Saturday, 13. June 2026
Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire
Yesterday was the first ever Summer Gathering organised by the Community Media Association. The event was hosted in Melton Mowbray in association with their local community radio station 103 The Eye.
My highlights for the day were Valerie Geller‘s workshop on Creating Powerful Radio. She is such an engaging speaker – lots of tips on how to make your content interesting for the listener and to help grow audiences.
I also enjoyed Jonathan Ruffle talking about his time as producer of Steve Wright In the Afternoon, back when it was on Radio 1 in the 80s/90s. He has written a book about his time as Wrighty’s producer, which I will look forward to reading (when I’ve finished reading Simon Mayo).
Also during the day we heard from Dom Chambers about Local Radio Day; Mark Jones talked about the Community Radio Fund, and there was a panel discussion on Smart Marketing, which was quite interesting.
The day was ended with a fun, interactive quiz – which everyone could take part in by logging in to a website on mobile phone and submitting answers electronically. I came 7th out of I think about 18 participants.
Great day! It was just a one-day event so I drove up to Melton Mowbray in the morning and came back to Cirencester the same afternoon.
Happy Sunday ๐
FH.
