A neighborhood radio station arrange by two buddies through the first lockdown has been awarded £10,000 by the Nationwide Lottery.
Lomond Radio was based within the spring of 2020 as Leven Lockdown Radio by fanatics Alan Caldwell and Paul Lucas, who broadcast from their Alexandria houses.
The station shortly grew in reputation, with Alan and Paul recognizing the hole for really native radio for Dumbarton and the Vale following the demise of Your Radio.
Final 12 months the station, which is run fully by volunteers, took one other step ahead, as they moved into studios at Dumbarton’s iconic Strathleven Home and altered names once more - from River Radio to Lomond Radio.
Now they've grown additional, with a grant from the Nationwide Lottery Neighborhood Fund set to go in direction of funding state-of-the-art broadcast tools and furnishings for his or her Strathleven Home base.
Co-founder Alan Caldwell revealed that the neighborhood side was a serious purpose for his or her profitable grant utility, which he hopes will assist get much more locals concerned with Lomond Radio.
He stated: “A key a part of our bid was that we are going to provide coaching. The neighborhood is an enormous a part of this station.
“We don’t need our presenters to be skilled, we would like them from the neighborhood. We need to let individuals strive one thing new and develop their abilities.
“It’s one thing a neighborhood station ought to attempt to do. It’s honest to say that we’ve taken the mannequin of a standard radio station and stood it on its head. We’ve taken a completely new strategy.
“We're blown away that the neighborhood fund put their belief in us to ship for the area people and we're nicely on the way in which to doing that.”
This month the studio is ready to take supply of a cutting-edge digital broadcast console, with customized constructed furnishings additionally on the way in which.
And after every thing is put in, Alan and the staff hope to ask everybody who has helped assist the station up to now to strive their hand on the station.
He continued: “As soon as we now have every thing in place and the studio accomplished we will likely be celebrating with an open day the place our valued sponsors and supporters can come alongside and see how we’ve progressed and what we spend their donations and promoting charges on.
“Following that we are going to open the doorways to the general public over a weekend in order that they'll go to the studio and see how every thing works and hopefully recruit some new volunteers.
“We need to exit into the neighborhood and get them concerned with us as a lot as we are able to. We’re going to carry open days in neighborhood centres and invite individuals alongside to inform us what they need from their station.
”They'll form our schedule.”
The Nationwide Lottery Neighborhood Fund distributes funding on behalf of Nationwide Lottery gamers who elevate greater than £30million every week for good causes all through the UK.
Chair of the fund in Scotland, Kate Nonetheless, stated: “This funding will assist tasks to tell, educate and construct belief to allow them to start to vary attitudes which is able to, in time, impact actual social change.
“That is all because of Nationwide Lottery gamers who're serving to communities to thrive.”
Residents can take heed to Lomond Radio by way of a wise speaker or at lomondradio.co.uk.