Drawing to an end

We dropped the bombshell on the Upstarters in the previous Wednesday workshop, very soon we’ll be gone and they’ll be left alone to see to it that the radio show continues. I saw several dilated pupils after we told them that our relationship will be coming to an end in about two weeks’ time. We’re still going to have a conversation about what we mean by the end of the relationship.

Part of this conversation should be a detailed structure of what it takes to put everything together, from planning of Wednesday workshops to the broadcast of the show on Saturdays. This is not to intimidate them but to give them an idea of the kind of work they’ll have to do after we’ve left. And also so they can see which task would be suited for whom in their group of six. They’ll need to work as a group to ensure that all the different elements are taken care of. From the previous debrief session we had, I got the impression that they want to see this through, they want the radio show to continue, they want to build an audience for it and they’ve become attached to Yung Amplified. They suggested that they should have a name for themselves as the group of six Upstarters. To put it in Thobani’s words “there’s a lot of Upstarters we need to have a name for ourselves”. For me this shows that they want to take ownership of the show and want to be acknowledged as contributors of the show.

As part of handing over the responsibility of the show, this past Saturday I ran the debrief session with Thobani. He did most of the talking and I just helped him guide the discussion. We recognized as a group that maybe Anesipho and Ziphozinhle could be Nadia’s assistant producers after Mike, Stephen and I have left. These two girls would be capable of running the content part of the Wednesday workshops, but they would need to do this with the help of one of the radio students. At the moment we are teaching them how to edit and Anelisa has shone through as someone who grasps Adobe easily. She could help fellow Upstarters who are struggling with the programme and editing audio. It’s difficult to place any kind of responsibility on Roche at the moment because some weekends he might not be available, due to rugby matches.

For the handing over of tasks and responsibilities to happen successfully, the team of radio students will need to sit together and talk about how things have worked and what they have done to get to this point. This will help us in deciding which responsibilities can be handed over to the Upstarters now, and which will still need some time and should be done in small doses. We all also need to be creative about how these responsibilities are handed over. The Upstarters are still in school and whatever tasks we give them shouldn’t eat into their time to do homework and other school related things, especially as exams are coming up in the next week. There’s also the issue of availability of resources, it’s been relatively easier for us to run things because we have airtime to make phonecalls and access to internet and computers. The Upstarters are willing and are excited to start doing most of the work themselves, but we should make sure that the transition is as hassle free as possible for them. This will depend on the viability of the production system we have established over the past couple of months.  

Quality Radio

South Africa turned 18 years old this past week and on Yung Amplified and we were celebrating the event and getting to grips, with what it means. Thobani and Ziphozinhle were tasked with interviewing people in their community about what Freedom Day means in contemporary South Africa. Both these young people came away from their interviews with new knowledge of where this country comes from.

Judging from Thobani’s pacakage of his discussion, he learnt about the kind of conditions that black people lived under during apartheid. For Zipho it was the events of 27 April 18years ago that stood out for her. She was also rather unimpressed with the little effort that is made to inform young people about this day.  She suggested that more should be done in order to ensure that people are made aware of the importance the day.  Zipho and Thobani also suggested that the municipality could host functions which will serve as awareness campaigns. They added that it would be important during these functions food to be served  to the public, not only as a strategy to attract numbers but because people are poor and hungry.

Joining us in studio was Richard Pithouse of the politics department at Rhodes and Mr Macanda a history teacher at Numbulelo High School. Anesipho was assertive and articulate when interviewing these gentlemen about the meaning of Freedom Day, elections in a democracy and the future for South Africa. I think the chance to do live interviews allows the Upstarters to put into practice everything that we have we’ve taught them about interviewing techniques, particularly with regards to asking follow up questions. My favourite part of her interview was a follow up question to Richard Pithouse about what he meant by “amazing opportunities available to young people of the country”. This question invigorated the interview and it made Richard loosen up and engage with the interview in his personal capacity. I thought Anesipho would be intimidated, interviewing two learned grown-ups but you could see she was listening attentively and trying to make the most of her interview.

                                           Anesipho speaking to Richard Pithouse and Mr Mcanda

Our funny feature doesn’t have an official name yet. We came to the resolution that if no one suggests a more funky name for it, we will have to stick with Thobani’s not-so-funky “funny kids”. Anelisa was our comedian for the day, she read jokes that Roche had sourced. Sinovuyo gave us a review of the Upstart paper.

                                            Sinovuyo reviewing the Upstart paper

The Upstarters are starting to interrogate the material they’ve produced for their show. During the debrief session they don’t shy away from being critical about the their show as a whole. They used this session to unpack Yung Amplified from the packages that were played, in-studio discussions and the guests we’d invited.  They raised points about how the show was not as fun as the previous show and that the missing anchors affected the show. Something that caught my attention was that they want the show to be informative as much as it is fun and entertaining. I guess this is a challenge for the team, to find a meeting point of these elements.

Something we haven’t tapped into as the team of radio students, is reading the Upstarters’, blogs to see if there are any insights we can take from the reflective piece. This should help with the production culture of Yung Amplified and also for the Upstarters to know that their blogs are contributing towards creating rich content for the show.

You are tuned into Yung Amplified

If you didn’t hear our last show then you missed out on an awesome show. The past show has definitely raised the standards for future shows, the content was relevant and interesting and the Upstarters have definitely come into their own on air. We had two recorded interviews, which were of professional standard not once did you hear mic rumble or technical glitches.

Anelisa and Sinovuyo did a good job with the interviews, they both stuck to the focus which was Hitchhiking. Anelisa interviewed someone from her community and Sinovuyo interviewed two learners from her school. Am happy to see that they are confident doing interviews with real people, about real issues without someone holding their hand.

                              Anelisa adding her views during the studio discussion

Our joke section got off to a good start, the jokes were funny and suitable for the show. I do think that one of the radio students should be responsible for screening these jokes before they go on air, just to make sure that they aren’t offensive and are appropriate for the show. We havevn’t found a cool name for this section yet, Thobani suggested funny kids, but this doesn’t quite a have that ring to it. I suggested that each Upstarter should come with two possible names for our joke feature on Yung Amplified, hopefully by Saturday we will have a permanent cool and funky name for our jokes feature.

As the last show was such a great success, I think as we should choose a clip of the show that can be played on other shows on RMR, to advertise the Yung Amplified show. After each show during our debrief section the team should decide on which clip can be used as a spot for that week.

I think the success of our past show comes from the planning and structuring that happened in the last workshop. This has become a collective effort, the Upstarters are contributing content and on the management side of things, the fourth years are supervising this process diligently. The star of the team is Nadia, she has seen to it that there is a rooster detailing who will be responsible for what during each work. This has helped in making sure that each person knows what they’ll be contributing for the shows and it means our running order can finally come to life.

I believe we have an audience that listens to the show every Saturday and now we just need to find ways to hear them as much as they hear us. Our Mxit page is up and running and we should be using it as a tool to get audience response and audience interaction. For now I suggested that the Upstarters ask three people from their school or community what they thought about our show. I think audience feedback will be helpful as we try to design a show that will satisfy our audience. This exercise will also get the Upstarters talking about the show to the peers in school and hopefully they will bring it up in their weekly Upstart workshops.