Chris Eyre On Air!

It’s always interesting finding out what our staff get up to in their spare time and we recently caught up with Chris Eyre from our Ilkeston branch who is going down a storm on his local radio station, Erewash Sound, after recently successfully completing his radio presenting course. “I saw an appeal on Facebook back in October of last year looking for volunteers at the station, thinking it would just be helping out at the radio station, promo events, etc, so I attended a Welcome Open Day, met the boss and got chatting. He said you seem pretty confident, how do you fancy doing the radio presenter’s course? It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about and I just thought – Why not? So I started the course in January (night classes), graduated in April (OFCOM regulated) and then spent time shadowing existing presenters. I then had to produce 3 “demo – tapes” and have them approved by the boss! Finally, I then did 3 x hour long live sessions, under the supervision of my mentor, with them in the studio next to me in case anything went wrong. Then I was allowed “on-Eyre” on my own and I now have my own keys and pass cards to the studio – I feel like a celebrity! I’m kind of like a supply teacher at the moment and am on weekend standby for any presenters who are ill or on holiday. I’ll often just get 24 hours’ notice that I’m on cover. I’ve done about 15 shows so far over the Summer on my own ranging from 2 to 3 hour sessions, at all times of day and night! I’m working towards getting my own regular weekly slot, and also by doing the radio producers course I can then produce shows for other people and maybe even for other radio stations… a lot of people have gone onto BBC Radio Derby / Nottingham / GEM Radio so you never know…