This year has been filled with so many exciting projects and partnerships for us. On Reform Radio’s 12th birthday, we thought we’d take the opportunity to reminisce over the past year. Let’s get into it…

Our Skills Bootcamp courses, funded by GMCA and GM Work and Skills, invited over 100 young creatives through our doors. These participants had the opportunity to work with major clients such as Band On the Wall, Parklife, Blossom Foundation, and West Art Collective. Also, thanks to our amazing mentors, Skills Bootcamp attendees continue to receive support for six months post-project.

As we transitioned to DAB radio earlier last year, we have been exploring the need for censorship within live broadcasts. We asked ourselves questions to further understand the intricacies of censorship, such as, if and when is it appropriate to play a word that can be equally offensive and empowering? We took to our airwaves to open this discussion in a productive and informative manner. You can listen to this pivotal open forum below.

We teamed up with We Out Here Festival to curate and deliver a lineup for their WOH Radio Stage. They also joined us on the Reform Radio airwaves for multiple exclusive shows. To get a deeper insight into what We Out Here is all about and how we collaborated with them, take a look at their short documentary ‘Amplifying Voices’. This film beautifully encapsulates ‘The Power of Community Radio’.

Beyond The Music is another festival we curated a lineup for. This local festival brings music and energy to Manchester’s City Centre. We featured some amazing local DJs and some of our very talented DJ Sessions graduates.

Our most recent stage takeover was hosted at The Old Fire Station in Salford for the Sounds From The Other City festival on May 4th. Read more about our day of partying via our blog post here.

We were a production partner on BBC Sounds’ Audio Lab project, which empowered a young creator to bring their podcast idea to life. A big congratulations to Mia Thornton for creating ‘Instrumental’, a podcast which amplifies the influence of black artists on Britain’s favourite music genres. This 6-part series featured guests including Clara Amfo and DJ Paulette. Some of the episodes were aired on BBC 6 Music. Listen to all the episodes on BBC Sounds here.

Our podcasting team also produced a BBC Bitesize GCSE History podcast about Elizabeth I. In this revision series, Alice Loxton and Anouska Lewis uncover the history and hardships of this famous female monarch. Listen here.

The Get Up, our weekday breakfast show hosted by Yelena Lashimba, featured some exciting new segments, including industry advice interviews, guest mixes and getting to know the Reform Radio team. Some of Yelena’s guests over the past year include, Craig David, Andy Burnham, Efia Mainoo & THT GRL from Not Bad For A Girl.

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We celebrated Record Store Day this year with a special programming of vinyl-only sets on April 12th. Also, we spoke to the lovely team at Vinyl Exchange about their preparations and predictions for the day. In store, they kindly played the exclusive programming as their customers browsed RSD away. After all, our lineup included one of their very own, Ailsa of Living Room Dance Club.

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In the lead up to the MTV EMAs, we were a community partner for Paramount’s Content For Change event at New Century Hall. There was an amazing array of guests, panels and networking opportunities. We had so much fun getting to interview some amazing people.

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Well, what a year it has been! A big shoutout and massive thanks to our amazing team at Reform, our DJs, artists, Advisory Board, young people and audience for making Reform what it is today. Here to another great year and many, many more!

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