Events

Throughout the year, Outreach Radio carries out Featured & Sponsored Events in partnership with our commercial partners, alongside Community & Beneficiary Events as part of our ongoing commitment to support our chosen local charities. Please click the buttons below to read about our event activities.

Our Community & Charity Commitment

As an Ofcom-licensed pan-Hampshire commercial DAB broadcaster, Outreach Radio also operates a community radio license which allows us maintain our presence on 102.5 FM in key parts of our original heartland REACH areas of Romsey, EAstleigh, Chandler’s Ford, and Hedge End – areas we have proudly served since the Covid-19 pandemic when broadcasting under a temporary licence as Lockdown FM.

Whilst we’d already committed to, and carried out extensive community and social benefit activities since our inception, we were proud for this to become a formal requirement when we took on the community radio license, which legally mandates certain commitments within our FM broadcast coverage area.

The law explicitly lists mandatory objectives – known as Key Commitments – that every community radio station must actively pursue for its target community:

• Serving the Underserved: Providing radio services to people who may be overlooked by mainstream commercial radio. 
• Facilitating Discussion: Giving local people a voice and a trusted platform to express their opinions.
• Community Education & Training: Offering hands-on opportunities for education, radio training, and valuable work experience.
• Social Inclusion: Actively promoting cultural diversity, volunteering, civic participation, and local employment.

Outreach Radio proudly stands by, and is active in all of these key commitment areas. Supported by our amazing staff, volunteers, beneficiaries, and commercial partners, we continually endeavour to meet or exceed these commitments, enabling our hybrid commercial/community status to deliver the best of both worlds when serving listeners locally and regionally.

Working with Our Partners and Neighbours

Whist our Featured & Sponsored Events are usually run as commercial partnerships, we always stay true to our roots. We ensure a steady commitment to social good by supporting local charities on an ongoing basis.

Because Outreach Radio covers a significantly larger broadcast area than nearby community radio stations, we are always mindful and compassionate of our neighbours. We work alongside neighbouring smaller community stations that share the goal of bringing social benefit to their local areas, and support many of them in their broadcast activities, particularly with new technology or helping to overcome technical difficulties – including occasionally loaning transmission equipment to keep them on-air whilst their equipment is being repaired.

As an organisation and management team who have championed community radio from the very start, (originally as pirate radio operators!), Outreach Radio operates a Non-Interference Policy. This ensures we do not disrupt the vital community work of neighbouring stations in our wider broadcast area. Instead, our social benefit activities focus strictly on our licensed (and recently extended) FM coverage zone – bringing a voice to areas that were previously unserved. This commitment allows Outreach Radio to act as the primary local radio support service in our heartland communities that need it most.

Supporting Multiple Causes

While most organisations support a single “charity of the year”, Outreach Radio serves a broad and diverse community across our family of stations. Because our listeners have wide-ranging needs, we partner with several charities across different sectors. This approach allows us to champion the diverse causes that our audience actively support and rely upon.

The table below displays our chosen local charities within our qualifying FM coverage area, alongside the neighbouring community radio stations that provide vital social benefits to adjacent towns and cities.