Onwards and Upwards -

“Onwards and Upwards, so to speak” is a saying that a few of the Tameside Radio team use.  In reality it means lets strive to move onwards and upwards but with a realistic view that its not always possible.  Time has come for Tameside Radio to move onwards and upwards with a great opportunity. 

We live in a difficult market for advertising, aside of the economic downturn there are the added pressures of new media as well as the traditional pressure of old.  It has become apparent that for, community enterprise, Tameside Radio to survive in these times it needs a partner with the financial muscle, grant funding knowhow and resources to work with the staff and volunteer team and move Tameside Radio on.  To grow the enterprise and build on it’s unique position.

It isn’t something that I say lightly but it is something I say believing it to be true.

We have done seat of the pants radio for 4 years now and its been a lot of fun.  If I tell you that on occasions we have run the station from a laptop as the world crashed around us and all the fancy playout systems crashed and crashed again you get the drift.

We have been innovative, using little resource, mountains of talent and heaps of knowledge to broadcast from all sorts of locations and in all sorts of conditions. We have developed ideas that have been adopted elsewhere, created revenue streams that others have taken on, been recognised locally and regionally for our innovation with relatively little resource.

We’ve built relationships with some fantastic organisations, business, community, public sector, third sector groups.  Ive met some really interesting people with some fantastic stories to tell.

The staff team have been magnificent, endless hours supporting the station. Nothing is ever too much trouble. The volunteers, that make Tameside Radio what it is, are equally superb. A mix of people that together make great radio.

However, “the times, they are a-changing”. Tameside Radio is undergoing structural change. A new partner, a new board and new management.  It isn’t exactly a pleasant sensation handing over what you invented in your head and built with your hands and brain but it has to be done. I may be a lot of things but two of those are logical and realistic.

Although it is not a pleasant experience, this enterprise isn’t mine, it is a social enterprise that is there to serve a number of needs, a community enterprise that invests any profit back in the services that it provides.

So to Tameside Radio’s new partner.  I know quite a few people at New Charter and I know them to be thoroughly decent and highly competent.  I know that as my involvement becomes less and less over the next few weeks that the staff and volunteer team will flourish, that Tameside Radio will grow further and become an even more valued aspect of Tameside life.

New Charter Housing Trust are Tameside’s largest social housing provider.  Tameside Radio’s Ofcom commitments around volunteering and community participation fit neatly into their own objectives. A marriage made in heaven!  One, of course is a financial giant compared with the other and the other is much loved by its customer.

If I were Adele, the singer and not my dear friend and sales exec at Tameside Radio, I could get a couple of albums out of this love affair (48 and 50 perhaps?). After all she did get a decent album out of a three month relationship!

So, its onwards and upwards for Tameside Radio and Simon Walker but for the first time in 7 years those onward and upward directions are different.  Good luck my friends and, just for a last private joke, remember to think outside the box in a blue sky sort of way.