5th Birthday Celebrations

Sun Shines for Station’s 5th Birthday Celebrations

Rutland & Stamford Sound’s 5th Birthday Bus tour on Thursday was a huge success. The live radio show from a special bus route around the local area featured multiple events and interviews that highlighted the station’s deep-rooted role in the community with involvement from over 100 individuals from a wide range of organisations, businesses and local towns and villages.  

The day started with dancing from Rutland Morris at the Butter Cross in Oakham’s Market Place. Onlookers included both the High Sherriff and the Lord-Lieutenant of Rutland, as well as members of the public, all armed with the station’s flags to join in the festivities and wave off the Rutlander bus, kindly loaned by Bland’s Buses and decorated with balloons and banners in the station’s colours.

Driver Inez took the station’s team of volunteers and members of the Friends of Rutland & Stamford Sound Listener Club on a route through Uppingham, Stamford and several local villages before returning to Oakham.

Along the way pedestrians and drivers waved and honked their horns as the bus passed. Throughout the journey Rob Persani, Station Manager, broadcast his show from the bus with updates and interviews from all the stops. Along the way they met with Joe Davis, Head of Reserve Management for LRWT, for an interview about the various anniversaries for the trust and Rutland Water.

In Uppingham over 30 community singers representing a range of singing groups in the area congregated in Uppingham at the Church of St Peter and St Paul for a joyful rendition of Kool and the Gang’s Celebration and Happy Birthday, led and rehearsed by experienced MD Gavin Ashley-Cooper, presenter of the station’s Sunday evening Musical Directions show. The song was played on the radio, and has been since too, and the singers had a chance to network and meet others with the same passion whilst eating cake baked by one of the station’s volunteers.

Local choir member Hilary Goldsmith commented “I really enjoyed our community singing. Fun to do & thought we did well in the short time given to rehearse. Lovely to see people from different choirs too. Happy birthday RSS!” 

Bryan Penny, who joined the special birthday choir, said “It was incredible to see so many voices coming together and producing such a high-quality rendition, after only an hour’s practice. There were people from a wide range of local singing groups, as well as a few of us with no previous experience of singing in a choir. It was a huge amount of fun, with lots of people saying we should do it again. Many thanks to Gavin for his encouragement and expert guidance.”

The next stop was Birch Tree Café in Easton-on-the-Hill, where the staff and visitors greeted the bus with great enthusiasm. The station was keen to spotlight the café’s amazing success in creating a workplace for young people with Down’s Syndrome, enabling them to gain experience and independence. The young people enjoyed being interviewed by Rob, talking about their love for the community cafe.

The day finished in the sunshine at Burghley House, where the bus spectacularly lead a community convoy of walkers, cyclists and dogs through the beautiful parkland and past the iconic stately home. Prior to the convoy starting they sampled cake donated by Oakham-based Love Life Eat Cake and listened to stunning live music from the highly talented pianist Yaroslav Oliinyk, a Ukrainian award winning composer and pianist who lives nearby. A sea of blue and green, including the station’s mascot Preston the Panther, travelled through Burghley Park marking an impressive end to the day, and a chance to spread awareness off the station’s work.

As well as the bus tour, the station’s birthday celebrations were supported by Stamford Flower Club who decorated their Stamford Music Shop bike for the week using a radio theme,

by Anglian Water who lit the iconic county landmark Normanton Church at Rutland Water in the station’s colours, and by a number of local businesses who dressed their shop windows with blue and green as part of a competition run by the station.

Since its launch in 2021 Rutland & Stamford Sound has more than doubled in listeners, providing local people with a valuable source of local news and information, plus great music, 24 hours a day. As a Community Interest Company the station is led by Station Manager Rob Persani, supported by a team of over 30 local presenters and volunteers who undertake a wide range of tasks behind the scenes. The station conducts hundreds of interviews and attends a huge number of events throughout the year, connecting the community and championing local people and businesses.

Local people and businesses took to social media to wish the station a happy birthday. Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Stamford said ‘‘I'm so delighted for the whole team but also it's a chance to say thank you for everything you do for our communities. We are so fortunate to have a local radio station focused solely on our communities and particularly during the pandemic we felt that so strongly. So thank you for giving a voice to our communities, to supporting our communities, to keeping us informed. And here's to celebrating in another five years time as you go from strength to strength”.