Have you thought about #volunteering? I’m on the radio! @PenistoneFM

Hi all:

As you all know, life can take some funny detours on the way to wherever it is taking us. I don’t know you, but I have found myself at times at an impasse, in between things. Things are moving but not quite ready yet for the next step or one needs to regroup and rework ones plans.

And there I was. As I suppose many of you, I receive notifications from quite a few places. LinkedIn regularly sends me e-mails suggesting jobs nearby. As I haven’t been at home very much in the last few months I hadn’t paid them that much attention, but just before I went on my holiday I realised they were suggesting volunteering jobs in the area where I live. I’d always thought I’d volunteer at some point ‘when I had more time’ but recently I’ve decided not to put off things because there’s never enough time unless we make the time. I checked Do It organisation and there were quite a few things I was interested in, some very local. As so far I’d always worked away from Penistone (South Yorkshire, UK), where I live, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to get more involved.

The logo of Penistone FM in situ, inside of the studio

I applied for a job in Penistone FM, went to visit and meet Martin Sugden who agreed to let me try, and now I’m going once a week, on Tuesdays from 5 pm to 8 pm, and sit at a desk under the watchful eye of Andy Riley, who is a fantastic trainer and knows well how to make people feel at ease.

This is Andy, who needs to keep an eye on weather, traffic, Facebook, Twitter…

Penistone FM (you can check also in Wikipedia) was formed in 2005 as a non-for-profit community radio station to broadcast around the Penistone and surrounding area on 95.7 FM. The process of obtaining the licence and setting up took some time, and the station finally went on air, live, on the 6th of June 2009. It is entirely run by volunteers, and although I imagine many of you won’t be in the area, you can always check online, here, and there’s even an App you can download.

If you want to know how I’ve found it so far (it’s very early days)…People are great, I love everything (the community ads [I’m now finally up to date with what is happening], the selection of weird news and the Quiz of Doom by Andy), I’m in awe of the time management skills necessary to fit everything in, of the technology, and I hope people enjoy listening to the programme (despite my accent).

It’s like NASA but smaller!

Andy tells me I’m doing OK, and hopefully I’ll be doing more and more things as I go along (I started pressing buttons and things last week), so who knows!

I’m still getting to know the people working there, but so far, loving it.

It’s me on the radio!

Don’t forget to follow in Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/penfm

And Twitter:

@PenistoneFM

I’ll keep you posted. Go on, check us out! And, why don’t you have a go at volunteering? I’m sure there are many good causes you might be able to contribute to, even if you only have a bit of time every week. And you might learn something, have fun, and what’s more important, help.

Thanks so much to Penistone FM, and Andy Riley in particular for his patience, thanks to all of you for reading, and you know what to do, like, comment, share and CLICK! And consider VOLUNTEERING!