mention affordability) of these nifty new speakers that very simply link to your
wifi.  

So, armed with our new technology and a massively shameless plug for our broadcast output,
please let me take a few minutes to tell you about our #ListenOnline2018 campaign which is well underway.

#ListenOnline2018

#ListenOnline2018 is our pledge to provide our community with 365 days of engaging, uplifting and
informative community broadcasting. Every single day, week, month or weekend has been allocated
a theme and our volunteer presenters have been encouraged to observe these themes when booking
their guests and producing their shows.

The first few themes of the year are as follows: 1 - 15th Jan is our #WellbeingFortnight, closely
followed by #HistoryWeek, then #NatureWeek. Please note the #hashtags… If you type them into
Facebook or Twitter along with #ListenOnline2018, you will be able to see all the subjects we have
discussed and guests we have interviewed.

So far during our #WellbeingFortnight we have interviewed Katy Brownbill from the NHS CCG about childhood obesity, Nicola Marshall from FoodFit UK, Sarah Lewis from the Healthy Lifestyle
Show, Ali Wheeler from Feel Good, Ben Selby from Right at Home and Gill Jefferies from Feeling Great Nutrition.

During the remainder of this week we have Pamela Adams from Kane Funeral Services and Kate
Carney from You In Mind talking about mental health, Lisa Webb from Canine Thinking talking
about canine wellbeing, Heather Crawford from Earth Sensei discussing Energy training and
advance Hypobirthing and Karen Rogers from Fit For Life Mum encouraging mums to get back their mojo!

If you missed any of these interviews you can catch them all via our Listen Again service found on
our homepage at www.redshiftonline.org and on our #ListenOnline2018 page where you will find links to every guest and their interview.

You can also book to be a guest by emailing Helen Gregory on helen@redshiftonline.org or calling
01270 440 750 and leaving your contact details for her to call you back.

Looking ahead to February and our theme is #LoveYourCommunity month so we welcome anyone with a passion for getting involved or helping their community.

Community MeetUps

Our Community MeetUps begin next Thursday (18 January, 4.30 - 6pm) with our “Kick-Start 2018 MeetUp” at Cafe Cortado on Beam Heath Way where we have four of our Hub members located, each of whom will showcase what they do. If you would like to come along for refreshments and to find out about Watts Mortgages, JG Creative, Feeling Great Nutrition and even have a go on the JJ Studios Power Plates, then please call 01270 440 750 or email hello@redshiftonline to book.

Goodbye Elle

Finally, I dedicate this weeks article to Elle Morris, the sweet, funny and inspiring 11 year old from

Elle Morris

Nantwich who very sadly passed away this week following complications after a double-lung transplant.

I was privileged to get to know Elle, her mum and sister a couple of years ago when we hosted the Doggy Day Out in aid of Elle’s Wishes, a campaign set up to help Elle and her family enjoy lots of great experiences and create great memories. My most sincere condolences go to Becky and Cara and all of Elle’s family and close friends who fought a very brave battle to fix Elle and to make sure she fulfilled some huge ambitions in her short years.