Annual Report
Of The Trustees
2022
1
BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Contents
Overview. ............................................................................................................. 3 Our Charity. ......................................................................................................... 3 Charitable Objective of the CIO. ................................................................... 3 Trustee Reports & Accounts ............................................................................. 4 Volunteer Membership. .................................................................................. 5 Publicity & Promotion ...................................................................................... 6 Finances: ............................................................................................................... 7 2022 – Bedrock Radio Accounts .................................................................... 8 Engineering:........................................................................................................ 9 And Finally ........................................................................................................ 11
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Overview.
The Trustees of Bedrock Radio have compiled a report of the station activities over the last 12-month period, including annual accounts.
Reporting period: 01.02.2022 to 31.01.2023.
Our Charity.
Bedrock Radio is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), registered with the Charity Commission of England & Wales No as number:1180476.
The CIO is run entirely by volunteers, who pay an annual membership subscription. Bedrock Radio is governed by the CIO Constitution and managed by a board of Trustees who are elected by the membership at the Annual General Meetings. Elected Trustees oversee the daily operations, acting in best interest of the CIO to further the charitable objectives.
Charitable Objective of the CIO.
In December 2022, members voted by resolution at a general meeting to amended the charitable objective wording, to broaden the charity’s overall service area. The charity commission of England and Wales approved the members approved objectives in February 2023.
1) The relief of sickness, poor health and old age amongst people living in East London, South Essex and immediate surrounding areas 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 East London, South Essex and immediate surrounding areas.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Trustee Reports & Accounts
Trustee Board 2022:
Mat Watson Station Manager | Chris Deighton Secretary | Beverley Stroud Treasurer | Lee Howe Engineering | Barry Felton Fundraising | Gill Rowley Admin
Introduction.
Welcome to this Annual Report looking back at 2022 at Bedrock Radio.
2022 was an eventful year for Bedrock, and the Nation as a whole, we began the year still emerging from the pandemic, with restrictions being slowly lifted and finding our ‘post pandemic’ way of working.
We celebrated the 20[th] anniversary of Bedrock in June 2022. Bedrock formed in 2002 as a result of the merger of Oldchurch & Harold Wood hospital radio, in readiness for the opening of Queen’s Hospital. On-Air we celebrated with an on-air history, looking at how far we had come! The station is now looking forward to marking 60 years of Hospital Radio Services in Havering / East London in 2024.
In July we installed the first bits of equipment to start live testing of our Ward Radio Project, reusing dormant cabling we have been able to begin deploying a WiFi radio system, restoring hospital radio services to the wards at Queen’s Hospital. Just in time for the HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, where we ran some extra programming over the celebratory weekend.
The ward radio project is still developing and proving successful, but requires funding, to this end we launched our ‘sponsor a radio’ campaign offering sponsorship for three years.
We found out that our friends and neighbours at Whipps Cross Hospital Radio (WXHR) were planning to shut down at the end of 2022. We began discussions with WXHR about Bedrock Radio becoming a replacement service upon their closure and expanding our service dramatically.
Recruitment has been slow and steady, with a number of enquiries and interviews being undertaken, There are a few things we need to look at adjusting in our processes, of which we’re working with Volunteer Services at BHR Hospitals to ensure best practice.
We were saddened to hear of the sudden passing of our volunteer Barrie Ware, Barrie often helped in fundraising events, books service and stalls. He is missed by the team.
The Bedrock Roadshow again made some appearances locally in Hornchurch and Upminster in Summer and Winter, even managing to broadcast a live / link up with the studio from some of the events. Providing vital promotion and raising much needed funds to keep us on-air.
We have experienced a few issues over at Goodmayes Hospital with the ward speaker system, we have not had the resources to arrange a maintenance visit, nor have we had members request collecting to keep an eye (& ear) on the system there. We will make this a priority to fix in 2023.
As we closed on 2022 – We did assume the place of WHXR, successfully have 25 radios in circulation at Queen’s & finally sorted our abysmally slow internet connection.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Volunteer Membership.
Back in 2021 Trustees worked on ‘Project Restart’, looking into various areas to resume ‘business as usual’ post-pandemic. We continued some of this work throughout 2022.
The Bedrock Books service at Queen’s Hospital has been unable to be restarted, due to the limitations in visitors on the wards, and our diminishing number of books volunteers, at present the service remains dormant. Additionally, we have been unable to restart our fundraising stall due to the foyer being used the waiting area for the Emergency Department.
However, we are exploring the idea of running ‘pop-up stalls’ held outside the hospitals in 2023/4 to begin reducing our stock of books and more importantly raise funds.
Request collecting at Goodmayes came to a halt as our request collectors Geoff and Marj became unavailable, with no one else willing to go over to the hospital we have not had any presence on the site. This is concerning for the Trustees, as we do not want to give NELFT the impression we have given up on the site.
July 2022, we began installing our Ward Radios at Queen’s Hospital, at present Trustees have been visiting the wards to check up on the system, whereby in talking to the staff, we have been able to get a couple of song requests. As more radios are distributed, we will be encouraging members to start getting involved in request collecting, we are working with the hospital to see if there are any special measures required before we let you loose on the wards.
Chris, Gill and Mat have been leading on the recruitment side of things, having worked hard to develop and review our recruitment procedures. However, recruitment in 2022 was very slow for us, despite a number of enquires and applications, we realistically had around five people join our team.
While our process is robust, in December a small DBS issue resulted in Bedrock liaising with Volunteer Services in order to find a resolution, highlighting an area of review and improvement for both of us. Delays in the on-boarding steps is causing a concern for volunteer retention, something we are working with the Volunteer Services on.
Like last year, we have been trying to find volunteers who are interested in staying in the medium to long term, this reassures the value of the time spent on training is well invested in the person, with a view to them volunteering for a number of years.
It’s still a long-term plan to build up our presenters and ensure our output remains of high-quality. Mat continues to adjust the training materials to ensure they are all relevant and up-to-date, the slideshows are available to all members on the Members Sharepoint site.
Chris has continued to liaise with Havering Volunteer Centre from which we receive a steady trickle of enquiries. However, the quality of those enquiries is very mixed and has not resulted in any new members joining.
Thank you to The Havering Daily for their ongoing support with our community news, Bedrock Radio have granted them Cooperate Associate Membership, making them an official supporter of our charity.
We are averaging 25-30 members on our records; we hope this will increase slightly in 2023.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Publicity & Promotion
Throughout 2022 there has been a more focused effort in scheduling social media posts.
We made more use of Myriad OCP to post online, these are social media posts included into the playout log to promote various cornerstone shows (i.e., Breakfast), these mixed in with Facebook / Twitter & Aiir (App) scheduling, we have been able to promote things a bit more effectively across some of the main social outlets.
We have also been re-posting various social media items from the various NHS Trusts we serve, in order to increase our interactions with the Trust and general public.
Since Bedrock became available across Barts Health Trust locations, we are getting more traffic coming from NHS WiFi, which many are continuing into the online web player.
We still have a number of boxes of magazines left which desperately need to be distributed to the local health community, or through door drops. Some of the information in these are gradually becoming dated. We need all current copies to be distributed as during in 2023, we are putting together a special edition for release in 2024 to celebrate 60 years of Hospital Radio in East London, looking back at our heritage.
At Queen’s Hospital, our Ward Radio Project has begun providing a visual and audible reminder to staff to our existence. To co-inside with the radio launch, Barry and Mat updated the artwork in the vast majority of snap-board posters on the wards (ex-premier boards), providing current information of how to listen on NHS WiFi with the artwork promoting both our stations.
Towards the end of 2022, we began giving the stations their own similar branding with a view to giving each on-air station its own ‘identity’ (as seen on the front cover) the main charity logo hasn’t and will not change.
It is intended the identities are used in places where both our stations are offered such as directories, or to promote the radio station itself, the station identities don’t refer to ‘Hospital Radio’ which is intentional to appeal to the wider local public, where as the main charity logo will.
We hope to get permission from the various NHS Trusts served about having stickers put up to promote our services to patients and staff, raising further awareness about us.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Finances:
Financially the vast majority of the year we have had very little income and lots of outgoing as various projects got underway, thanks to the grants we had received in 2021.
Beverley finally chased a long overdue invoice from studio equipment which we sold in 2020, getting a much needed £2000, which went towards expanding the ward radio project.
Mat also secured a new and much cheaper insurance, saving around £300 from the renewal quote Beverley received, with the new cover provider giving us a much broader insurance coverage.
Lee, through EduNet was successful in getting Bedrock Radio signed up to LGFL, getting us 5G Mobile Broadband, which works out cheaper than our ADSL Broadband lines, as soon as the ADSL lines are out of contract, we will terminate their use where we will begin saving money.
We gained a second 5G Mobile Broadband from LGFL to avoid the same high costs, low speed issue when we took over from Whipps Cross Hospital Radio.
Our Ward Radio Project was launched with our ‘sponsor a radio’ campaign, so far, we have had three companies interested with one company (Havering Daily) taking up sponsorship of a radio at the end of the year.
Trustees will be working to promote our ‘sponsor the radio’ campaign to local businesses in order for Bedrock to recover installation costs and provide us with an ongoing maintenance fund to support our newly installed radio system. The intention is for sponsorship to be re-sold roughly every three years. With our radio system designed to be scalable to other locations while keeping maintenance costs low.
Unfortunately, our grants applications where unsuccessful in 2022. We will try for new grants in 2023.
A handful of fundraising activities with Bedrock Roadshow took place bringing in around £400 in fundraising activities. Unfortunately, a few planned events where rescheduled for 2023 due to venue issues and volunteers becoming unwell.
We aim to make 2023 a better fundraising year, with a view possible having some collections (Tin Shakes) with a view to ensuring we have card acceptancy.
January 2023, just before the end of our fiscal year we received a notable cash donation from Whipps Cross Hospital Radio as they closed down.
Bedrock was a member of Amazon Smile which closed in February 2023 after which we stop receiving donations. Amazon Smile worked in the same way as Easyfundraising, with those using Amazon Smile for online purchases generating a small donation for Bedrock. In reality this did not raise much money as the percentages donated by Amazon were small and only a very few people made use of the smile programme.
Easyfundraising on the other hand seems more popular and we have averaged a donation of about £25 a quarter from them. All members, their friends and families who shop online are encouraged to register with Easyfundraising as this will raise money for our charity. Throughout 2022, we began encouraging and promoting the use of our EasyFundraising link on-air and online. Please ask Chris for further details on raising funds through this platform.
Fiscal breakdown on the following pages;
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
2022 – Bedrock Radio Accounts
| Bedrock Radio - Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) 1180476 | Bedrock Radio - Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) 1180476 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year Ended 31 January 2023 | |||
| Receipts and Payments | |||
| Income | |||
| Donations | 9843.57 | ||
| Fundraising | 810.15 | ||
| Members subs | 123.95 | ||
| Other | 5.43 | ||
| ----------- | |||
| Total Receipts | 10783.10 | ||
| ====== | |||
| Expenditure | |||
| Office Supplies | 58.20 | ||
| Phone/Postage | 1196.39 | ||
| Small components | 45.02 | ||
| Repairs | 0.00 | ||
| Fees and Licences | 1302.26 | ||
| Advertising and Publicity | 0.00 | ||
| Monthly Bank Charges | 63.00 | ||
| Broadcasting Expenses | 4921.40 | ||
| Fundraising Expenses | 256.92 | ||
| Other | 40.00 | ||
| ----------- | |||
| Total Expenses | 7883.19 | ||
| ====== | |||
| Balances: | 2022-2023 | ||
| 1stFeb 2022 | 31stJan 2023 | ||
| Opening | Closing | ||
| Current Account | 12288.90 | 15183.33 | |
| Cash | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Floats | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| ----------- | ----------- | ||
| Total | 12288.90 | 15183.33 | |
| ======= | ======= | ||
| Surplus | 2899.91 | ||
| Deficit | 0.00 |
Simplified Accounts
Income: £ 10,783
Expenditure: £ 7883
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Engineering:
2022 was a very busy year technically for Bedrock Radio.
All of our Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) have now failed, all having dead battery cells, these have all been removed from use on safety grounds and a decision is being made on what equipment actually benefits from having UPS power, as the cost of replacing all cells is expensive.
Myriad V5 has a number of upgrades over the year, bringing over more functionality and tools from Myriad 4, which has improved scheduling and made playout more stable.
Towards the end of 2022, Mat began looking to introduce new switching equipment, allowing automation computer to take control from the studio.
This has the benefit of allowing the studio to be taken off-air (without the need to unplug anything), freeing it up for training, production and repairs. Plus, provide another level of failover should the studio have problems. This is due to be installed around Easter 2023.
July 2022 saw Lee take on our biggest project at Queen’s Hospital - The Ward Radio Project.
Using grant money from 2021 we created the ‘Hospital Radio Network’, working with contractor Globe, we established where the cabling runs for the defunct patient entertainment network across Queen’s Hospital with EduNet helping us design our system and acquire equipment.
The initial trial began in July begun with just seven WiFi radios, restricted to tune into our radio stations; Bedrock RADIO & Bedrock GOLD.
We used the funds from the delayed equipment sale to buy more WiFi points & radios, covering the majority of the ‘Orange Side’ of the building, which has allowed us to install our radio network into two wards that have never received patient entertainment before. At the end of 2022 there 24 radios in the trial and we received enquiries from other departments about getting radio installed.
We have set ourselves a target to have 150 radios deployed at Queen’s Hospital.
Throughout 2023, we want to complete the WiFi installation across the rest of Queen’s Hospital, and will liaise with BHR Hospitals, Globe & EduNet about the viability of reaching other areas which have shown interest. After this we want to explore installing a similar system into King George Hospital and work with Barts Health and NELFT to see how scalable the system could be.
At the end of 2022 Bedrock Radio replaced Whipps Cross Hospital Radio (WXHR), working with WiFi Spark we managed to get a seamless transition for patients using NHS WiFi to access radio services across the entire Barts Health Trust, with all locations now able to quickly and directly access Bedrock Radio.
In January the speaker system along the corridor of Whipps Cross has “ Made The Switch To Your Healthy Music Mix ” as the system is mono, we had to create a mono streaming feed for Whipps Cross.
The Hospital at Whipps Cross is due to be re-built over the next few years, the Trustees will need to opening discussion with Barts Health Trust to see what the plans are.
Goodmayes has suffered problems in 2022, which urgently require Lee and Mat to diagnose and repair, however access can only be gained weekdays in ‘office hours’ which is proving to become a resourcing and time management issue, delaying the repairs. This has become an urgent job to get all of Goodmayes working fully. There is still a long-term ambition to upgrade the speaker system across the hospital, but this requires full research and funding, due to the nature of the building the ward radio project wouldn’t be viable.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Engineering Continued
2022 was the year we finally got faster internet! Lee has been battling for years to improve the service, We have operated on two ADSL telephone lines to give us a workable broadband speed. Lee, through EduNet managed to get us accepted into the LGFL programme that supports schools and nonprofits. Our broadband is now a 5G mobile broadband connection, with a powerful antenna pointing towards the nearest 5G masts on the o2 network. We are achieving a much greater internet speed and stability. As we took over WXHR, we installed a second 5G mobile at Whipps Cross to avoid the expensive and slow ADSL line, with the Whipps Cross site due to be redeveloped for a new hospital, the 5G antenna is easier to relocate and get online, rather than waiting for BT / Openreach to run new cables.
Throughout the year we took the opportunity to tidy up some of our IT network, and re-install windows on all of our workstations in the studio and office, providing a ‘clean start’ for many of our machines, as they were becoming slow due to the number of updates and profile data stored.
Lee has made great contacts with WiFi Spark in 2022, and we gained a better understanding of how their system operates across the various Trusts. We now understand there is the possibility to have a limited number of devices permanently connected to the NHS WiFi for ability to play hospital radio.
We have ideas of a test we would like to do, but will need support from an NHS Trust to operate the trial.
Our Mobile App continues to be stable, with the developers (Aiir) now including connectivity for Apple CarPlay & Android Auto, with improvements in app for the now-playing artwork. Overall usage shows 65% of App users are iOS (Apple) users.
The website has increased in cost, but remains strongly affordable, in 2022 we also invested in a new dotRadio domain. of www.bedrock.radio. In purchasing we have prevented anyone else from buying the domain name and have secured it for a few years.
We took the opportunity give our main website (bedrockradio.org.uk) a little reorganisation in late December updating information for Barts Health Listeners and when we gave our two radio stations their own new identities, moved all of our charitable aspects together under the ‘about us’ section encompassing volunteering, fundraising and history of our charity under one section of our website.
As Bedrock own the domain of www.hospital-radio.org we have redirected this to our tidied up ‘About’ section.
The radio stations; Bedrock RADIO & Bedrock GOLD webpages focusing on their ‘On-Air’ content. We’re pleased to have seen a small, but steady number of clicks through from the NHS WiFi across all locations, of which the majority have gone onto listening in.
Mat discovered Ofcom are launching a small-scale DAB licence in 2023, with a projection of covering South West Essex, North East London area. With the groups approval in 2022, Mat has continued to research, talking with other local community stations about the licencing. Trustees have begun the application paperwork with the prospect of taking forward an application to Ofcom, if successful, will gain Bedrock more listeners, however our running costs will increase dramatically and we are mindful that more effort on fundraising & sponsorship will be required from everyone to ensure the success of getting Bedrock Radio onto the ultra-local DAB.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
And Finally
2023 is promising to be a more ‘normal’ year of operation for Bedrock Radio, with a number of projects and ideas on the go and a big celebration to come in 2024 we’re hoping the coming year will be prosperous for our charity.
Together we’re creating a fantastic community health & hospital radio station. Thank You to all volunteers for the support and helping keep us on-air.
It’s hard to believe that Bedrock Radio has once again grown our listener base, possibly making us one of the biggest services in London and in the UK.
Trustees are thrilled to have gotten a major project off the ground, and welcome our new listeners from five hospitals to our services.
We need to ensure we have a strong income over the next few years, to ensure the charities successes. We remain optimistic in applying for a local DAB over the coming year, but know this will bring a new pressure in keeping the funds coming in, and ensuring we have a strong, reliable team of presenters.
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047
Bedrock Radio
Bedrock is the Community health and hospital radio station serving the wider health community across East London and South Essex.
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 local area.
On Bedrock Radio you'll hear local events listings, news, hospital and health information, plus a mix of songs from the 80s, 90s, 00s, 2010s, 2020s 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 40s 50s, 60s 70s and 80s plus we feature Classical Music & More!
www.bedrockradio.org.uk
bedrock.radio | hospital-radio.org
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BEDROCK RADIO | ANNUAL REPORT 2022
| Registered Charity 118047