1997 Year Twenty One

• January to March

  In stark contrast to 1996; this year proves a winner in the support from outside concerns and former patients as feedback from patients, plus donations for loan radios and donations are all up this year.

  Loan radios sponsor 206 Mrs Anne Coburn who had a stay in ward four donated £10 to purchase another radio. She had a stay in Heatherwood 18 months earlier and had sponsored radio 175.

  The new radio will is allocated to ward 8.

  The station library was printed out this month. All the song and artist index were printed and placed in folders with plastic sleeves.

  This was provided as a backup should the computer fail to work.

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• April to June

  On the first of April two new aerials were installed on ward 8 to supplement aerials damaged on ward 7.

  Three new clocks purchased are atomic and accurate all the time and don't need any adjustments to them.

  A change to the on-air mains lights etc & safety improvements to electrical connections under the consoles is completed by the end of the year.

  The staff news letter is reproduced in a new format This has been brought about by the lack of memory on the secretary's PC.

  The patients from ward 3 were moved to ward 6 and ward 3 was given a facelift. It is apparent that the hospital intends to refurbish all of the old wards in the same manner. Ward 3 has had all of the bed head radio panels changed and headsets have been provided.

  Loan radio sponsor ( 210 )Tracey Fisher who was a former patient was visiting her mother and was reminded of the loan radio service and pulled out her cheque book.

  Telephone number change from December the new number will be 01344-625818.

  Loan radio sponsor ( 211 ) £10 from Peter Holt on Ward 1 for a loan radio.

  On Saturday June 14th a cheque for £20 a small thank you for the pleasure I had while a patient in ward 8 and I look forward to choosing a record in the evening. My friendly neighbour put £10 towards my £10.

  On Saturday 14th June a letter arrived from patient on ward 12 petitioning the radio to do something to get the bed head radio re-instated. A copy of the letter was given to the hospital and a suggestion sent to the letter writer to send her letter direct to the hospital management.

  The month end battery total for June realized a total of 60 the highest figure ever achieved in a single month since sales started.

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• July to September

  The rotary club of Crowthorne held a fund raising evening at the Downshire golf club earlier in the year and Radio Heatherwood has become a beneficiary from the fund raising to the tune of £500.

  Bracknell bandstand The financial results for Bracknell bandstand showed ticket sales of £43.50 records and bric-a-brac realized a total of £112.41.

  Loan radio sponsor 212-218. On the 8th August one of the founding members of the league of friends May Ettridge died after a stroke which had left her in a coma. The league has decided to put out 6 radios in her name. They will be allocated to ward 8.

  A £75 donation received from Alan Holder,five loan radios have been issued in memory of Alan's Mum plus Alan makes a welcome return to the station.

  At the end of August a donation of £500 from the Ascot Fire Brigade Trust is received.

  Diary of a Winner Grand Draw 1997

  When the ticket selling finishes and the last pint has been drunk the draw continues over the following week in the shape of PJ trying to decipher the writing on the tickets and contact all the winners and get rid of the prizes.

  In addition produce all the results, that go to the press and letters of thank you which need to be sent.

  Those people lucky enough to win always appear shocked that they have won.

  1st Prize. Joanna Sewell Winners sister told Joanna spent 2 weeks in the hospital.

  2nd Prize. Mrs Bell who had a stay in the hospital was away Grand Draw Weekend and had no idea she had one until the following Tuesday.

  3rd Prize A friend of a member of the RHSG we don't know who ?

  4th Prize Mr Ripley who lives in lancing and cannot remember buying the tickets.

  5th Prize Bill from Boehringer Barry pleased that at least one winner was from all the tickets he sold.

  6th Prize Mr Swindlehurst of Wokingham couldn't believe his luck and was gob smacked.

  7th Prize It's nice to know the ice skating tickets always end up with the 80 year old ladies.

  8th Prize Mrs Wise “ Oh what have I won this For ”

  9th Prize David Bristow is off to McDonalds.

  10th Prize David Matthews a work colleague of Ian Haskell says I've never had a sauna !.

  11th Prize Stewart in the ex servicemen's club on the night is that it ! the look on his face said it all.

  12th Prize Dave Bristow knows a Winklemann who is off to Sainsbury's for his shopping.

  13th Prize Mrs Junak a junior ticket to the lookout centre “ What ”.

  14th Prize Mrs Metters had lots of stays in Heatherwood over the last couple of years got the mug now got the McDonalds vouchers.

  15th Prize Mr Paver from Botley in Oxfordshire how the hell did I win this prize and where did I buy the tickets.

  16th Prize Mrs Hardings son answered the phone and two books from Readers Digest “ boring”.

1997 Year Twenty One Story Unfolds

1997 was a very busy year for the station management and as the year unfolded there was much to do and organise

For further information about this year:- Follow the links

• 1997 Year Twenty One
• 1997 Events & Promotion
• 1997 Our Stars & Backstage Information
• 1997 Point & Shoot
• 1997 Staff Newsletter
• Story Of the Archive
• Radio Video Archive
• Radio Video Archive
• History Site Map

October to December

Saturday morning radio a refreshing change to Saturdays took place today 4/10 when programme's moved to the mornings and we were greeted with absolute surprise by patients and staff as we went round to collect requests.

Loan radios on ward 8, a total of 36 are now in service.

Loan Radio sponsor (224) ( post-bag )Eve Jones ward 5 donated £10 for a radio.

Loan radio sponsor (225) ( post-bag )Olive Maynard ward 5 didn't supply her address.

Loan radio sponsor (226) Andrew Sabey ward 4 donated £10 Tuesday 11/11.

Lee Henty says farewell to the radio, he joined in September 89 and was promoted to team leader for Mondays. A letter of thanks was sent to him November 17th.

Saturday 15/11 after my annual appeal to the Victoria hall Fund for sponsorship of next years radio licence they have responded and we are £225 better off.

Ron Baker television winner some years ago on the grand draw donated £25 to Radio Heatherwood.

A letter received by the radio earlier in the year complaining about the lack of bed head services on the EMI unit prompts the secretary to look into ways in which we can improve the service on the wards in this dept.

A new fundraising appeal is envisaged in the new year.

Some surprise donations allowed the station to purchase two Mini-disc machines. One was installed in December 97 studio 1 and the second was introduced to studio 2 in 1998.

Operations Manual Version 8 is published, some new guidelines and the removal of others heralds a new edition complete with a new route for trainee's to gain presenters status.

Radio Heatherwood Supporters Group ( End of an Era )

As the year draws to a close so does the name of the RHSG. Accountability problems has forced Dave into the position of no longer running the group under this name.

From the 1st January 1998 David will be running the group under the name of the “Sheda Travel Group”. Monies raised from these trips will still be donated as gifts to the radio station.

The Grand Draw Raised Gross £1515.15 Nett £1418.17

Staff Joining This Year 4 Staff Leaving 7

Archive Gems

Just some extra's we found:-

• Charity Buzz 1997

  Vale of Glamorgan
  South Wales

  On Sunday 25th May the eleventh annual charity buzz left for Barry Island and Penarth. One coach departed with 51 people enjoying a great day out.

  £714 was raised and all in the cause of Radio Heatherwood.

• Volunteers Wanted

  The turn around with staff was always a case of new adverts in local papers and free news sheets

• Volunteers Wanted Freebie paper

  Freebie paper

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New Technology

We have always been on the look out for new technology.

Mini-Discs

This year we opted to try mini-discs a new way to play out the stations jingles and convert analogue audio recordings into a digital format.They played an important part of the playout quality of the station output. This format was one of Sony's idea and players purchased for the station were the Sony brand. They also came complete with remotes,these remotes however were less likely to be used.

• Mini-Disc Players

  The station already had all of it's jingles spread between two cd's. When using the jingle cd's, this prevented us playing out music.

  The prices of the players/recorders had fallen low enough for the station to purchase. These were Sony machines and remained in service as backup to the cd players.

  As more and more content became available the disc was split into two,one for station ID and the other for adverts.

  The jingles were spread between two discs and each disc had 100 tracks all with track labels,Blues for station ID's,Yellow for Adverts.

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• Quick Reminder Card

  All Jingles on the mini discs were numbered 1-100. A quick reference to content was produced and left on the consoles for presenters to use.

  The card shown here is the not the first used but was an updated version in 1997.

• Mini-Disc User Guide

  A slimmed down version of the user guide was made available to presenters.

  User Guide:-

  Mini-Disc In Studio Use

  Two players were initially brought one for each studio. This was later increased to two per studio. When the rhapsody computer service was added to the studio's, after a period of time one player only could be found.

  Mini-Disc Demise

  The advent of mp3 and it's popularity overtook the take-up of mini-discs, by 2007 their popularity was in decline and Sony decided not to produce anymore players for the domestic market.