In partnership with Frome Community Education, FromeFM offer bespoke workshops which will give you an insight into and experience in making a radio show and broadcasting it live on the Internet and on FM. The topics covered can be tailored to your own interests; for example, getting a good studio sound, interview technique, working with handheld recorders and on street interviewing.

We prefer students to sign up for 2 weekend workshops so that we cover all of the topics, but recognise that this may not be possible for everyone. The workshops have therefore been designed to be ‘self-contained’ – a student will not need to have completed one before the other and they can be taken in isolation.

Workshops cost £30 each and run from 9am to 3pm on:

• Saturday 12th October Workshop 1

• Saturday 19th October Workshop 2

• Saturday 23rd November Workshop 1

• Saturday 30th November Workshop 2

To book on the course email office@nullfromefm.co.uk or call .

It is useful if students can take 10 minutes to prep themselves before commencing the course. The Prep Sheet will provide you with a range of questions to help you sort through some of the possibilities that are open in community radio.

Student Preparation Sheet

1. What sort of radio programme are you most likely to want to make? (Music, feature on a topic, interviews, current affairs, listings, themed show e.g travel, gardening, books, theatre, film)
2. If you were listening to your show, what would be interesting to you?
3. If you were listening to your show, what would make you turn it off?
4. List a few of your interests – it’s often easier to fall back on things that you know about.
5. If you’re likely to be preparing a music show, will it be themed (metal, hiphop, jazz), will it be artist driven (Bowie’s greatest hits), will it be locked in time (golden oldies of the 1970s)?
6. List a few radio programmes or presenters that you like listening to.
7. Do you have any skills that might be useful to you on the course (you may have studied journalism or perhaps you are a musician).
8. If you intend to interview a local figure, what’s the one big question that you’ve always wanted to ask?
9. Ideally would you prefer to work with another presenter on your programme?
10. FromeFM shows are usually 30 minutes or 1 hour. 30 minutes is a long time to talk, especially about a topic. For music shows 1 hour is a good length. How long will your show be?
11. What might your audience want to hear? If you like Cheryl Cole, then what else would an audience with your taste enjoy – but don’t be afraid to surprise them?
12. How can you make your show more than just listening to music – after all, we can put CDs on to do that.

Tips & Hints

• Practise reading a news headline out loud. Often things that we write don’t work so well when we read them aloud, or contain difficult combinations of words.
• Try printing a script in larger text and spacing it out so it’s easier to read quickly when under pressure.
• When we read to ourselves we jump across tricky words and look ahead. You’ll probably need to slow down when reading aloud to make sure that each word can be heard properly, with the right emphasis.

Above all, enjoy yourself.