I can't say anything more, but it's for a US website, and it's going to be pretty damned cool (even if I do say so myself).

Check back for more details at a later date.

Go on... you know you want to!

There was also a press release (also printed below) highlighting the key points.

5 years of rallying communities through broadcasting

Promoting sexual health, tackling heroin addiction and planning positively for a funeral are just some of the significant issues that feature as part of the celebrations for a unique five year partnership between the BBC and CSV, the UK's largest volunteering and training charity. (Thursday 21 September 2006)

CSV Action Desks based at 36 BBC radio stations across England encourage the nation to play a more active part in the life and well being of their community. Over the past five years CSV Action Desks have had over 300,000 responses from listeners, and handled 170,000 calls in reply to volunteer appeals amongst the sector. The CSV Action Desks have also helped 145,000 people get involved in lifelong learning.

Mark Thompson, Director-General for the BBC will give a speech on the achievements of CSV Action Desks at their fifth year anniversary event at Tower Bridge on Thursday 21 September. Mark Thompson says: "The partnership between the BBC and CSV has shown how broadcasting can encourage tens of thousands of people to engage in their communities. I'm extremely proud of what we've managed to achieve together."

Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, Executive Director of CSV, said: "CSV's partnership with BBC local radio enables thousands of citizens to hear in their own homes details of where their help is needed, in their locality. They respond with time and skills and make a huge difference to other people's lives and to strengthen communities."

Examples of successful CSV Action Desk campaigns

• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Kent ran a campaign to raise awareness of men's sexual health issues.
• BBC Radio Gloucestershire were able to offer a woman who had been a heroin addict for 23 years the opportunity to volunteer on the CSV Action Desk where she even hosted her own phone in show on the dangers of drug use.
• BBC Radio Suffolk's CSV Action Desk ran Britain’s first ever 'funeral fair' in Ipswich, giving local people the information necessary to prepare for a 'good death'.
• CSV Action Desks have knitted over 15,000 baby items for hospices in the UK and Africa, 10,000 items of clothes and teddy bears for orphanages in Eastern Europe as well as 5,000 jumpers for Tasmanian penguins affected by a major oil slick.
• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Norfolk inspired 250,000 listeners to learn French and Spanish along with a favourite presenter.
• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Southern Counties ran a foster care campaign, which resulted in 55 families coming forward to offer a home for young people in care.
• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Gloucestershire spent a month with young people to design and create a new youth centre, greatly reducing anti social crime in the area.
• Many CSV Action Desks have run recycling mobile phone campaigns to help raise money for local hospices and carer appeals. Over 5,000 mobile phones have been recycled so far.
• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Gloucestershire tackled the long waiting list for medical equipment in the area by getting people to return over £70,000 worth of equipment that was no longer needed.

Upcoming CSV Action Desk campaigns include:

• Both the CSV Action Desks at BBC Radio Berkshire and BBC Radio Bristol will be amongst those running campaigns highlighting depression and mental illness.

• The A-team – CSV's Action Desk at BBC Radio Merseyside - is recruiting volunteers to build a relaxation garden for patients at the Wirral Neurological Rehabilitation unit.

• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Cleveland will run a 'positive thinking week' to remind older people that they are never too old to take up a new hobby or course, or help in their local community.

Action Desks events for CSV Make a Difference Day, the UK's largest single day of volunteering, on Saturday 28 October include:

• Barclaycard volunteers and the CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Northampton will help Polish and Somali immigrants with their English reading and writing skills.

• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Cornwall are using CSV Make a Difference Day to kick start their 'Sea Sense' campaign promoting safety around the coast and highlighting the work of the emergency services.

• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Sheffield will organise a Breast Cancer Awareness Day in the city centre.

• The CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio York are working with older volunteers from our Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP) to run after school clubs to help children with their reading skills.

• Volunteers will help the CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Humberside makeover a lifeboat station.

• BBC Radio Devon's CSV Action Desk will encourage volunteers to count and identify local mammal populations as well as planting trees.

• Volunteers will help the CSV action desk at BBC Radio Coventry and Warwickshire with a garden makeover at an Alzheimer Society centre.

• Volunteers are getting together with BBC Radio Lincolnshire's CSV Action Desk to help with a makeover of Lincolnshire City Hospital.

• BBC Three Counties Radio's CSV action Desk will encourage volunteers on CSV Make a Difference Day to clearing up a Buckinghamshire canal.

- ends –

For further information contact Paul Donohoe 020 7812 0037/07779 624 385 pdonohoe@csv.org.uk or Jason Tanner 020 7812 0038 jtanner@csv.org.uk

We must change Ofcom's auction

Silver lining to the BBC's clouds

Australia ain't what it used to be

Get ready for television's D Day

Ofcom's predictable decision to auction off the spectrum freed up by the switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting at the end of last year did not make a good Christmas present for the sector.

The decision to follow a purely market-led approach will clearly favour big broadcasters such as mobile phone companies and dotcom giants. Many of these businesses are owned and funded by foreign investors and have the financial resources to buy up valuable spectrum - resources that sector agencies simply do not have.

Moreover, in order to recoup the huge costs associated with buying spectrum, providers will inevitably follow subscription or pay-per-view models. This will further reinforce the digital divide by leaving millions unable to afford the new services on offer.

Earlier in 2007, CSV and representatives of other volunteering organisations, including TimeBank and umbrella body the NCVO, argued against such an approach, proposing instead that social value needed to be part of the auction mix as well as hard cash.

We felt that some of the spectrum should be used by service providers to encourage social inclusion, community relations, employability and crime reduction as well as to create a platform for contributions to the arts, culture and heritage. It should not be used simply as a cash cow for publicly listed companies.

This argument has largely fallen on deaf ears so far. By deciding not to ring-fence spectrum for services such as local television channels, which have strong public service, community and social action agendas, the regulator is making it very hard for charities and community groups to enter the auction process.

The challenge now facing the sector is to accept that the auction process is happening, but to try to influence the nature of it. If we don't, then we may be unable to benefit from the new spectrum and the new ways to reach our target audiences that this will bring.

One way around this problem is to encourage Ofcom to use an auction model in which licence awards are made not only on the basis of money but with public purposes and social benefits taken into account.

Such an approach could encourage commercial providers to explore partnerships with charities that would otherwise not be able to benefit from the newly released spectrum. The fact is that services motivating people to tackle crime, improve their health or reduce their carbon footprint will not only create social capital, but they could also save the Treasury more money in the long term.

Damian Radcliffe is head of broadcasting at volunteering organisation CSV

So another year gone...
Indeed, I don't know where the time has gone. It's been very busy.

Is that why you didn't send any Christmas cards again this year?
Don't start.

I wasn't, I just noticed you hadn't sent me a card, that's all.
Well, don't take it personally, I didn't send any cards. However I have made a donation to Breast Cancer Care for the amount I would have spent on cards and postage. I'm also going to send round a transcript of this chat too so that everyone knows what I've been up to.

I'm sure all your friends and colleagues will be suitably grateful.
I'm sure they will be.

So, at the risk of sounding like a hairdresser, been on your holidays recently?
Not for a while, but I have had a couple of really good holidays this year; 2007 started with a bang, literally, watching fireworks in Sydney with my brother Sean before seeing England lose the Ashes with Sean and my friends Rick and Ayesha, before I ventured off to New Zealand (where the highlights included swimming with dolphins, walking on a glacier; complete with a helicopter ride to and from said glacier,) as well as a stint in LA.

What did you make of LA? I gather people either love it or hate it.
I'm on the fence. It was good to see and explore as the city is so engrained in our cultural consciousness, but for me the best bits weren't those from the movies or TV, but the Getty Museum - a stunning piece of architecture quite apart from the contents of the museum itself - and the Reagan Memorial Library.

Sounds cool.
It was. I also went back to Australia again in the Summer to go and see my brother (who was living there for a year). I did some suitably adventurous (for me) things like climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge, going whale watching and a bit of walking in the Blue Mountains. I also ate a lot of cakes from a fabulous bakery in Sydney's Newtown, so some things never change.

It's a long way to go though.
It is, but fortunately I broke up the trip to and from Oz with a bit of time in Thailand, exploring the markets, eating lots of great food and I drove the oldest, most knackered, 4x4 I have ever seen in my life.

My only other real trip was a weekend in Bruges with my old flatmate Russell in September.

Ah, Bruges. I take it you sampled the beer and the chocolates?
Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?

We were very lucky actually that the trip coincided with a big beer festival. Nobody seems to believe us, but we didn't know it was happening until we got there. Honest.

I believe you.
Thanks.

Have you been traveling lots with work this year as well?
Not as much, although I've taken on projects in the Nations now, so I ended up visiting Belfast and Glasgow (with a few overnights in Edinburgh which enabled me to catch up with my lovely violin playing friend Pam, she also gave me the idea for this update,) a few times. I also had a very long train journey back from Cornwall a few weeks ago. It would have been quicker to fly to New York...

So talking of work, are you still at CSV?
Yes. And we had a really good year this year, despite there being some major financial challenges too.

Go on then, give us the highlights.
Well, 67,462 contacted our helplines with thousands more contacting partners directly, and we won a number of awards including a SONY Gold, a Gillard Gold and the Silver World Media from the New York Festival of Radio Broadcasting.

Nice one.
Thanks. If you're interested I post occasional work bits and pieces on my blog: www.damianradcliffe.com

Yeah [assiduously avoids eye contact] ... if I get a spare five minutes...
I've also started doing a bit of writing for Third Sector magazine on communications issues affecting the voluntary and community sector.

That sounds more interesting.
I had great fun turning my living room into a photographers studio for the headshots which accompany the articles. Although one of my neighbours didn't quite know what to make of the shots taken in the garden, me being all suited and booted, them hanging up their washing in a pair of old shorts and a top that used to fit them when they were several stone lighter...

Gross.
It wasn't great.

So are you still living in Camberwell?
For the moment, although in the throes of moving (touch wood) to a new place in Peckham Rye...

...Nelson Mandela House?
Not quite, although it is only about 5 minutes walk from a pub called The Nags Head.

Lovely Jubbly.
Indeed.

Well, keep me posted.
I will. Who knows I might even have a housewarming this time.

Kool and the Gang. So what else you been up to? Consume any culture that wasn't in a pot produced by Yeo Valley?

Loads, although most of it seems to have been earlier on in the year.

I took a photography course at the National Portrait Gallery, saw a few exhibitions at the British Museum (the one with the Terracotta Army and another about the first British settlers in the US,) took in some art (Gormley's Blinded by the Light at the Hayward, Impressionism at the National, Gilbert and George at the Tate Modern and I joined the ICA) as well as a bit of theatre; Rafta Rafta at the National, Midsummer Night's Dream at the Roundhouse, Underneath the Lintel with Toby from the West Wing, Ramayana at the Lyric and an amazing production of Faust in a warehouse in Wapping.

Was that the one where all the audience had to wear masks?
Yes, that's the one! You wander round about four floors of this place and there's different scenes taking place throughout, so you see the show in a fairly non-linear fashion and then on the bus home piece it altogether and finally make sense of it. I can't really describe how awesome it was, but it was A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Sounds like it.
I think that's about it really. I played a bit of cricket in the summer but the weather was so bad most of the games I could do were rained out.

There was also lots of rain at the two summer wedding I went to (Rick and Ayesha's and Em and Ed's) but mercifully none at Neil and Celia's the other week. Although it was damned cold!

So what does 2008 hold?
Not sure yet. I will be trying to work less and play more, I've not talked about work much here but those of you who know me well know that it tends to dominate, so in 08 I aim to spend more time with my friends, go to more gigs (I only did one this year) and other than that it's a bit of a blank canvas. There will probably be a trip to the US at some point as far too many of my friends live there now, but that aside, who knows?

Damian Radcliffe, thank you very much.
Thank you.

This is the reason I was up till 7am last night/this morning...

It's easy to get swept up in the day job and lose sight of some of the amazing work we do, so taking a couple of days to research and write this has been really inspiring and motivating - just what I needed on these cold, wet, damp December days!

To be honest it's not as good as I hoped, but I got some nice pics (click here!) when I visited last Sunday evening.

Perfect night for it as the sky was clear, so all I had to do was point and shoot.

Now that the dust is settling at the BBC after last month's announcement of substantial cuts to jobs and programming at the corporation, it's a good time to look at how the proposals could affect the sector.

Although Auntie could always do more, she has historically been a good friend to us. Children in Need, the weekly charity appeal on Radio 4, the monthly Lifeline charity appeal on BBC One, the corporation's continuing support for the Community Channel and the Media Trust, its 30-year partnership with CSV.... There's no doubt that a healthy BBC can play a crucial role in creating an equally healthy and thriving third sector.

However, after a scandal-ridden summer and a lower than anticipated licence fee settlement, is the BBC still in good health, or is it tired and past its peak?

Despite the doomsayers, I would argue it's still in pretty rude health and still capable of being a good friend to the sector. The proposed MyLocalNow initiative (let's hope it's a working title) - an online, broadband, multimedia, interactive service that would build on the popularity of the BBC's existing local services - will, if it goes ahead, provide local content. This is good news for small community groups that might not want, or be able to get, regional or national coverage for their work.

To get approval from the BBC Trust - the corporation's governing body - and broadcasting regulator Ofcom, MyLocalNow will probably need to make a decent commitment to user-generated content and citizen journalism (that's content made by licence fee payers). This, too, is welcome news for media-literate parts of the sector, or those with clientele and staff who have the means to make decent films and blogs or use their webcams as 21st-century soapboxes.

The cuts in middle-brow or, as I prefer to call it, light, factual programming and network news are not so good for the sector. Getting your story or your organisation featured in these slots has always been harder than obtaining coverage on smaller scale local services, but they have typically brought with them a cachet, a profile and a national audience that local services can seldom compete with.

So it really is a mixed bag, with potentially more opportunities for the sector at a truly local, grass-roots level - although we'll need to ensure that we have the skills to capitalise on them - but with national coverage becoming even harder to secure. Whether the sector will ultimately be better off as a result of these changes, only time will tell.

- Damian Radcliffe is head of broadcasting at CSV

Jason Collett - Pavement Puddle Stars (with George Harrison style guitar)

Jesus Jackson - Running on Sunshine

Nouvelle Vague - Teenage Kicks

Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me

Jem - Save Me

Agents4Change is an innovative project set up to encourage young people between the ages of 16 and 25 to use their passions and their energy to make a difference in their local community.

The project is led by 20 young people - Community Catalysts - who are volunteering full-time to set up exciting opportunities in their local areas for other young people to join in with.

Volunteering charity CSV is using its expertise to support the Community Catalysts to engage with 12,000 young people across England. The project is sponsored by Tesco and youth charity v.

Expert view: Australia ain't what it used to be
By Damian Radcliffe, Third Sector, 19 September 2007

I remember the Summer of '97 as if it were yesterday. I'd just helped to launch the UK's first ever volunteer-led commercial radio station, Oxygen 107.9.

In theory, Oxygen could be heard by 180,000 people; in practice, its audience was probably a lot smaller. It was the glory days of Britpop: Blur, Oasis and Pulp were in their prime.

In commercial radio, Australian-influenced formats and production ideas were increasingly dominant, and many felt that commercial radio down under was the best in the world. So when I recently visited the country I was excited to see whether the sector still had a lot to learn from the Aussies.

Sadly, I don't think it has - certainly not in terms of how charity issues are covered. In a country where the Salvation Army has been Aussified to the point that it is known as the 'Salvos', I expected a more down-to-earth approach to promoting the sector. Instead, the only time I came across the Australian voluntary sector on television or radio was in the context of rather old-fashioned public service announcements.

Presenting issues such as volunteering or cancer in this way immediately makes the content seem too dull and worthy. It is a turn-off.

The contrast with the UK could not be starker. Partnerships such as those between CSV and BBC local radio ensure that voluntary sector content is considered to be mainstream - it sits alongside other output. In doing this, we seek to avoid 'otherness'; we normalise voluntary sector issues, making them part of audiences' everyday lives.

Capital Radio's coverage of its Help a London Child charity does the same thing. It is both high-profile and mainstream, which gives the issues importance. The heart disease infomercial I heard on an Aussie station did the opposite when it was billed at the outset as a public service announcement. It was the equivalent of going up to someone in the street and saying: "I'm sorry to bother you, but ..."

The lack of pride or conviction in the material I came across in Australia simply reinforced traditional views of worthiness. The communications failed to grab me by the scruff of the neck.

That's what good charity campaigns and good broadcasters do, and that's what I found sadly missing down under.

So next time you find yourself despairing that the British media doesn't 'get' you - which, granted, it sometimes doesn't - then consider this: you're still probably better off than some of our southern hemisphere counterparts - even if they do get better weather.

- Damian Radcliffe is Head of Broadcasting for volunteering charity CSV

Many thanks to our friends at Third Sector for the shot, and for the fun photoshoot in my lounge!