ARRANSOUND & ARRANSOUND.COM
Arran’s Community Radio
Mhairi-Aileen Smeir
ArranSound, and arransound.com, the Isle of Arran’s community radio, is on air 24/7 manned entirely by volunteers, with a variety of information on and about Arran, from an amazing range of contributors, professional and amateur.
ArranSound began in 1989 with volunteers reading and recording the Arran Banner for sight impaired and disabled residents, originally on tapes and latterly memory sticks. We still record The Banner for those members of our community unable to access the written page and we are full members of the National Federation of Talking Newspapers, although now our members can access the majority of local information on a daily basis. We also record the island’s monthly digital environmental magazine, Voice for Arran.
We launched our digital radio, arransound.com, on 1st August 2020 during the pandemic as we were unable to send or receive memory sticks. It went live on the 21st of December 2021 just in time to broadcast personal Christmas messages for home and abroad, with Christmas carols from CalMac’s lockdown Zoom choir.
Being internet based our listener reach is worldwide so during this very difficult time we were able to link up many isolated residents, our wider community and overseas families. We were able to relay information daily from the council, medical practice and community help groups, and Arran Community and Volunteer service (Arran CVS). All of this we continue to do.
Our volunteers search out Arran news and views and we liaise with community groups including Eco Savvy and Arran Theatre and Arts. We have a close relationship with Arran Heritage Museum whose summer talks we record and broadcast, creating an archive of Arran’s people sharing their knowledge. Locally produced programmes which include history, archeology, astronomy, plays, various music, health, ferry and consumer issues, prove very popular.
Our supporters are very generous with content such as Captain Bobo and Tigeropolis, our children’s series in English and Gaelic and the popular Stormy Weather featuring our ferries. We have premiered professional drama and storytelling productions prior to their international release via our ‘Listen-In’ evenings.
With a wide variety of music programmes we are always looking for new talent to promote and are presently searching for a volunteer jazz enthusiast.
We report from and about island festivals and events, something which is always very popular with our overseas audience. Featuring, for example, The Arran Farmers Show, Highland Games, Wee Mac Book Festival and McLellan Festival, we hope to introduce our off-Island listeners to Arran and her people.
After much discussion with friend and festival director, Richard Morrison, on his vision for an Arran Festival set amidst our beautiful mountains and mystical glens, we have partnered with the Arran International Festival of Chamber Music and Song in mounting this inaugural island event running from 19th to 25th August 2024.
With world class local and international artists, unique venues, and world and UK premiers, we are delighted and honoured to be the exclusive broadcaster for this exciting festival. We look forward to bringing these fantastic performances to our arransound.com listeners.
www.arransound.com
www.arraninternationalfestival.com
