Blackrock College Radio is on the air all this week, broadcasting between 8 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. on 103.8 FM within a five-mile radius of Blackrock College in Dublin.
For the seventh year in a row, the college's Transition Year students are manning the controls and fronting the programmes, working under a special licence granted by the IRTC. The objective of BCR is to raise awareness - and money - for the St Vincent de Paul Society and organisations like Aidlink.
David Kilty, is one of the reporters who will present two hour-long programmes daily, has been gathering interviews and reports and editing packages for the week-long schedule with technical and engineering back-up from Patrick Wadden and Gavin Kelly. Patrick says the work gives people who don't have a technical background a very good grounding in "the technical stuff".
Advertising time has been sold to local companies and retailers by the boys themselves. Pat Kenny, Jimmy Magee and the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, will be among the special guests on programmes this week.
While the pace of their radio work has been hectic for several weeks, the boys are still expected to attend classes - the Transition Year dean, Alan McGinty, is their maths teacher and also supervising their radio station - and meet their rugby-playing commitments. But this week is the busiest of all. "I told my mother she wouldn't see me for a week," David says. "She said she didn't think I'd be that busy. I had to explain that I wouldn't be home at all - we're sleeping on the floor in the college to make sure we're in on time for the 6 a.m. schedule meeting each day."
BCR is only one of the many projects the 192 Transition Year students have to undertake during the year. The Transition Year programme is designed to help charities and people who are disadvantaged and last year students raised a total of £112,000. "It's not a waste of a year," Gavin insists. "It keeps you occupied all the time. The main emphasis is to make you grow up. And we have to make sure that every student is involved."
They are selling Goal badges - "last year they sold 30,000 at £1 each and the Government matched that amount", David reports - with half the money going to Goal and the rest to Aidlink. They bring Christmas hampers to families living in poor circumstances in Kilinarden area of west Dublin; arrange outing for St Mary's in Sandymount, the school for the visually impaired; visit old people's homes; produce an environmental magazine Greenwatch; organise a sponsored Duck Race on the river Liffey and each student must do a two-week pastoral care work placement.
"I did two weeks helping out in a school in Loughlinstown," David says. "I never had a better two weeks. I got so much enjoyment out of it, I'm going back to do voluntary work in June."
