# **Annual Report Of The Trustees** ## **2021** 1 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## **Contents.** **Overview. ....................................................................... 3 Trustee Reports. ............................................................. 4 Introduction. ............................................................................................ 4 Membership & Studio............................................................................... 4 Community Engagement. ......................................................................... 6 Publicity & Promotion .............................................................................. 7 Finances: .................................................................................................. 7 Bedrock Radio Accounts: .......................................................................... 8 Engineering: ........................................................................................... 11 Site Specific Updates .....................................................12 BHRUT (Queen’s & King Georges) ........................................................... 12 NELFT (Goodmayes) ................................................................................ 12 And Finally. ...................................................................14** 2 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## Overview. The Trustees of Bedrock Radio have compiled a report of the charities activities over the last 12month period, including annual accounts, verified by external audit. ## **Reporting period: 1.2.2021 to 31.1.2022** ## **Our Charity.** Bedrock Radio is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), registered with the Charity Commission of England & Wales No: 1180476. The CIO is run entirely by volunteers, who pay an annual membership subscription. Bedrock Radio is governed by the CIO Constitution and policies, it is managed by a board of Trustees who are elected by the membership of Bedrock Radio at Annual General Meetings. Elected Trustees oversee the daily operations of the charity, acting in best interest of the CIO to further the charitable objectives. ## **Charitable Objective of the CIO** **1)** The relief of sickness, poor health and old age amongst people living in The London Boroughs of Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and Redbridge by providing a local broadcasting service for hospitals, residential homes and similar institutions, and for patients receiving community care; and **2)** The advancement of health and prevention or relief of sickness for the public benefit through the promotion of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, and the importance of maintaining good personal mental and physical health by (mainly, but not exclusively) the means of broadcasting health education messages to people living in The London Boroughs of Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and Redbridge. 3 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## Trustee Reports. Trustees 2021: Mathew Watson (Station Manager) | Chris Deighton (Secretary) | Lee Howe (Engineering) | Beverley Stroud (Fundraising & Finance) | Gill Rowley (Admin) ## Introduction. Welcome to the Annual Report looking back at 2021 at Bedrock Radio. We began the year with a number of uncertainties in regards to the coronavirus pandemic. Understandably presenters wanted to get back into the studio, a select few had taken to remote voice tracking to present shows and many waited for their training. By the middle of the year with vaccines rolling out nicely, we were able to resume a semi-normal service, with a small number of volunteers able to return to the studios and limited request collections taking place at Goodmayes. The late summer and winter saw the Bedrock Roadshow back on the road, raising much needed funds to keep the station running. Thank you for your patience and for sticking by Bedrock Radio in another challenging year, with things now somewhat returning to the ‘new normal’ in 2022, We look forward to seeing you in the Cornwall Suite studios soon. ## Membership & Studio. In the early part of 2021, the Trustees met virtually to discuss how we are going to move forward postpandemic. Dubbed **‘Project Restart’** . Trustees looked at all aspects of our operations and what changes need to be made and what items need to be restarted. 4 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 We identified the following: - **Requests and Ward Visiting:** Restart collecting at Goodmayes and ward visiting at Queens and King George hospitals to distribute magazines promoting listening on the free NHS Wi-Fi in a safe manor. - **Training:** We are behind on training for current membership. Training will resume as soon as practically possible. Once volunteers are trained they can fill the programme schedule. - **Recruitment:** Resume active volunteer recruitment, identifying applicants that would add value to further our charitable objectives. - **Fundraising:** Immediately resume and improve fundraising activities, exploring more avenues such as on-air sponsorships & other potentials. - **Books and Stall:** The Foyer Stall or Book Trolley would not resume for a while longer due to limitations at the Hospital. Trustees also felt there was a higher risk for volunteers to catch or pass on Coronavirus dealing with the public and handling multiple items. However, we must explore other ways of selling stock to raise funds. - **The Trusts:** Liaise with Hospitals Trusts; NELFT ensure that we are involved when they are building new medical hubs locally. BHRUT raise Wi-Fi issues and how we move forward at Queen’s. Chris has been working with Trustees in restarting volunteer recruitment, we have been receiving a small, but steady flow of applications throughout the year. Chris has been trying to bring in new members that offer a value or long-term commitment to Bedrock Radio and make it worth our while with on-boarding & training volunteers (that would a value hundreds of pounds if offered in a commercial world). One of our limitations at present is speed of training. Hopefully our new recruits can be trained up quickly and build up a cadre of presenters to add to our growing high-quality output. Gill is assisting in recruitment, sitting in with interviews and helping liaise with BHRUT Voluntary Services to help process volunteers faster. In addition, Gill has been helping maintain our membership database, contacting members who have had very little or no communication since 2020, asking if they wanted to still be involved with us. Sadly, this has resulted in a slight reduction of our membership, nevertheless we are gradually replacing them with new people that Chris recruits. ## _Membership & Studio Continued;_ Trustees have continued to check government coronavirus guidance and have kept reviewing our covid19 policies, as policies relaxed, we have been able to welcome more members back to the studio, but still have to follow hospital guidelines such as wearing masks. On-Air the programme schedule was again started to be populated, with refinements being made to ensure we have a simple schedule that sounds professional. Weekdays (11am – 2pm) we have presenters for every Lunchtime Show, this along with the Weekend 5 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 Brunch (10am – 1pm) results in a presented show being on midmorning / lunchtime throughout the week. After Trustees checked with NELFT, Geoff has restarted requested collecting every couple of weeks at Goodmayes Hospital, He has also given us feedback about the best time to play requests being midmornings / lunchtime. Traditionally, this has been an evening feature of Hospital Radio. However, based upon feedback a decision was made to amalgamate patients requests into the first hour of the weekday Lunchtime shows. This appeared to work well and will continue going forward. Mat has spent a great deal of time adjusting settings on Myriad and learning about new features in V5 to make programming more seamless; such as Myriad being able to play events guides of different lengths and being able to fade the backing bed out when the voice over stops. This saves on needless editing, making production of events and news faster. A lot of discussion has taken place over our music policy, since Bedrock GOLD was created, we have minimised the amount of 60s & 70s songs playing on Bedrock RADIO. Meaning a lot more ‘newer’ songs are played. We have used the Bedrock Radio App song voting data (which allows listeners to up or down vote on each song played) along with requested songs when looking about our music policy. Mat & Gill have tested running newer 2010s / 2020s ‘pop’, which made the station feel too fast. We then tested less 2010s and more 80s / 90s but found Myriad began picking the more obscure songs of the decades. After some debate, we agreed that almost every song played should be ‘hit songs’ (well known), Mat has adjusted Bedrock RADIO’s Myriad music policy to feature more 80s, 2010s with some 90s & 00s and Gill has continued to trawl through our database, to ensure songs we want myriad to pick most are in the core categories. At the start of 2022, you can already hear some of the changes on-air. We will continue to add new songs onto the database and make further refinements to ensure that we achieve this target. Bedrock GOLD meanwhile continues to be our jukebox station hits of the 50s to the 80s. ## Community Engagement. Bedrock Community News has grown from strength to strength. Towards the end of 2020, we learned of a new local news outlet, The Havering Daily (THD) who captures ‘ultra-local’ news focused on Havering. Chris contacted THD to see if we could work together, as a result of discussions; THD began provide us with a weekly Havering focused Bulletin. THD, Gill, Chris & Mat have produced over 250 community news & sport bulletins for the Bedrock Community News in 2021. Our Newsdesk is always looking for members to help script and record weekly news. In 2020 we announced the potential for a sports programme – We’re pleased to say in 2021 we achieved this! Introducing a brand new _‘Saturday Stack Sports’_ (our first sport programme in over seven years!) Barry has taken the lead on the programme developing a plan with Mat with practical targets of how the programme should evolve. As we enter 2022, Mat has reached out to Mike (The voice for Bedrock GOLD) who is able to provide 6 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 updates for Dagenham & Redbridge home games. Chris is also investigating through a contact, to see if we can receive updates from Hornchurch FC too. The sport programme is ever developing and promises to be a true social and interactive programme. Chris, Gill, Liam & Scott have been helping Barry with the latest sporting action every week. ## Publicity and Promotion As part of the agreement with The Havering Daily (THD), we have reciprocal adverts running online. THD has also been pro-active in working with us to promote anything we’ve sent out by press release – often publishing before other local news sources. THD also provided the studio with live updated of the poppy parade in Romford, we’re also hoping to work with them on other local items such as elections and events. The Bedrock Roadshow has been able to get back on the road again, which provided us with a great opportunity to give out our free magazines and gave us great publicity by ensuring we took banners, flags and where possible the branded gazebo out with us. Online, Mat has created some ‘show cards’ sized for social media platforms, using post scheduling tools we have been able to use this for promoting various shows throughout the week. Members that have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are encouraged to like, follow and share posts that the station puts up as this can help reach more people. Especially with events such as quiz nights, or even to promote shows. In January 2022 Mat was able to secure the domain: **Bedrock.Radio** as an additional domain forwarding to our website. dot Radio domains are a top-level, exclusive for radio station domains, we have secure bedrock.radio for a number of years for very reasonable price, having this extra domain will make it easier for people to find us online and helps with promotions. It currently forwards to our main website of **bedrockradio.org.uk** ## Finances. It’s been another ‘penny pinching’ year, however we have seen some income resume from events and fundraising activities which has allowed us the luxury of being able to make some equipment purchases and carry out some repairs, along with our running costs. It was agreed that 2021 we would resume annual subscriptions following the wavier in 2020 due to not being able to access the studio. However, it was very disappointing that payment of these didn’t seem to materialise despite Beverley chasing members to pay. Trustees have agreed for 2022 to keep the annual subscription rates the same for all levels, and payments become due as of the AGM. Members are reminded that failure to pay subscriptions after a three-month period will result in termination of membership. Bedrock Radio received £0 of grants in 2021, although we still have money remaining to spend from The National Lottery grant from 2020, of which Lee has purchased further equipment for the Wi-Fi Radio project (more on this later). We have been able to resume fundraising activities in 2021 and have done the following events: Havering Mind’s Essex Family Fest (Formally Wings & Wheels), The Big Bedrock Broadcast Marathon, Crumpled Horn Quiz Night, Hornchurch, Upminster & Collier Row Christmas Light Switch On, along with receiving donations. 7 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 Gill signed Bedrock Radio up for the yet unlaunched ‘The Havering Lottery’. A local lottery designed to raise funds for clubs & charities supported by Havering Council. The launch has been postponed a number of times due to Covid-19 and we hope this will start in 2022. Bedrock Radio received a few enquiries into advertising & sponsorship throughout the year, We have a range of suggested ‘sponsor’ prices on our website, and Mat was successful in securing a three-month sponsorship deal with Connect Lifetime Mortgages. Members & Trustees are encouraged to help review our ‘suggested’ donation prices to ensure they are affordable; sponsorship could be a great source of income for Bedrock Radio. We attempted to make the foyer stall virtual, by utilising our SumUp online store. SumUp proved useful in selling quiz night tickets online. Sadly, the online store performed dismally for selling surplus stock over Christmas, it’s unlikely our foyer stall will be operational inside Queen’s Hospital and would need to go external (outside the building or at events) which presents its own problems. This will have to be reviewed in 2022. Gift Aid became an issue this year. Trustees have been trying to register for Gift Aid with HMRC, it’s unclear if Bedrock Radio is actually registered for Gift Aid or what we do next. There is a degree of laxity between Beverley and Martin (Volunteer & Accountant) over how and who should be processing our Gift Aid with HMRC (which can apparently be done online) A solution looks to have been found from our banking provider, CAF Bank. CAF offer a service ‘CAF Donate’ which processes donations online for a small fee of 3.6% - This could be deemed the price of convenience. Martin has confirmed that we’re expecting our Gift Aid payments from CAF Donate in April 2022 and should be processed annually. ## Bedrock Radio Accounts: Annual Accounts 8 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 Float totals to be confirmed. 9 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 Profft & Loss Prov Yur Comparison xth ofyj •0 tyj IOA).75 11.IXI .10ffi5.75 11.41•.51 In.19 .171.19 .n10 7P2.17 170 17 1f•)O% its).o% 170 i￿( •151• 415.tyj .IrA. 11747 •fy) .Il*a% ioty) IJ -oA) Iq*.o% .ioo.o% 4•J 9.07 477 I.5￿9• io• 74.82 iJJ.v 17OAf 1x.jo 41 141.42 4n IIXI 491. 312 1.1$1 n 1.161.32 4.JX1$2 S.S•S41 .1231.•• 422% 4.m 17 7.1•231 -1J1 f -111.r4 BEDROCK RADIO I ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## Engineering: Myriad 5 has received a number of updates over the year, more scheduling features have been added and some bug fixes. Overall Myriad 5 has been reliable and throughout 2021 all remaining Myriad 4 software has now been removed from our computers. The studio display clock had begun to freeze or failing to load, we soon discovered that it had lost its software licences and wouldn’t work correctly. We have replaced this with a new one, made by Broadcast Radio, so it’s integrated with myriad. We also discovered our silence alarm had developed a fault and stopped working. Lee arranged with Sonifex to have the unit repaired, fortunately we had a spare unit that is due to be re-installed back at Goodmayes. The now repaired unit is now earmarked to go over to Goodmayes. Towards the end of 2021 we discovered a couple of our Barix ex-streaming boxes are being problematic dropping offline, they may require replacing or updating we will monitor their behaviour. In addition, Mat has repurposed the Myriad Network splitter (formally used between Queen’s & Goodmayes studios) to work between Bedrock RADIO & Bedrock GOLD, most notably for our ‘Solid Gold’ Sunday afternoons where programming is shared between the stations. This means both stations retain their identities (jingles etc.) when networked, rather than just repeating the Bedrock RADIO web stream. Lee has been busy running his own company throughout 2021. The majority of things at Bedrock have been running somewhat okay (if it isn’t broken… don’t fix it) it’s noted that some hardware items are no longer supported and may require upgrading in the next couple of years. Once again Lee investigated the possibility of getting faster broadband for the studio, as BT now offer a Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA) Lines (internet without a phone) which promises faster connections than our dual ADSL lines. However, despite most of the local area being covered, BT doesn’t offer this service to the cabinet located at the hospital. Our mission for better broadband continues. More items are covered in the in Site Specific section. 11 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## Site Specific Updates. ## BHRUT (Queen’s & King Georges) It’s been noted that old Bedrock posters are still up in many locations across Queen’s Hospital, a new poster is being designed & will replace the old ones once printed. We will see if we can also put these up at King George Hospital too. **The Trust:** Mat, Chris & Gill have kept in touch with volunteer services at BHRUT, keeping each other updated who is active / inactive in volunteering. We are slightly behind on DBS renewals due to the pandemic. However Mat & Gill will be working on this in 2022. **NHS Wi-Fi:** This has been problematic for a few years across BHRUT locations. Mat contacted Wi-Fi Spark and found they had updated the Wi-Fi system to redirect to a new Spark Media ‘entertainment page’ Where patients will see a prominent Hospital Radio button that directs to Bedrock Radio website to listen. **TV System:** James at Globe has confirmed the trial TV system in paediatrics (Tropical Bay / Lagoon) was coming to an end. With the ward TVs to be removed in 2021. However, the TVs still located around the building run on the same system, of which Bedrock is available on. In 2022 we plan to work with Globe on getting Bedrock channels to display video of some sort, then ensuring this channel is available across all TVs in the building with audio, and where possible we are the default channel. **Wi-Fi Radio Project:** 2021 saw a slowdown of the whole project. However, we made use of the Lottery Grant as Lee ordered and took delivery of the Unifi Access (Wi-Fi) Points. This will be installed around the hospital to create ‘Bedrock Wi-Fi’ for our radio system to work on. We have been unable to install these, due to waiting on the network switches to arrive, these will give our newly purchased access points, power and data connections needed to make the system work. Lee still has the prototype ‘RockBox’ radio, Lee & Mat did revisit the prototype to see what could be modified, the screen was proving problematic to mount safely and will likely be removed in a slight redesign, this has the bonus of saving money and assembly time. _Figure 1 - 'RockBox' Prototype_ The longest aspect is still the 3D printing of the radio’s body. Trustees are also researching if there are other Wi-Fi solutions using current ‘off the shelf’ products, however these all offer the ability for end-users (patients & staff) to change to a non-Bedrock station. We hope to pick this project up and develop it further in 2022. ## NELFT (Goodmayes) **Goodmayes Equipment Rack** : Our new fibre was activated during the lockdowns of 2020; however, we’ve been unable to secure time between Lee and staff from NELFT IT department to grant us access to the rooms we require to install our new rack & connect the new broadband up. 12 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 In this time, we have changed the plan for the equipment rack, it’s unlikely we will be running a separate myriad database with Remote Voice Tracking at Goodmayes. We will continue to install the Sonifex silence alarm that can failover to a USB stick pre-loaded with many hours of content and provide an adequate local failover device in the event of our broadband failing. We still plan to install a PC in our to manage network & Barix streaming boxes. It’s hoped this will be installed in the first half of 2022, improving our reliability of our broadband at Goodmayes. **NEFLT Meetings:** Chris reached out to NELFT requesting a meeting about updating the speaker system at Goodmayes and expanding Bedrock into other buildings they work in. In this virtual meeting we discussed how we support the new St George’s health centre in Hornchurch and would like to discuss having Bedrock Radio play in the centre that’s also expected to provide community facilities and include a café or coffee shop space. We will be following up with The Trust about St George’s in 2022. We also spoke about expanding into other buildings they operated, The Trust have suggested Meadow Court and/or Woodbury Place (Leytonstone) would likely be achievable locations that both have inpatients, these locations offer rehabilitation and respite so patients maybe listening over an extended period of recovery. The Trust where supportive of our efforts and suggested we talk with league of friends, for funding support for any projects we want to work on. **Meadow Court:** Rather excitingly Lee was in contact with NELFT as Bedrock received an enquiry from nurses at NELFT in regards to how the radio could be heard at Meadow Court. Lee has been liaising with NELFT estates, ward staff and patients experience over installing a radio system into this building. Lee has been in contact with BOSH to have a speaker system designed that also meets our ambition to give listeners the choice to switch between both Bedrock RADIO and Bedrock GOLD. A quote was also obtained from Access & Lock (NELFTs preferred contractor) to install the system, the quote for equipment & install is in the range of £70,000 and has been sent to NELFT to see how much they are willing to help fund and see if their charities division could help. We are still waiting for an update on this as of 2022 but expect we’re waiting for the fiscal year to see if it can be funded. ## _NELFT (Goodmayes) Continued._ The main thing Bedrock would need to do is get internet to the building in order to provide the radio service. Once we have a better idea of where this project is at, Bedrock Radio will apply for grants and funding to help support the meadow court installation. **Other Locations:** Trustees will need to follow up again in 2022 to see if there is any movement in getting radio into other NELFT sites. We additionally need to check on the NHS Wi-Fi service at NELFT sites and investigate if using NHS Wi-Fi to provide the wider NELFT sites could be viable along with dedicated systems. 13 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## And Finally. 2021 been a year of celebration with Lee and Chirag both becoming Full LIFE members on reaching 10 years’ voluntary service and Mat reaching 15 years. 2022 will see more members reaching volunteering milestones; Chris reaching 15 years and Beverley reaching 40 years voluntary service in Hospital Radio and Bedrock Celebrating The Platinum Jubilee of the Queen from our studios at Queen’s Hospital. Bedrock will be celebrate its 20[th] anniversary in June 2022, after forming back in 2002 as the result of a merger between Oldchurch & Harold Wood, in readiness for the opening of Queen’s Hospital. A bigger celebration is on the horizon in 2024, when our legacy of Hospital Radio Services (in Havering) reaches 60 Years! Bedrock Radio has some very exciting times ahead, hopefully we can continue to expand and grow the station and pushing forward our chartable objective of providing a great community health & hospital radio service. **Thank You** for your patience throughout the pandemic and your ongoing support. We look forward to working with you in 2022. Bedrock Radio Trustees 14 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047 ## **Bedrock Radio** Bedrock is the Community health and hospital radio station to Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust (Queen's & King George) and North East London Foundation Trust (Goodmayes). We are a charity who is run entirely by volunteers, we pride ourselves on providing entertainment and promoting a healthy lifestyle to patients, staff and the wider community of Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and Redbridge On Bedrock Radio you'll hear local events listings, hourly news, hospital and health information, plus a mix of songs from 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, 2010s and latest releases on **Your Healthy Music Mix.** Over on Bedrock Gold we feature audiobooks, talk shows and play ## _**Great Memories, Classic Hits**_ from the 40’s 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s plus we feature Classical Music, Radio Dramas & More! www.bedrock.radio 15 BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Registered Charity 118047