We are happy to announce that Radio Enfield will be joining the Royal Free family and sit within The Royal Free Charity. The station will be rebranded “Royal Free Radio” and be available to patients to listen to through the bedside consoles at the Royal Free, Chase Farm & North Middlesex. There will be an official launch of Royal Free Radio at Chase Farm, where they are based, with a timeline celebrating their 47 year history. The radio station promotes events, news and activities taking place within the hospitals as well as providing music, quizzes and request programmes and will be a voice to patients at their bedside. In May 1970 a group of friends set up a local hospital radio station funded by local discos, fetes, road shows and grants. They started with seven volunteers - all school friends who mostly met through the North London Tape and Hi-Fi Club. In the 70's patients only had access to Radios 2 and 4 and initially Radio Enfield broadcast for just 2 hours a week on a Sunday evening on the Radio 2 channel. The small team of volunteers handled all sorts of tasks - programme presenting, engineering, request collecting, fund raising and so on. Today, thirty to forty volunteers help out on the station so that it can play for twenty four hours all day, every day and new members are always welcome. There is a vast range of “pop” music available but the programme presenters also play classical, country and western, ballet and jazz as well as interviewing local dignitaries, health experts and celebrities. The hospital radio station has evolved with modern technology and is developing an App for volunteers to take requests from patients on the wards. We will soon be looking for volunteers to help with gathering requests here at the Royal Free. There will be a great selection of music available as well as chat shows with useful tips for patients, comedy shows and quizzes. The main priority of Royal Free Radio will be to take people’s minds off being in hospital and hopefully to have a little bit of fun too. For more information please check royalfreeradio.co.uk
0 Comments
|