Report on an arts series for Sound Radio 
Women from the WRG Production Group have just completed a pilot series of Expression! - eight one-hour arts programmes broadcast on Sound Radio in Hackney, East London. The Production Group consisted of ten recent trainees from Women's Radio Group courses, all looking for work experience in radio production.

"It was useful signing up to a real deadline and having to meet it," says Collette Tully, who worked on two of the programmes. "I learnt what's it's like to interview live on air, stick to a running order and claw back lost time."

The programmes, which aimed at a 60%/40% speech/music balance, were broadcast on Monday evenings. The brief was to make an arts magazine which was topical and accessible to the local audience. Organisations taking part as guests included Moti Roti, Tamasha Theatre Company and Hackney Museum, plus Kurdish band Anatolia, who performed live in the studio.

"We are very grateful to Sound Radio for giving them the airtime," says Cathy Aitchison, WRG editor for the series. "It helped fill the need for real-life production experience for talented trainees."

"The level of enthusiasm, the research and the final quality of the programmes was very good," says Lol Gellor, Sound Radio. "We look forward to hearing more from them." Women's Radio Group does indeed hope to repeat the scheme, recruiting more women to the Production Group and producing a second series of programmes. For more information and a full report on the pilot series, see the WRG website www.womeninradio.org.uk
 

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Cathy Aitchison, Aitchison Media & Development, 2009