Edward Lee, our Radio Platfform Station Co-ordinator looks back on 2021 and ahead to the exciting things the station will be delivering in 2022.

I got started in my role in the summer of 2021, working alongside our Broadcast Assistant Ren Tryner, and the Station Co-ordinator for our sister station in Porth, Molly Palmer.

Working through the complications of everchanging pandemic protocols, our Porth and Cardiff stations eventually reopened their doors to the young people who make up the project.

All our hard work paid off in an amazing couple of months towards the end of the 2021 which were jam-packed with events and opportunities for our station members.

We attended and produced radio shows and podcasts from Focus Wales 2021, the Dros Nos sleepover event in our building, Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival, the Halloween event Terror Mountain in Aberystwyth, and Festival of Voice where we broadcast live shows during the four-day festival, and hosted Next Up live gigs in our space.

Finally we capped off 2021 with an in-person steering committee in our Cardiff station and a meal out with our station members. I loved the sense of a fresh start which came from the station in those past few months, that feeling of new energy.

And I’ve been treating 2022 with the same kind of energy. It kicked off with another fresh start in January, welcoming two new members into the team: Daniel Edwards as our Outreach & Training Officer, and Asha Fletcher-Peters as our Marketing & Events Officer. It feels great to have a full team working at the station again, and I can’t wait to see what we do moving forward.

A big push with 2022 so far has been our outreach work, with Daniel diving straight in to getting radio training courses and workshops off the ground.

Working alongside ProMo-Cymru, we’ve been delivering two batches of our accredited radio training course side by side; one group from a public callout through the WMC’s Creative Voice strand, and another for the young people from the WMC’s Junior Creative Apprentices group from Cardiff and Vale College.

There’s been such a buzz in the air with these courses, as they mark the first in-person deliveries of our training course at the Cardiff station since February 2020! And it hasn’t stopped there.

Between these courses and taster workshops with local high schools Willows, Fitzalan and Cathays, we’ve delivered radio workshops and training to over 50 young people since the start of the year.

Elsewhere in the Cardiff station, Ren has been busy upgrading our radio systems to the latest software to get our broadcast back online bigger and better.

We’ve held our first Cardiff station steering committee of the year to hear what our members want to make from the space this year, and Asha and I are looking ahead to events and opportunities we can provide for the young people of Radio Platfform.

Meanwhile in our Porth station Molly’s been firing on all cylinders. You can catch up on everything she’s been up to here, and listen to a brand-new show recorded by new Porth station members below.

2022 feels like it’s just getting started, and I can’t wait to see what we do next. If you’re interested in staying up to date on everything we do, follow us @radioplatfform on social media.

Andf you’re interested in checking out our stations, learning more about our work or getting involved in any of our workshops, drop us a line at radioplatfform@wmc.org.uk.

Edward Lee – Radio Platfform Station Co-ordinator, Cardiff