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Wallsall Independant Broadcasting Personnel
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POSITION :
NAME :
NATIONALITY :
DATE JOINED GROUP :
APPOINTED DIRECTOR :
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Managing Director
Derek George Weaver
British
January 2001
July 2003
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background and experience
Derek has served on a wide variety of committees in association with his leisure interests and
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has held positions of responsibility in those clubs and societies and has organised and successfully run events that have involved large numbers of people, vehicles and all the necessary sundries to make such events work.
He has been very pro-active in organising various charity events that have resulted in thousands of pounds being raised for the benefit of organisations in the Walsall area. This has enabled him to organise, take discussions and close in on tasks that need to be done to make any organisation thrive and be successful. One of the instigators in forming a Community radio station for Walsall.
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Derek has been whole heartedly behind the venture, with the belief that the Walsall area can sustain and support a local radio station that will be as personal to the area as the local football team and the local newspaper. Although not being Walsall born and bred, Derek has lived and worked in the Walsall area for the past 33 years. It has given him a good local knowledge of Walsall and he now considers himself to be a ‘local’. Having been in teaching for twenty three years, he decided to broaden his communication skills to radio. In 1986, with three other colleagues, an ‘in-house’ radio station was launched at the school where he was teaching, using the pupils and staff to contribute to the stations programming.
From that he progressed on to various community radio projects, firstly in Wolverhampton then in Walsall. He held executive positions on the local radio committee serving as Vice-Chair for four years. During that time he helped move the project forward and was a major contributor to the four R S L’s that the project did between 1999 and 2001. Realising that any radio station would have to be at the heart of the community and not tied to the local authority as the radio project was, he became one of the prime movers in setting up Walsall Independent Broadcasting Ltd.
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APPOINTED DIRECTOR :
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Company Secretary
Pamela Mary Weaver
British
January 2001
July 2003
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background and experience
Pam has been involved with a wide variety of organisations and has served them all successfully in committee or post. With her total commitment to the task in hand be it voluntary or as part of her career Pam can be relied on to see it through to completion.
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She has assisted-in and helped organise events that have been run on a large scale, be it with the prior administration, or trouble-shooting on the day. This has helped her to develop good inter-personal skills from which she has benefited in her day-to-day role as assistant housing officer for Walsall Borough Council.
The secretarial post in any charitable organisation can carry a significant degree of responsibility, particularly when dealing with organisation finances and the often-significant amounts of monies raised through fundraising. The ability to administer such tasks is something that Pam can, and does excel at. More recently this skill led to Pam accepting the position of Chairman of the local branch of a car enthusiasts club, she has increased her administrative skills even further by becoming the Deputy Co-ordinator for the WRVS Walsall Child Contact Centre for 5 years.
Together with her husband Derek, Pam was determined to get involved in the company right from the start. Prior to her involvement with Walsall FM Pam’s previous radio experience came from a 24 hour Telethon broadcast in 1988 where she had a hurried grounding in how to prepare news items from the local papers for a small school based radio project. Her involvement in local charitable organisations which are predominantly connected to her various hobbies have again expanded her knowledge of how the media, not just radio can be an important part of local life.
Pam’s background of 28 years in the Civil Service, 10 years in farming and 7 years in Housing, as well as a wealth of experience in Human Resources Management has made her the obvious candidate for the post of Company Secretary. Pam’s keen mind for detail stems from her interest in Law – a core theme in her more recent career.
Apart from short spells away at college and training courses Pam has lived and worked in Walsall all her life. Truly a local girl, her knowledge of the area and its people are an invaluable asset to the company.
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Programming Director
Peter Michael Cheney
British
January 2001
July 2003
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background and experience
In addition to the work he does for Walsall FM Peter has a further ‘Full time’ Role looking after his disabled partner and bringing up his three young children. Peter is a family man and cherishes his family values.
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Peters ‘other’ career began in the retail sales trade where he received his formal sales training and grounding in retail management and sales & marketing holding a senior area managers position for many high street retailers including Burton Group (Topman, Burton Menswear) and Beatties.
In terms of radio experience Peter is about the most radio experienced director within the company; he began his involvement in local radio at hospital radio in Sandwell thereafter graduating to many local RSLs he also founded Solihull Hospital radio which he then ran for some time.
In the mid 1990’s Peter took a break from the UK to accept a position on the American West Coast working as an afternoon ‘drive’ presenter at CD 103 in Santa Monica, Southern California. Over a three year period Peter worked his way up from hosting the afternoon drivetime show, then to breakfast and finally on to programme director. Whilst at CD 103 Peter gained familiarity with a variety of industry standard tools including ‘RCS Selector’ scheduling & programming software, Music Operations Manager scheduling software and various commercial trafficking and customer relationship management software packages.
Peter also helped oversee the sales & promotions department at the station increasing sales over a three-year period by 75%. When Peter left the station in 1997 to return to the UK CD103 had risen to be the second choice radio station amongst its target 18 to 35 audience in the greater LA area of California, an area that is saturated with CHR radio stations and a tough commercial environment.
More recently Peter has been the driving force behind Blaze FM - the West Midlands Fire Service RSLs aimed at promoting fire safety and serving as a PR opportunity for the regional fire service. Peter managed all three broadcasts – all a great deal different from Peters ‘full time’ employment at a commercial radio station in the U.S.A.!!
Peter has also held a variety of ‘swing-sock’ and promotional positions at various commercial radio stations in the West Midlands including Mercia FM, Beacon Radio, Telford FM and Kix 96.
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Director
Margaret Rose Preece
British
January 2001
July 2003
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background and experience
Margaret is also a local girl, being born and bred in the borough and, like Pam, was keen to be involved with the Walsall FM team and to see the project through to licence application. She has made and continues to make a committed contribution to the company and works alongside Peter in the area of Promotions and Arts.
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As and when the company expands Margaret is keen to take charge of the important but often neglected activities such as PR, promotions, marketing, external affairs, station branding, merchandise, and community liaison; she is keen to use her artistic and creative skills and to generally increase her day to day involvement in the radio station.
Having spent her early years in factory work and listening to ‘local’ radio for over fifty hours each week Margaret is well aware of the style of music that would appeal to the working population that use radio as mandatory daily entertainment. Margaret’s views are well respected in the company as she falls well within the core demographic, knows that area intimately and the people and issues that make it unique. Whether it’s a school closure, new shopping complex or a local council issue Margaret can feed back a valuable and worthwhile opinion that gets reflected in the station character. It didn’t come as a shock that Margaret’s longstanding opinion on quality and duration of local advertisement breaks on local ILR radio stations have coincidentally been adopted as policy by some of the UK’s most respected commercial radio groups.
Although Margaret is disabled it hasn’t hindered her enthusiasm to operate her own floristry business and work as a self employed graphic asrtist/signwriter. In fact, Margaret’s disability helps give the company an insight into the needs the ‘purportedly disadvantaged’ and the majority of the people, including Margaret, who do not consider themselves as such.
To date she has been the driving force behind many of the roadshow promotions that the company has undertaken and she continues to organise and run that side of the business successfully. In addition, she is able – at the drop of a hat – to produce demonstrations of these at a very competitive cost !! This artistic talent for which she is now known has been expanded into a further ‘string to her bow’ with the advent of ‘face painting’, a strong feature at the Walsall FM roadshows helping draw-in the children who are then closely followed by their parents!
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