The Community Media Association has announced Dorset as the location for its Community Media Festival 2024.
Community Radio managers, volunteers and enthusiasts will meet at Lighthouse in Poole on Saturday 21st September.
The CMA has also appointed two more members to its Council; Dr Katie Moylan, an associate professor in media at the University of Leicester, and Jessica Memon, founder of Milton Keynes based community radio station ROQ Raw Radio.
Jason Rosam from the CMA said: “The area is home to some superb community radio stations and CMA members such as Hot Radio in Poole, Abbey 104 in Sherborne, Alfred in Shaftesbury, Forest FM and Radio Wimborne in east Dorset, and also new local radio commercial station, Bournemouth One, which covers Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.
Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts is the perfect venue for the Community Media Festival. It’s the largest arts centre outside of London and is located right in the heart of Poole town centre. I’m looking forward to building an excellent schedule for the day, highlighting the successes of community media organisations from across the UK and celebrating the committed people who run and manage these projects as they face so many challenges while serving their communities on air.”
Thirty different community radio organisations were represented at the AGM and networking event in Leeds where discussions on Ofcom’s consultation to give greater flexibility, streamlining and simplifying Key Commitments for community radio took place as well as presentations from Y01 Radio from York and a conversation and question and answer session with BBC local radio presenter Georgey Spanswick.
CMA Chair Terry Lee highlighted a busy 40th anniversary year for the CMA with the organisation moving offices from Sheffield to London, conducting a survey with a hundred community radio practitioners, launching a new and improved membership model with benefits including access to the UK Radioplayer platform and affiliate membership of The Radio Academy and regular meetings with Ofcom, DCMS, PPL, PRS and other stakeholders.
Two new CMA council members were elected at the AGM. Dr Katie Moylan who’s an associate professor in media at the University of Leicester joined the council. Dr Moylan has an established research interest in community radio, explored in two books: Broadcasting Diversity: Migrant Representation in Irish Radio (2013) and The Cultural Work of Community Radio (2019). Since 2017, in collaboration with Leicester multilingual community station EAVA FM, she has run a production-led module, Community Radio in Practice, in which students produce their own radio programmes for Leicester community radio.
Jessica Memon, who previously worked in environment, mental health and childrens services departments in local government is also joining the CMA council. She founded the Milton Keynes based community radio station ROQ Raw Radio where all the presenters are women. Jessica also worked at Lyca Radio and Panjub Radio in London for five years before moving to Milton Keynes.
Terry Lee added: “I hope everyone will join me in welcoming our new Directors. Both Jessica and Katie bring passion, experience and wider sector knowledge to the CMA Council. It’s also worth noting we now have four female members on our board. This ensures the CMA can better reflect both our members and the communities they serve.”
CMA membership is open to anyone who’s passionate about community broadcasting including those involved in licensed FM stations, small scale digital broadcasters with a CDSP licence, not for profit online stations and those who want to develop a career in the media.
You can join the CMA by filling in a membership form.