The Heartland Radio Foundation will be holding a series of Public Meeting on Saturday 26th of November to ask the public for fundraising activities to help the charity achieve its aims.
The Public Meetings will be held as a rolling roadshow with the first meeting in the Lesser Hall of the Aberfeldy Town Hall at 10:30am, the second at the Hydro Hotel in Pitlochry at 1pm and the final at Birnam Arts in Dunkeld at 3:30pm.
The Heartland Radio Foundation was set up in 1992 with the aims of:
- Advancing education by providing a range of media training opportunities that will help people in Perthshire develop their personal and employability skills,
- Advancing community development by promoting volunteering and by working with partner agencies to address social and economic issues in the communities within Perthshire, and
- Advancing heritage and culture by promoting and celebrating the distinctive music, arts and culture of Scotland and of Perthshire
Using the two-time Silver Award winning Station of the Year at the UK wide Community Radio Awards, Heartland FM as it primary vehicle we have meet these goals by providing work experience opportunities to Universities and College students, with two students recently going on to jobs in the BBC and National respectively, and by engaging with local schools to help their pupils develop their media skills, most recently in a session with Pitlochry High School.
Volunteering plays a huge role in the continued operation of the charity and the running of the radio station, with many of our weekly shows created and presented by volunteers, several of which have been part of the station’s fabric since its inception thirty years ago.
We continue our commitment to Scottish culture and heritage through our on-air presence, playing Scottish music across all shows and in particular with our specialist shows including Celtic Celebrations and Eddie’s Archives.
We receive no support from the government and have identified over the last few years that as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis that it can no longer support itself just on commercial income from advertising revenue. We have begun looking at what grants we can apply for as a charity to help support us in meeting our goals but we have also identified that we have been neglecting fundraising efforts.
While we would have hoped that commercial advertising would have been the way forward, we have realised that a model which relies more on grant funding, supported by commercial and fundraising income will better suit us going forward.
We are now calling on you the public of Highland Perthshire to engage with us as we look at what methods of fundraising we use going forward and what they would engage with. These efforts will form our long-term plan, as we look forward to continuing to serve the community and provide the award-winning content that you know and love.
