Please do support Resonance FM, it really is something special, for once I am doing the hard sell on one of my paintings, the money all goes to Resonance, bid here (please). Thank you.

Resonance FM and the story of Wilfred. Wilfred has had his portrait painted several times, he’s someone I like to return to, apparently I have his name wrong, he’s really called Wilfrid. Sorry Wilf, you’re Wilfred now.  Wilfred served valiantly during the hip-hop fueled days of the1980s, he saw action at GLC Hip Hop jam at the southbank, down by the Thames, here in London, back in 1984 where he provided the sounds for an all-girl robot-dancing crew. He played his part during many a busking session at Covent Garden or on the beachfront at Brighton, and he still serves well while listening to Resonance FM here in the studio.

And so a new painting of Wilfred was recently commissioned by Marina Organ, she of Resonance FM’s Other Rock Show (as well as owner of Wilfred and one time member of an all-girl robot dancing team who did battle down at the Southbank that time).  Resonance FM is brilliant of course, a unique and rather vital arts radio station, and right now the radio station that relies mostly on the goodwill and donations of listeners and is mostly run (24/7) by volunteers, is running the annual fundraiser   You can grab lots of ‪art‬, music and & more via the ResonanceFM fundraising auctions, including this new painting of Wilfred.  You’ll find art from lots of people including Bella Freud, Bobandroberta Smith, Jimmy Cauty, Pete Fowler and lots more, all proceeds go to the excellent arts radio station and the upkeep of the broadcasting equipment.  Last time I looked the Wilfred painting was at £62, come on bid it up, it is for an excellent cause.

Resonance is brilliant, over to Ed Baxter of Resonance for more…

Dear friend,  Resonance’s Annual Fundraiser continues till 21st February 2016. Do visit our on-line auction of items and unique experiences which is running on ebay here: about a hundred special offers, ranging from record bundles from Rough Trade, Strut, and Gearbox to artworks by Bob & Roberta Smith, Eleanor Crook and Peter Fowler, to gourmet experiences at Neal’s Yard, Wright Brothers and Roast… Something for everyone – at knock down prices! There are also live events over the next few days with Club Integral, Very Loose Women, The Relatives, Band of Holy Joy, and DJ Food.

 

If none of this suits your tastes or pocket, do please consider making a charitable donation of any size on the Resonance FM site. In the last six months alone our supporters have allowed us to secure our five-year FM licence from Ofcom, launch two DAB platforms, and entirely overhaul our website. Resonance frankly relies upon your support!

What do we do with your money? At the moment the chairs are falling apart from over-use, the studio laptop has finally expired, and the piano and most the headphones need repairing. With over two hundred people each week using our small studios, wear and tear is inevitable. But we also want to improve our service and help more people fulfil their potential through making radio. Here, just one of our broadcasters – Leonore Schick – explains why Resonance is important to her.  I hope her story gives you a flavour of how the station works – and why it is worth supporting.

IT’S PERHAPS SURPRISING that after all the cuts to arts and community infrastructure, Resonance continues to be so strong. It has had a huge impact on my life, having shaped me, trained me, provided me with friends, and kept me daydreaming. I heard about Resonance before I moved to London, so when I finally got to the city, I turned up on their doorstep. That was in September 2010. I spent the next three weeks shadowing engineers and updating the old WordPress website.

I also went along to the student protest with station programmer Richard Thomas and a couple of dictaphones to make a recording of the event. We got kettled for seven hours; even though he had a press card and could leave, Richard stuck around. I edited the recording, and that was the first Resonance broadcast I contributed to. What started that day is now what takes up a lot of my time: documenting activism. I make a podcast and blog about activists, and am currently working on a short film about a refugee solidarity group, London2Calais, and one about activists in Paris during Cop21.

In 2010, I also met the station’s project’s manager, Tom Besley. I’d just made a fifteen minute episode on the eating habits of spiders, and I wanted to make a half-hour one about a lock-house by the east London canal. I told Tom about my plans and he said we should make a film as well. Last year, Tom and I spent nine months in a community radio station in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, making broadcasts and 20 minute public information films which we toured in a mobile cinema!

Now back in London, with my friends Katherine and Emma, I co-present Very Loose Women, a weekly discussion show which has taken us on some excellent adventures. We went to Derry, to report on the Women of the World Festival; to Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall; to Brighton to speak at a conference on the future of radio; and to Manchester to pick up a prestigious podcasting award. But most importantly, we’ve been in the studio, interviewing guests, over-sharing, and meeting all the passionate and curious people who come through Resonance’s gate.

Leonore’s journey is surely unusual in the restless range of activities to which that initial, tentative broadcast led. But to my mind it also typifies radio’s unique user-friendly but transformative qualities and the ability of Resonance in particular to change people’s lives for the better. Bluntly – with your help and encouragement – that’s the kind of thing we want to keep doing.

Ed Baxter, for Resonance FM

The constantly updated (during Feb 2016) Resonance fundraising page. Please do support Resonance FM, it really is something special, for once I am doing the hard sell on one of my paintings, the money all goes to Resonance. bid here (please). Thank you.

Here’s an interview with me that went out on air live on the Saturday afternoon Newsagents show back in April 2015

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