Paekākāariki 88.2FM Afternoon Tea, Discussion and Music, 2-5pm, Sunday 28 July, St Peters Hall, Paekākāariki. Bring a plate.
Paekākāariki’s first community radio station 88.2FM is, after only six months, celebrating having 24 different radio shows on air. It is now broadcasting 12 hours a day to Paekākāariki and, through its web stream at www.paekakariki.org.nz, the world beyond. The station are inviting people to join them on Sunday afternoon 28 July 2-5pm for afternoon tea and music, to socialise, celebrate the station’s birth, and discuss and hear more about its future and programming.
“The training wheels are well and truly off,” says programmer Mark Amery. “Training a whole community of presenters has made our initial pilot period busy but exhilarating. Running from 11am to 11pm, we now have something pretty much for everyone with an eclectic range of shows, and a heap of programming around community issues, stories and personalities. Aspects like Paekākāariki’s first ever school radio show, run by senior students at Paekākāariki School have been recent exciting additions, giving our young people confidence, new skills and a place to share their stories.”
The winter season of shows on Paekākāariki 88.2FM is now published and available on the station’s website (www.paekakariki.org.nz). There, people can also listen to a growing audio library of collected musical performances, panel discussion and readings by Paekākāariki individuals.
The station is run as a voluntary organisation, relying on the energies and skills of a group of local individuals pooling their resources. It runs under organisation Paekākāariki Informed Community, which used to run local newspaper Paekākāariki Expressed.
“We drew much inspiration from Paekākāariki Expressed in the need for us to have a platform for our community to discuss issues, and inform and express themselves,” says Amery, “but we also love that in this digital age as a radio station Paekākāariki 88.2FM is able to take our voices out to the world, making real the local expression ‘Paekākāariki, centre of the universe!'”
The station’s winter season sees a weekly two hour community radio show Te Pae, repeated 12-2pm and 6-8pm daily, with community notices at 1pm and 7pm. The Paekākāariki School radio show is recorded fortnightly, but repeats three times a week, while all other shows record monthly and are replayed twice weekly, once in the daytime and once at night.
The station continues to welcome new ideas for radio shows, contributions, performances, news and community notices which can be emailed to [email protected]
