**Trustees’ Report and Annual Review 2024 1 January – 31 December 2024** **A Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and Wales, no. 1191302** ## **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** Basingstoke and North Hants Hospital, Aldermaston Road Basingstoke Hants RG24 9NA www.hrbasingstoke.co.uk **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** **Trustees’ Report** The trustees of Hospital Radio Basingstoke present their annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024. Hospital Radio Basingstoke is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation governed by a constitution as agreed by the members of the organisation on 1 September 2020. ## **Charitable Objectives (as per constitution)** The objects of the CIO are: The relief of sickness, poor health and old age amongst people living in Basingstoke and the surrounding area by providing a local broadcasting service for hospitals, residential homes and similar institutions, and for patients receiving community care, and 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 Basingstoke and the surrounding area. ## **Organisation** HRB is run entirely by volunteers, who pay an annual membership subscription. It is governed by a constitution and managed by an Executive Committee (the charity’s Trustees), which is elected annually by the membership. ## **Charity Trustees** Chairman Scott Rawlings (from April 2024) Station Manager Treasurer Inga Adomaviciute Secretary Margot Konitzer Programme Controller Neil Ogden Public Relations Officer* Fundraising Officer** Training Officer Elliot Moyle Engineer Committee Member without Portfolio Committee Member without Portfolio Committee Member without Portfolio *Role carried out by Scott Rawlings / ** Role carried out by Elliot Moyle **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** ## **Related Organisations** HRB is a member of the Hospital Broadcasting Association, the national charity that supports and promotes hospital broadcasting in the UK. HRB’s members have in the last twelve months attended their national conference and their monthly Zoom social meetings which discuss issues and subjects of interest to member stations. HRB also receives notifications of events run by the Basingstoke Voluntary Association and advertises for volunteers on the BVA’s website. Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust manages the hospital where HRB’s studio is based. Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital is one of 3 hospitals managed by the trust. Members of HRB’s committee have liaised with the management of the trust, the communications team and the voluntary services team of the trust on a regular basis. HRB depends upon the services of Hospedia Limited who provide and maintain the bedside entertainment units. They supply headphones which HRB’s members regularly distribute to patients during ward rounds. From March 2023 until October 2023, HRB also depended on the services of UK DAB Networks (Operations) Ltd, the original operator of the Basingstoke Small Scale DAB multiplex for its DAB service. This company went into liquidation in October 2023 and since then a new operator, Basingstoke DAB Ltd, has taken over the licence and now runs the SSDAB multiplex for Basingstoke from a new transmitter site at St Andrew’s Church in Farleigh Wallop. The new transmitter site went live on November 30[th] 2024. Each station with a SSDAB licence at the time of the formation of the company put forward a volunteer to be a Non-Executive Director of the new company. ## **Review of Activities and Achievements** Having started broadcasting on SSDAB in 2023, HRB was unable to continue to do so throughout much of 2024 due to the operator of the Basingstoke multiplex going into liquidation and the new company taking longer than envisaged to find and set up a new transmitter site. However, even though the station was not broadcasting on DAB, it was still an Ofcom licensed station and continued to fulfil all that it said it would do under the terms of that C-DSP licence. The reasoning for being on SSDAB broadcasting around Basingstoke is promoting health and wellbeing and a healthy lifestyle to the people of **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** Basingstoke and the local area, to try and keep people out of hospital. This is in line with the future aims of the NHS and also very much at the heart of the thinking of how the new hospital in Basingstoke will work with more treatment being undertaken at home and in the community. More and more hospital radio stations are looking to go down this route with SSDAB licences being advertised around the country. This follows stations who have already become health and wellbeing and community stations on FM frequencies. Our application form stated our listeners would be able to expect a _“great selection of music chosen from the past six decades as well as becoming involved in our speech content. Our advice on health, wellbeing and lifestyle issues will be produced and presented in an accessible and engaging way and in a subtle manner, encouraging listeners into living a healthier and fulfilling life._ _We will continue to broadcast our popular request shows and our varied programme schedule will extend to the community outside of our existing listenership providing an ‘easy listening’ mix of music.”_ In 2024 we continued to broadcast our usual large range of programming although this continued to prove a challenge at times due to the continued low number of volunteers. Syndicated shows were utilised to fill many of the gaps, but it was recognised that recruiting new volunteers was very important to not only produce more locally focused shows but to take the station out and about and be seen around the community. Our application stated that we would provide _“local news plus our event guide will give the community the information that will keep them up to date alongside information on recreational activities in the area which will encourage people to participate._ ” And we continued to do this every day with around 8 local news bulletins per day on weekdays and 5 – 6 per day at weekends. The station has an ongoing and long standing agreement with the Basingstoke Gazette to use stories from their website which we continued to do as well as making use of press releases that we received direct. Our HRB Diary feature and our “Mix” shows promoted local events, the latter also offering a range of local news, features, interviews and information. The “Mix” shows also include The Word on Health, a regular feature profiling a different illness or medical condition. We also featured various hospital **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** health related campaigns throughout the year with interviews with the staff from various departments. The team were ever mindful of the everyday pressures that the NHS has been facing and promoted through our programmes ways that the public could help the hospital deal with those pressures. Wherever we could we broadcast messages or promotions made by the hospital communications team to help get their various messages across. We also presented a show from the Pathology department at the hospital. Presenter Scott Rawlings interviewed staff working in the department to find out more about what they do and to then play their requests. The three and a half hour show was a great success and there are plans to do more shows like that in the future. Ward visiting continued to be seen as a very important part of what the station does and all live shows continue to be “Music on Demand” request shows. With the low number of volunteers though, collecting requests in the same numbers as previous years was more challenging, limiting the number collected to 3340, the first time the number had been below 4000 apart from during COVID since 2014. The number of hours of new local programmes was slightly lower than 2023 though. We reached several “milestone” requests during 2024. Request No. 122,000 – Westlife – Amazing played by April Haywood on Saturday 6 January 2024 Request No. 123,000 – The Seekers – Morningtown Ride played by Neil Ogden on Sunday 7 April 2024 Request No. 124,000 – Everly Brothers – Devoted to You played by Neil Ogden on Sunday 14 July 2024. Request 125,000 – REM – Everybody Hurts played by Neil Ogden Sunday 24 November 2024. It is also worth noting that we received more requests by email, phone and WhatsApp than ever before, so our interaction with our listeners seemed to grow significantly. ## **Out and About** As a community radio station, we feel it is very important to be seen out and about locally. Events attended in 2024 included the Basingstoke Transport Festival, Old Basing Carnival, Bartons Mill Duck Race, Alton Lions Safari in the Park, Alton Lions Classic Car Show, Odiham Raft Race, Bark in the Park, Tadley **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** Fire Station Open Day, Basingstoke Fire Station Open Day, and several performances at the Basingstoke Festival including the opening parade. The station was also at the Basingstoke Half Marathon from where we broadcast on the day itself and a highlights show the following weekend, the Armed Forces Flag Raising Ceremony, the D Day Flag Raising Ceremony and the Remembrance Day event. As well as recording these events in various different ways for later broadcast, videos were also produced and made available via the station’s website to encourage further engagement with our listeners. Our coverage of outside events fulfilled another of our commitments made in our C-DSP application: “ _We will showcase the work of various health/care services and broadcast live from local charity and cultural events and encourage listeners to contact us to talk about events that they are involved in.”_ At all the events visited during the year, station publicity leaflets and business cards were handed out. Our listening hours were slightly down on 2023 but were still greater than 2022 and started to increase in December when HRB was back on DAB once again. Our Christmas schedule each year starts with Neil Ogden’s Sound of Sunday BIG Christmas Show, which, in 2024 was a six hour live show of special guests, competitions and requests, plus live from around the wards the Great Christmas Cracker Dash. The staff competition to win a family ticket to the Anvil’s Christmas panto generated many entries from around the hospital trust. We took Christmas Crackers out and about to Cherry Blossom Manor in Bramley and Bishopswood Court in Tadley, two of the venues that continued to have requests as part of Residents’ Requests. There were live shows throughout Christmas, as well as a comprehensive selection of special shows for the festive period. ## **Residents’ Requests** Making programmes for local care homes is something that we have been doing for 8 years and continued throughout 2024. We believe that this is an important part of our programme schedule. Monthly programmes for Cherry Blossom Manor, Oak Lodge and Rowan Lodge continued throughout the year with the homes involved valuing the playing of residents’ favourite songs and hearing their name mentioned on the radio. **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** HRB also continued to work with Basingstoke Neighbourcare and went along regularly to the Tadley Community Social Group. For this and the shows for Cherry Blossom Manor, presenter Neil Ogden has been going in person to meet the residents and record them talking on air to introduce their favourite songs. ## **“Showing Off” Open Day** Following the success of the open day held for NHS75 day in 2023, HRB once again opened its doors for another open day which was held as part of National Volunteers Week in June. The original intention had been to celebrate being back on DAB, but that process was more prolonged than envisaged. The day was still a success though with a visit from the Mayor of Basingstoke Councillor Dan Putty, staff from the hospital, and residents from Oak Lodge and Rowan Lodge. The Mayor spent over an hour at the station taking part in the shows and talking to the visitors from the two care homes. The other aim of the day was to promote HRB itself to hospital staff and the local community and promote volunteering opportunities available. There was a steady stream of visitors throughout the day including some interest in volunteering. ## **Awards Nominations** Every year, the Hospital Broadcasting Association organises the National Hospital Radio Awards as part of its annual conference to celebrate the thousands of hours of volunteering by hospital radio volunteers across the UK and the high standard of programming they produce. HRB has had consistent success at the awards over the years and in 2024 added four more nominations in Best Station promotion, Best Newcomer, Best Special Event and Station of the Year. None of the nominations won an award but HRB did nominate the winner of the John Witney Award for Contribution to Hospital Radio, Richard Smith, who has been contributing to the station since 2004. That was the station’s 14[th] win since 1992. The awards ceremony was held at the end of a one-day conference at Winchester University, and because of the short distance from Basingstoke, a larger than usual delegation of members was present at both events. **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** ## **Generating Income** Generating income continued to be a challenge throughout the year, and despite the reduced licence costs to PPL due to not being on DAB for most of the year, the station was still £643.83 in deficit at the end of the year although due to the grants received for the studio refit, the cash balance looks much healthier. We continued to raise money through “tin rattles” at supermarkets, with the one held just before Christmas being particularly successful. We restarted the tin rattles at the front of the hospital, which are seen as good promotion in particular as well as for fundraising. We also have several supporters through the Basingstoke Community Lottery who select us as their good cause to support with 50% of their weekly £1 ticket. Just before Christmas we had a one-off donation to purchase a year’s worth of prizes for a weekend prize draw, something we have been trying to bring back regularly for several years. We had some success just before Christmas with new advertising with one full advertising campaign and some small Christmas greeting advertisements coming on air to coincide with being back on DAB. We have teamed up with a local businessman to produce a new magazine which will produce a projected income of around £2000 in 2025 when it is published. That was being worked on throughout much of the second half of the year. The increased costs of being on DAB mean our running costs are higher and we know that the cost of being on the Basingstoke multiplex has increased significantly. The amount raised by advertising and sponsorship in 2025 will need to be greater in order to meet those increased costs. ## **Volunteers** HRB’s activities would, of course, not be possible without a dedicated team of volunteers working hard to provide the service for our audience. These include those who present, most of whom regularly visit the wards to collect requests, and those whose primary role is to visit the wards to collect requests for later shows. **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** Throughout the first half of the year the number of members hovered at around 24, but from August onwards, there was a steady influx of new recruits that took the total number of members to 38. This caused a problem in its own right though as training resources were limited meaning that none of the new recruits had made it on air before the end of the year. The ward visiting team had increased substantially though. ## **Acknowledgements** HRB recognises and thanks the hospital’s trust for their support throughout the year. They provide the station with power and phone and allow us to continue to be in the modular building on the site behind the Sherborne Building. ## **Future Plans** At the end of the year, the plans for the new hospital were effectively on hold whilst the new Labour government conducted a review of the New Hospitals Programme. The opening of the new hospital was planned to be sometime around 2032, but the result of the review will be known in early 2025. If a move to a new hospital is going to be needed, the Trustees will have to start thinking about how that will affect future fundraising needs. The increased running costs are one of the major risks to the charity. There are enough reserves to cover some of this for a period of time but the trustees will need to develop a plan during the coming months to increase future income to cover those costs longer term, most notably the increased licence costs of being on SSDAB. It should also be noted that good though it is having more listeners online, that will also potentially bring with it extra costs. The Trustees aspire to refurbish both broadcast studios to bring them up to modern digital standards. By the end of the year significant progress had been made to achieve this with a total of £34,000 being raised from grants. Another £8000 will be needed to cover the rest of the project in 2025 with a time limit to spend the money of around the middle of the year. Finally there remains only a small amount of engineering capability within the station which can limit the ability to deal with technical issues. The Trustees will continue to look for more engineering and technical expertise in future recruitment. ## **Financial Review and Accounts** The financial results presented in the Annual Review 2024 reflect the financial activity from 1 January to 31 December 2024. **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** Excluding the grants received for the studio refit which are restricted funds, HRB made a loss of £643.83 although the total cash balance in the bank is £42,489.87. There are 3 other items of restricted funds, Internet Radios, a grant towards DAB costs and a donation to cover the cost of providing a prize in a weekly prize draw which will start in January 2025. Our main costs were for licences, insurance and building costs. Our main sources of income were from membership subs, On Show (tin rattles) and from supporters taking part in the Basingstoke Community Lottery. We also ran a quiz night once again although income from this was slightly down on the year before. The trustees recognise that being back on DAB for 2025 means higher costs and therefore increased effort will be needed to cover expenditure. ## **Reserves Policy** The Trustees have decided on a reserves policy of setting aside £5000 **Annual Report and Accounts 2024** ## **Hospital Radio Basingstoke** |**EXPENDITURE**
Internet Radios
Studio refit costs
Advertising Production
Studio / computer equip
Engineering and maintenance in studio
Air Conditioning
Building costs - alarms, fire extinguishers etc.
Computer software
Publicity / Promotions
Licences / HBA subs
BT / Wifi / Tablet Mobile
Furniture & buildings maintenance
Insurance
Website
Branded Clothing
Outside events/raffles
Bank charges
On Air imaging (jingles & liners)
Music
Stationary/sundries
Grant Funding return
HRB Conference Bursary /Training|0.00
0.00
192.00
5.00
29.95
0.00
372.00
37.97
182.40
3,766.76
409.65
0.00
421.55
270.93
140.70
100.00
0.00
120.00
51.34
118.18
0.00
0.00| |---|---| |**TOTAL EXPENSES**|**6,218.43**| |**INCOME**
Grant Funding - Internet Radios
Sale of studio equipment
Membership
Gift Aid
Lottery / Amazon / Easy Fundraising
Branded Clothing
On Show/Collection tins in shops
Quiz Night
Fashion Show
Sponsorship and Advertising
Magazine
Other income
Other donations
Refunds
Bank interest
Grant for DAB costs RESTYRICTED FUNDS
Donation for Prize Draw RESTRICTED FUNDS|0.00
0.00
605.50
0.00
572.19
135.00
1,430.86
400.62
0.00
1,088.00
0.00
0.00
150.11
0.00
142.32
750.00
300.00| |**SUB-TOTAL**|**5,574.60**| |**OTHER RESTRICTED FUNDS:**|| Hospital Radio Basin85toke Annual Report and Accounts 2024 Net of receipts / (payments) (exdudes grants for new studio) -643.83 Cash funds brought forward plus grants received for new studio Total funds carried forward 9,133.70 34,CK#).00 42.489.87 Anal is of funds Unrestricted Igeneral expenses) 7.399.67 Restricted - DAB 750.00 Restrirted Prize Draw 300.00 Restricted- Internet Radio 115.30 Restricted -Grants for rfftv studio 34.000.IJ) Total Fund5 42,564.97 Bank Accounts DEposrr 41.957.26 CURRE 597.71 100 CLUB io. Total Cash at bank 42,564.97 Net outstandin8 75.10 Total Gish and fvlonies due 42,489.87 Signed Slgned 5nga Adomaviciute ITrÈasurer) awlings (Chairman)