For the past seven years, Preston FM has worked with almost 1500 volunteers to create a local radio service that truly reflects life in Preston, South Ribble and the surrounding areas. We’re proud of the way that we use radio to transform lives and give a voice to the community – broadcasting 80 hours of original home-grown radio each week and allowing everyone, whatever their background and ability, to break down the broadcaster/audience barrier.

We’ve recently left the nest of our parent charity – Your Prescap – and struck off on our own. It’s an exciting time, but there are challenges ahead, too. We want to offer more opportunities for local people to gain skills, confidence and friendships – particularly those who might have fewer opportunities to take part in community activities elsewhere. And, of course, we want to continue to offer a great local radio service for our 40,000 listeners.

But we need your help to make sure that Preston FM continues to thrive. Community organisations everywhere are being squeezed as much as the people they help – so your suppport will help ensure that Preston FM is able to support more people to overcome barriers, improve their own lives and help create a community that the whole of Preston and South Ribble can be proud of.

If you can help – with £5 or £5,000 – please click here to make a donation or use the “Donate” button below.

We promise that every penny will be spent on continuing the great community-based work that Preston FM is great at. Thank you.

These Key Commitments are set out in our licence with Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, so it’s important that we are meeting them.

This report covers our activities for the year from Jan-Dec 2011.

You can read the report here.

Your Prescap is a rich and diverse creative organisation with a long history in the city, but the difficult economic world it‘s been living in for the last few years has made it increasingly challenging for the charity to deliver its mission and vision in its current form.

The Board feel that Your Prescap’s vision and legacy can best be delivered by enabling new, more fleet of foot initiatives to grow, in place of a large institution which requires considerable funds to sustain it.

Your Prescap’s award-winning community radio station – Preston FM – will continue to broadcast independently, with the potential to flourish in the future.

In the last 3 years, Your Prescap has employed 94 local artists; enabled 4631 people to change their lives, feel proud of their histories and find new skills; and raised over £1.2m in investment for the benefit of local people.

Sue Robinson, Chair of the board of trustees said:

“It’s been a tough decision to make, and the Board is sorry that there will be redundancies. Our workers have put a huge amount of energy and commitment into the company and the community it serves, but we hope that new ideas, partners and solutions may come forward over the next few weeks to ensure the charity’s mission continues in some form.”

The board and the staff are interested to hear from groups or organisations who want to work with us and who are committed to ensuring that isolated communities in the city are still able to find a way to get their voices heard.

Each season we’re working at a different site along the trail and hope to work with different groups at each to create interesting and quirky additions. Before Christmas we worked with pupils at Thorn Primary School who made a fantastic swarm of eyes which are placed around The Sentinal. 

Now we’re moving on to work at The Birds which are a series of metal gulls that fly up the valley towards Bacup from Stacksteads. It’s a great site – very prominent and steeply sloping. We’re getting in touch with Rossendale artists who are up for a bit of fun to make some guerrilla style interventions. Artists Becky Atherton (Your Arts) and David Boultbee ( BREAD) will lead the collaboration. Working together, the group will develop ideas for the site and then install them – the sky is, quite literally, the limit. 

Artists should be over 18 and living or working in Rossendale. You don’t need to be a full time artist or have a specific practice or background. Sessions will be arranged around the group – we anticipate there being four or five – and, of course, you won’t be expected to come to them all.  Materials will be funded and an ample supply of hot drinks will be provided!

Interested? 

Contact David – dboultbee@gmail.com – 0774 884 7029 – www.breadartcollective.co.uk

The “Scroll Up” project will collect “sound postcards”, contributed by a range of groups and individuals, including existing Preston FM volunteers as well as by members of the public and partner community radio stations worldwide. Sounds will be collected on a website, created for the project and linked with the Guild Scrolls 2012 website.

We’re looking for an audio / sonic artist, with experience of leading work with volunteers and community members, to help us create audio art works using the raw sounds collected by the project.

For more information, and details of how to apply, please download the Scroll Up artist brief.

Responses should be sent to Richard Lace, community radio project manager, by 5pm on Monday 12th March.

Project outline:

Working with the Your Arts and Your Preston FM team, you will explore and share the heritage of the past nine Preston Guilds, including the current Guild, in addition to the next Guild in 2032.  You will specifically focus on Your Prescap’s current building (the former St Wilfrid’s School on Fox Street) and the surrounding streets in these years. You will explore the physical history of the building and the street in addition to gathering oral heritage of the area, the local businesses and people that populated it, going back as far as you can.

From the research gathered you will create an audio and visual walking tour for the wider public to enjoy. The work created will also feature in a Your Prescap Guild exhibition.

Timeline:

• 12 sessions working with a researcher
• 12 sessions creating the audio tour
• 6 sessions working with a graphic designer to create the visual tour

Starting: March 2012

Finishing: September 2012

Requirements: No experience in research methods or arts projects is needed: you just need a willingness to learn and enjoy! However if you do have these skills we would love you to join us.  If you do have a connection to our building or this street both past and present that would be great! All we do ask is a commitment to the whole project.

For further information and an application form please contact Teresa East, Your Arts Producer:

teresa@prescap.co.uk / 01772 887785

All applications must be returned by Monday 20^th February

If you’ve always fancied having a go at radio, then this course will get you going and teach you all you need to know to become a Preston FM presenter.

No experience is necessary (although if you do have some radio experience, that’s fine too) and the course is free.

We have three courses running through February and March, all covering the same content:

• Course 1: Starting 27^th February on Mondays & Thursdays, 1:30-4:30pm for 4 weeks
• Course 2: Starting 27^th February on Mondays & Thursdays*, 6.30-9.30pm for 4 weeks
• Course 3:  Starting 25^th February, every Saturday 10am-5pm for 4 weeks.

*Note: some e-mails we’ve sent promoting these courses contained an error. Course 2 takes place on Monday and Thursday evenings, NOT Tuesday evenings as advertised in some places.

You must be available to attend all of the course dates to apply for a place on a course.  The courses are friendly, practical and open to everyone living or working in Preston, South Ribble or surrounding areas. We can pay travel and childcare expenses to help you take advantage of the training on offer – and you’ll work towards a Level 2 qualification in radio production while you’re with us.

There are limited places available and our courses often get oversubscribed. To find out more about the course, how volunteering at Preston FM works and how we allocate places on our courses, please check out our guide to volunteering.

To apply for a place on the course, or to ask any questions that you have, please contact hello@yourprestonfm.org.uk by 5pm on Monday 6th February, or call us on 01772 880791.

Other charities involved, who will also benefit from funds raised through the auction, are the Princes Trust; and Bolton Lads and Girls Club. There are a range of original artworks for sale, all donated by artists wanting to support the charities.

The auction can be found on-line at the Lateral Arts website and closes on 27th February 2012. We hope, if this one goes well, to run a second auction later in the year, coupled with an event in Your Prescap’s community gallery.

Please dig deep, and help support Your Prescap’s activities in communities as well as the excellent work done by the other partner charities.

Photo credit: Andrew Scott

We are looking for a researcher with facilitation skills to help us find out about our building and the surrounding streets in the past nine Guild years. From the research gathered by yourself and 12 volunteers Your Arts and Your Preston FM will create an audio and visual self guided tour.

Please download the full brief for further information.

Deadline for applications: Wed 18th January, 12 noon.

Photo: © Crown copyright and database rights 2011 Ordnance Survey