In the beginning there was Paula Greenway wanting to kick start the Community Radio Station. She approached some friends including Bethan Lloyd and musos Alan and Bonnie Axon, who were ex radio presenters, and who jumped at the idea bringing along a fellow radio personality from York in Denise Cull.
A committee was formed consisting of Alan & Bonnie, Paula & Mark Greenway, Denise and Bethan. Later Bob Neville, and Len and Gale Anderson joined the committee.
The Shire of Toodyay supplied the venue for the Radio Station. Initial sponsorship money was kindly given by The Shire of Toodyay, Toodyay Op Shop, and Shane Love MLA, which enabled us to make a start in establishing 2j2AIR, Heartbeat of the Community. We were successful in securing a large grant from Lotterywest, which enabled the committee to finish alterations to the Studio, purchase equipment and allow us to go to air.
We were fortunate to be able to source some 2nd hand studio equipment from Len Anderson and also assistance from Gale and her contacts within the CRC network.
At this time we suffered the very sad loss of our inaugural Chairman Alan Axon, and also the resignation of Denise, and Bob. The committee rallied to continue the quest for Community Radio in Toodyay and having lost our announcers with live to air experience the committee changed direction. We decided to move from a live broadcast to a pre recorded system as a temporary solution. We purchased new computer programmes to accommodated pre recorded sessions, a huge learning curve for our Station Manager and the team.
With no previous experience Bethan Lloyd took up the baton with the first programme called the Green Hour which covers Gardening and environmental topics, with Toodyay Garden and Outdoor centre being our first financial sponsor.
Gracie Butler produced a one hour programme for youth with an eclectic range of music and subjects but unfortunately this interfered with Gracie's school studies and we lost this programme after 2months.
The Badger approached the committee with the suggestion of a programme consisting of The Wide world of Folk and a second programme titled Swooners and Crooners which secured. sponsorship by Makit Hardware.
Ken Stivey offered a programme call Ready 2 Rock which gained sponsorship from Toodyay Tyre and Exhaust Centre and followed this with Ready 4 Retro shortly thereafter.
Our station Manager Mark Greenway has continued to hone his skills with assistance from Len Anderson and Ken Stivey and we continue to strive to improve the quality and diversity of the programmes offered.
Where to from here... we look to a future of one day having live presenters and continuing to support our Community of Toodyay through local community groups, schools , tourism and businesses.
