Rob Persani and the thriving team of volunteers at Rutland and Stamford Sound are getting ready to celebrate the 1st birthday of their community run radio station in style!

This fantastic community endeavour began in September 2020 when the community radio project was put together by Rutland County Council.

Following on from this, Rob and the team released a survey in October in which over 1200 local people voted to choose the name of their new station. Being Rutland's first community radio station albeit partly funded by adverts, Rob felt that it was incredibly important to get community input on this aspect of the venture.

He said: "Rutland had never had a community radio station. Previous stations have all been commercial. It's wonderful, but means that we need a lot of community involvement. There was an opportunity there though to really become one with Rutland and the people of this unique place.

"The hope is for people in the area to think of us in times when they need us and in times when they want to tell us something. We want to be someone who can represent the local community, and become part of it too."

Once they had found their now iconic name, in November 2020, Rutland and Stamford Sound began seeking out Board members to validate Rob's proposals. These Board members then in the main became Directors of the new not for profit company, and have put in thousands of volunteer hours to make the radio station run.

They had an early Christmas present when they found out that this community and council led project had been accepted as a company, leading them to where they are today: "We were told on Christmas Eve that Rutland and Stamford Sound had officially been accepted as a company, which was wonderful."

After all of their hard work, things kicked off officially on the 5th of March 2021 with their very first broadcast to an already large audience. Never plain sailing though, the station was so listened to that all of their connections were being used and the system got overloaded.

Rob laughed: "We had a good number of listeners from the start. Even on day one, we had so many listeners that it broke the equipment. All the connections had been used up! We couldn't even log on to check how many listeners we had!"

Now the station has an average of 6000 listeners per month, which only increased over Christmas when the cracking volunteers could attend events and promote the station properly, the first time they have been able to do so since Covid.

To celebrate their first birthday this March, the team will be broadcasting live from Oakham Market place on Saturday the 5th of March from 10am until 12pm, so residents can pop down and say Hi - and even pick up some free cake from Love Life Eat Cake!

On top of this they will be running a competition on the radio over a fortnight, starting on Monday, where listeners have the chance to win an overnight stay for 2 with dinner and breakfast at The Falcon Hotel in Uppingham.

More details on how to enter can be found on the Rutland and Stamford Sound website.

Alternatively, listeners can give the station a little birthday gift and donate through their website. All funds raised go back into making the station a better, more diverse space, so it is certainly worth the investment!

The station began with Council funding and has since been awarded Lottery funding, support from the Leicestershire & Rutland Community Foundation, Arnold Clarke Community Fund and Stamford Town Council, and listeners have also sent donations. All this helps them support local businesses with cost effective advertising opportunities.

For those who have not yet had the pleasure of listening to the varied and lively group of presenters on the show, you can stream the shows here, where advice about connecting to the station is also available.

Rob said: "We're really easy to listen to and can be found almost everywhere – online, on your computer, phone, music device, even in most cars using your phone. Smart speakers are helping too. Smart speakers are so great because so many people have them but they don't even realise they can use them. Fundamentally, we're a streaming service like anything else. Like a very local Spotify but with ultra-local content as well as music."

To stream the station on your smart speaker all you have to say is, "Alexa enable Rutland and Stamford Sound." This will set up the programme on your device, and there's a similar set of instructions for Google Home. After that just ask your device to "play Rutland and Stamford Sound" and you'll be able to listen to Rob and the crew, anywhere, any time.

Who can you expect to hear when you do listen in?

Rob Persani – weekday mornings from 6am, and Saturdays from 10am. Rob has been in that slot locally for well over 20 years and has daily local guests, birthdays and mentions, competitions, plus the area's only 7 day local weather forecast every Friday morning.

Laura Ray – lunchtimes 12-2. Laura came to the station with no previous radio experience, and picked it up days before launch. She is part of Rutland Musical Theatre as well as a drama and musical theatre teacher. Laura like many of the team is a born and bred Rutlander. Laura's first experience of radio was as a caller on Radio 1 with Greg James when she called in for a feature, and found Greg knew a bit about Rutland and he even started making radio jingles live on air about the area!

Garry Rose – drivetime from 3pm… Garry starts his day delivering for the Royal Mail and he also ran Stamford's record shop, Pendulum records for several years. Garry's love of music is evident in every show. He's also been an enthusiastic supporter of local radio in Rutland since before it first began.

Tim Rogers – Tim lives just outside Rutland and presents a specialist country show on a Tuesday from 7pm. He's also a former winner of the CMA's International Country Broadcaster Award for his radio work and features new and classic country songs and interviews with some of the biggest stars!

Lydia Meredith – Saturday breakfast from 7am – a show full of positivity like the Happy Headline, weekend events, local interviews, and lots of great music.

Dean Cornish – Saturday lunchtime from 12pm Dean's a proud Stamfordian! He's also a big sports fan and keeps an eye on all the local teams.

Graham Wright – Sunday breakfast from 7am including an easy hour of music including Graham's favourite Frank Sinatra, a view from our local religious community after 8 and at 9.30 Nick Hamilton from Barnsdale Gardens with our weekly gardening feature (first on Friday at 11.30am)

David Ross – Sunday Morning from 10am. Birthdays, mentions and song requests plus 4 songs with a link in the Sunday Connection after 11.

Jon Hollis – Sunday afternoon from 2pm. Jon saw an article about the station launching and got in touch. He has fun facts, a weekly quick cook recipe and lots of local events and great music.

Mick Meadows – The Sunday Session from 7pm. Mick was essential listening for many local music fans in the late 80s and early 90s when he broadcast from Peterborough. He nowworks behind the scenes on national radio but he loves genuine local radio too and helps support Rob with programme ideas for the station. He loves living in Stamford and as well as a hand-picked selection of songs often with a common theme, some of the best new releases, live tracks and local music from Rutland and Stamford. Despite this varied line-up though, they are always looking to get more people involved. To find out how you can sign up as their next presenter or help out with occasional weekend promotional work, see the Rutland and Stamford Sound volunteer section of the website. Rob said: "The back office team around me are amazing, led by our Directors who formed the Board. I asked them to spend an hour of their time every week or so, but now they pitch in running the company. They're a talented and committed team, many of whom have spent time running other sorts of companies themselves. I couldn't do it without them. "I always believed that we could make Rutland and Stamford Sound work, but I needed to find a way of doing it. With Covid, the world had changed, there was a much bigger appetite for doing things online. Also though, it was isolating as we couldn't get out there and meet people and promote ourselves in person. "It was never going to be easy through the pandemic, but the response has been incredible. It still is. Even during the recent storms when lorries were turning over and trees coming down, people thought to tell us and relied upon us to share this news." Rob added: "I would like to thank everyone who volunteers for having faith in the project and playing their part week in week out. "Also thank you to our listeners and advertisers, and those who donate. We appreciate it all." You can join this exclusive group of advertisers on Rutland and Stamford Sound by clicking here. Rob concluded: "The Rutland people have a great spirit of making things happen. They're proud of where they live and its heritage. Within that there's innovation. There is always someone who wants to do something new or make the area better than it is already." In this vein, Rob and the team are hoping to get involved in Oakham Pride and other community events. Find out about their visit to Oakham's WI here! Reach out and get involved by contacting Rutland and Stamford Sound via the form on their website. Happy birthday to Rutland and Stamford Sound!