If you want to present on Rocket, get in touch NOW! There are just a few evening programme slots left to fill, so if you're interested, contact us now on studio@rocketfm.org.uk to get the dates and times. Particularly if you want to feature ANY kind of music that you don't think Rocket already covers, we'll be glad to hear from you. And if you'd like to be a guest on a Rocket show - if you have something you want Lewes to know about - email us at the same address.
With just seven days to go before the Rocket lifts off, 9,000 copies of the Programme Schedule are being delivered all over the town of Lewes, East Sussex. If you live further afield, download your copy here. We began colonising the Studio today and all should be ready for training and testing by the end of Sunday. Please come to the Launch Social in Lewes next Wednesday evening, 8th October. If you need details of the venue, contact us at the Rocket website.
TORONTO: I'm heading back to Lewes soon for another season of Get Smart on the Rocket.
My guest on November 4 at six o'clock will be Reb Stevenson, former barmaid at the Brewer's Arms, Lewes. Actually we all know that she was working there undercover, as she is a hotshot journalist in real life, on the Ottawa Citizen, now on assignment on a farm in Essex! Not quite St. Lucia where she was recently sent on a travel story. We will find out from this vivacious Canadian lady,when she returns to Lewes for the bonfire season, how she makes those videos all by herself.
You are nobody if you aren't on You Tube nowadays? Which brings me to Reb's brother Zach, one half of the Human Statues duo, on Global TV in Vancouver:
Eric Eggleston has got a new band in Ottawa called Harpoon. They were at the Ottawa Bluesfest over the summer with Kathleen Edwards, who our own Peter Flanagan is much taken with. A regular on the Rocket we'll catch up with him on the phone.
Billy Reid is making waves here in Toronto and is another You Tube favourite. Also spare a thought for Toronto artist Russell Chesham, who keeps getting requests for Rick Astley covers.
There is enough Canadian music here to keep you quiet for a while. I'll be warming up on the Rocket with the papers on Sunday 12 October on the phone from Toronto. You'll be getting the Canadian papers along with the news from Blighty. I'll try hard to find something of interest!
It's that time of year - the Rocket FM 2008 programme schedule will soon be delivered, still steaming from the presses, through a letterbox near you! We're aiming to get a copy into every household in the town, so lookout for the big green rocket. Inside are details for the whole 2008 run (apart from Bonfire coverage, which will be available on the Rocket website nearer the 5th) - more than forty presenters bringing you over 250 programmes, full of local views, news and every kind of music. Look out for the schedule in a number of shops, pubs and businesses throughout Lewes too.
Breakfast presenter Dino Bishop is to take to the stage next week in the world premiere of the new Gunpowder Plot musical, Remember! Remember!
Dino, who plays King James I, will be dressing in authentic period costume for the role, complete with wig and (very sticky!) beard. We are even promised a Scottish accent in his portrayal of the monarch, who was the subject of the failed plot by Guy Fawkes in 1605.
Lewes Operatic Society are staging the production at Lewes Town Hall next week, from Wednesday 1st - Saturday 4th October. Tickets for evening performances have all but sold out for the much-anticipated production, but good seats are still available for the 2.30pm matinee on Saturday 4th. Tickets are available from Lewes Travel, 1 Station St, Lewes, or by calling 01273 480127. More details from the Lewes Operatic Society website.
Ofcom..the Office of Communications..has again granted Rocket FM Lewes a 'Restricted Service Licence' to broadcast locally on 87.8 FM, beginning on 18 October. Ofcom replaced the Radio Authority as the body which licences and regulates radio stations in England. The Licence has to be applied for each time Rocket wishes to broadcast and will cost us £1,400 in '08! Work on the Programme Schedule is now far advanced and we aim to post the Schedule on the Rocket FM website by the end of this week.
We are very pleased to confirm that Waitrose have renewed their sponsorship of the Rocket FM website for a further year. Waitrose came on board the Rocket last year and the manager of the Lewes store Paul Soane spoke live on the station and took questions from listeners. Later in the run, the prize of a magnificent Christmas hamper was drawn and announced on air. Waitrose will be donating further prizes this season, so be sure to listen to the station for a chance to win! for info. on the Lewes store click here
Rocketeers are on air elsewhere! Seahaven FM are broadcasting for the next four weeks, and RFM regulars Steve Pilfold, Andy Reeve, Andy Thomas and Peter Flanagan are taking their Lewes-honed skills (temporarily) down to the seaside. Seahaven broadcasts to Seaford, Newhaven and Peacehaven, and is hoping to apply for a full time licence in a few months' time.
Steve Pilfold has Breakfast on Seahaven FM, from 7-10am every weekday; Andy Reeve brings his take on Nashville and quite a few stops beyond to his 'Country Shack' on Sundays from 7 till 9pm. And Rocket DG Andy Thomas and Peter Flanagan present further instalments in their finely-scripted and neatly choreographed series 'Guitar Town' - also on Sundays from 4-6pm. What synergy - they get the chance to keep their hand in, so to speak, and you can practice your listening skills too! Seahaven FM broadcasts on 87.7, and online at www.seahavenfm.com
Lewes Town Council have given Rocket a tremendous boost this year with a grant of £1,000. This will enable us to upgrade some of our ageing equipment and improve our broadcast platform.
The Town Council have been a great friend and supporter of Rocket FM since the beginning in 2001 and we take this opportunity to say how much we appreciate it.
Come face-to-face with your favourite community radio station on Facebook! Brand new from today Rocket FM Facebook Group is open to all our fans, listeners, presenters, volunteers and contributors to join.
Write on our Wall, send us comments, enjoy the pictures and most important of all, tune in! See our schedules on the Rocket FM website.
Rocket's blog now has its own space on the website. Catch the latest in the run up to this year's season. See an interesting headline? All you need do is click on through - you'll go straight to the full story. Or use the News Blog button to see all the blog posts.
Busy week on the RFM forward organising front. The first round of emails has gone out to all previous presenters and interested parties, asking all who wish so to declare an interest for the 2008 Rocket season. And a steady flow of replies is trundling back. It certainly seems we won't be short of bodies to fill the schedule. Work has also continued on finding and signing up advertisers and sponsors - the DG and Radio Caro have been actively active on this front. Dino has this very day been fitted with enhanced audio editing capabilities, following on from his successful Ad-producing endeavours in '07. Ruth is assembling Lewes's great and good in an orderly queue outside the RFM Global Broadcast Complex, ready to appear as guests on the Deeby R.O morning show. And 'Wires' Reeve is presently in a holding pattern over Shoreham, concocting ever-stranger schemes to electrify and automate everything in the studio, particularly one or two of the presenters.
Latest: DG & PF yesterday visited the premises of Uckfield FM. Clearly the disguises worked, and they have returned to tell the tale . . .
Rocketeers manned the Rocket stand at the town hall in Lewes East Sussex England on 12 July for the Societies Fair; over forty societies were there..not bad for a town of 17,000!
Some useful contacts were made, including two people who want to do a show on Rocket FM, and the Fair raised a considerable sum for a local charity.
RFM stalwart Rupert Lloyd Thomas is hurtling about North America yet again. Latest news is that he's won a large box of spanners in Medicine Hat, Alberta, kid you not. See if it sounds sane to you - check out Rupert's trave(b)logue at: http://punchbuggy.blogspot.com/
Rocketeers are busy and talented folk. Lunchingman Steve Pilfold has a videoquiz for us. In case you were missing that music. Watch the yootoob below, then check out www.whereinsussex.org.uk/blog
The Deege is sitting in the splendiferous surroundings of his palace (see the Rocket website - web address below) working out Why to Fi, not to mention how...
I have just read that the Rocket blog is now live and some 6 hours ago I was invited to contribute, so here goes... Being my first entry on a blog I wish I could think of something momentous to say! However I think I am safer sticking to the mundane..
As the interviewee chaser for the Rocket fm Breakfast Show I am already busy chasing down suspects and likely persons for the coming season in October and early November. Dear reader, do you know lots about a (polite, please!) Lewesian topic, or something that Lewes people are talking about at the moment? Would you be able to get up bright and early one autumn morning and visit the compact studio above the St Mary's Social Centre on Christie Road to be interviewed about this? If so why not email me on rok@supanet.com and tell me more?
