Tribute to "Bingo Bill"

I joined a volunteer hospital radio station when I first developed an interest in radio and have just discovered this article in my local paper the Oldham Chronicle about the man that has guided me through those first few years of a broadcast journalism career. I don't know yet whether radio or print "is my thing" but if it's radio this man has a large part to play in my decision. I didn't know him very well or amazingly long but he was one of the nicest men you could ever wish to meet and I will always have fond memeries of him.

THE memory of a Shaw community stalwart will live on at Radio Cavell.Former Shaw and Crompton parish councillor and dedicated family man Bill Naylor was affectionately known as “Bingo Billy” by listeners of the station, which is based at the Royal Oldham hospital.
So it seemed only fitting that a studio should be dedicated to the 68-year-old, who died following a battle with cancer in October last year.
Mr Naylor, who volunteered at the station for more than 25 years, was known for his dedication to his family of four daughters, two sons, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, as well as his wife, Alice.
The bubbly pensioner was also renowned for his love of the festive period and delighted local youngsters by adorning his house with a host of bright lights.
Radio Cavell’s station manager Dave McGealy said: “Bill has been missed so much by everyone at the station and it is the first time we have ever done anything like this.
“It was something we all felt we wanted to do to recognise the commitment and work Bill put in over his 25 years with us.
“We wanted to thank him and his family and remember what an important person he was.“He was a sounding board for all our ideas — exactly the kind of person you want to be working with and he is greatly missed.”

Weekend events

Just done my radio show this weekend on the student station but the PC play-out system wasn't working so had to do my show off CD's all the time. I wouldn't have minded that but it was the fact no-one told me about the PC so that I spent like 30 minutes of my saturday show entering every password I could and fildding around but oh well....
Gutted. Leek Town's match with Mossley called off. I had just met Dan (who I was going to the game with) at midday when I got a text from the leek town forum admin who said the game was off. Ok, I am glad I didn't receive the text over half an hour later as we would have been on the train to stockport but still, my day was runied after that (overstatement there.) I will see leek live this season whatever it takes!
It's starting to get near xmas and UCLan Journalism students still have 4 (one is my elective) assignments to do and frankly, I can't really be bothered. I should be...and I am trying but I don't have the drive I should have considering this assignments could make or break my degree.
It is the last week of Preston FM being on air this week, I did the newsreading on Thursday which went as well as possible considering the system in the studios crashed (what is it with technology recently?). So I am hoping to contribute another news story or 2 to add to my portfolio before it goes off air and it will take up a bit of my spare time as well.

The Ashes

I watched the opening day of the ashes last night LIVE! on sky tv in the common room. Not a great day for England against a sublime Aussie team and on a pitch that was as useful to the bowlers as a chocolote fireguard! However, watching it saw me stay overnight (12-7am) then I went to bed for 4 hours before getting up for my elective lecture. It is now the end of the day for lectures but I am newsreading at Preston FM tonight so I will do that come back, sleep for another 4 hours and again (try) and no an alnighter while watching the cricket, this time no beer will be involved!
Aaahh the joy of the student life. I just hope I don't fall asleep while newsreading!

What have I done since Monday?

I have played 5-a-side a lot of pro evo 6m but seriously...
I have almost done one of my assignments and made strong strides to completing the other one. only 2 more I have to think about!
Yesterday, I went to watch the new bond film (for part of an assignment we had to pick from a number of reviews). All work no play on this journalism course! and later say Liverpool's miserable away run continue with a 0-0 away draw at Boro.
Preston Fm has again been an invaluable resource and I will be newsreading again next thursday and hopefully have a few more stories on the news bulletins.
My radio show sat and sunday was really good fun. I planned it out better and enjoyed the 9-11am time much more to, and on Sun someone even guessed right in my competition! and I had a lot of help from the heads of speech and programming on Frequency to sort out my show.
Today, I have worked my 2nd shift at Blackburn for Match Recruitment and again, it went very well and is all extra money in the bank. Can't knock that!
Can't wait for the ashes to start on Thursday either, I will be in the common room at all times to see how that unfolds, come on the barmy army! I would have gone but for Uni and money.

I have a job!!

Well, I have actually worked for the recruitment agency for the first time on Saturday after being registered with them for over a year! :)
The job is in catering and it was at Ewood Park....so I was only a few metres away from Blackburn Vs Man Utd which, as a footy lover, was pretty darn cool.
Today, my Journalism mind has been busy again. Preston FM for most of the day, doing vox pops, sitting in on interviews and then going back to the office/studios to edit it. I really am enjoying the stuff they let me do there and hearing a story I contributed to on the news bulletin.
I went to Pluto, the student paper, news meeting today and got a story about race relations at UCLan to do, not that bad except I have quite a few interviews to do so might have to scale down my preston fm involvement.
My "Whitworth at the Weekend" radio show on the student station has been moved to 9-11am from 7-9am, very glad about that! extra kip in bed time.
Going to a meeting tomorrow about getting involved with the "students today"page, which is one page in the Lancashire Evening Post (LEP) about students, so hopefully I can write a piece or 2 for that to expand my student profile.
Still got a lot of assignment work to do though so we will see how each venture go because my main priority has to be my Univeristy degree after all!

Preston FM newsreading

Since I am posting this I think it can be guessed that the newsreading went ok.
After I set up my trial version of Adobe Audition up on my laptop and left preston FM belting out from windows media player so I could record the bulletin I went down to Preston FM studios. (their slogan is "stay pressed on"= Get it...stay "pressed on" in Preston...pure genius!)
I got there after 5pm and met Jermaine, who I was co-reading the news with, who was already there.
After running through the scripts provided and having mock bulletins we were ready to roll for the, nearly 15 minutes, 6:30pm news bulletin.
The head of the Prescap project was driving the desk in studio 2 while me and Jermaine alternated in reading the varying news stories for the bulletin.
Overall, bar the odd trip-over-a-word-in-the-script problem it went very smoothly and I have put myself forward to read it on Thursday as well.
Got back to my flat and it has recorded which I was relieved to find and after around 30 minutes I had edited it into the news package I wanted and am quite proud of myself now :)
I will be involving myself in the news team Monday and maybe Tueday next week although I don't want to overdo my workload with all my assignments and I have got while early December until the station goes off air to broaden my experience.

My day yesterday....

..was a lot busier than I expected!
I got up in time for my 9-11am journalism seminar and it was the first week of Online Blogging (so, of course, I said "I already have a blog!" quite smugly) but now we have created a new one. Don't worry this one is mine and firm priority.
Anyways, after that I went to the local community radio station Preston FM (87.9FM) just to show my face etc...ended up I was there till 5pm and I went along with the news team to cover 2 stories...one which I got credit for even though I did nothing at all and the other seemed to vanish of the news bulletin but it may be on tonight.
After watching TV (and don't you agree that Channel 4 has one of the best tea-time line-ups?) I went to watch liverpool in the league cup at the pub. Came home jubilant bragged a tad to much to an everton fan (yep, they went out.) and they went to sleep :)
On friday I am doing the news bulletin for Preston FM so there will either be a post about that friday or saturday or if it goes badly I will run away from this career and never be seen again ;)

Random

Here I am on Bonfire night listening to Dave Pearce on radio one "Dance Anthems" and I hear he is coming to my Uni town next weekend. Top stuff.
I finally bought pro evo 6 as well this weekend, not a bad game at all :)
Whoever said living a student life was easy...they are wrong. I have got 4 assignments that are all due in within the space of a week in December so I have been working my arse off recently.
This weekend saw the beginning of the "Whitworth at the Weekend" show on my student radio station which was early but a lot of fun, might be being changed to 8-10 instead of 7-9am. Good that.
West Indies were beaten outright in the ICC champions trophy cricket by the Aussies and the England Rubgy team were outclassed by the Kiwi's= no surprises there.
Arsenal and Chelsea lost (YYEESS!!) though in the Prem so Liverpool gain a bit of ground on them.
I am now going to have a beer. or 2. (limit is 2, thats all I have in my flat : )

EDIT: Hmm it seems a post I did about the death penalty given to saddam has wandered off...hmm interesting. If you see it please return it here. May be a reward :)