AS regular readers to our column will know, we’ve been reflecting the last few weeks on some of the adventures of the last 13 years of continuous broadcasting via www.ncbradio.co.uk, using various radio apps such as tunein and in more recent years, by asking those smart speaker things to play NCB Radio. Obviously, Alexa wasn’t really around in 2011.

We’ve told you a lot about our adventures throughout that time, such as being drowned with rain at the Royal Cornwall Show (as if that’s remotely uncommon!), meeting the Darkness at the Looe music festival and other stuff in between, but it occurred to yours truly that one thing we were missing was a nod to the people who make it happen.

You see, like many small-scale, community radio stations, NCB Radio is entirely reliant on the donation of time and skill by a hardy group of volunteers. Much like our column space neighbours Liskeard Radio would agree with, we’re sure, we simply would not exist were it not for the volunteers who make it happen.

So today, in a way, we guess this is a massive clarion call to all those past and present who make NCB Radio happen. Let’s start with the longest serving trio of Vincent Vega, Dan Sproull and Sprigg, known to his mother as Jonathan Parry, or possibly as Sprigg, too. His mother is the one we had to beep out the swearing of in a show trailer.

It’s about now, in 2012 (12 years ago?!) that Dan Sproull joined NCB Radio, just as a volunteer wishing to do a show in a similar vogue to that which he idolised as a child, namely John Peel. That show became the Thursday Sessions, and has flown the flag for indie, new unsigned and alternative music for the entire time it has been on the airwaves, replaced only with a guest presenter or a rerun when Dan is off on his holidays. In many ways, NCB Radio owes its ongoing existence to Dan, for it is he that takes the lead on ensuring our bills are paid each month and year. Radio stations don’t come for free.

As for Vince, while he joined us in mid-2011, he first came across our founder in 2008, when he sent in mixes to the then-Bodmin College Radio that was being run by our founder three years prior to our launch. By mid 2011 during our first year of broadcasting, we had a gaping hole on our Saturday schedule and the answer lay in Vince with his house and drum and bass, a show known as ‘Perfect Pitch’. No one knows how many shows Vince has done, we’re not even sure he’s not lost count himself!

Sprigg joined a few months after Dan, and like Dan is a mainstay of the station we could not do without, and like Dan and Vince, still remains in-situ on the air, with Sprigg’s Radio Show delighting every Tuesday night here on NCB Radio.

We may well tell more stories in the near future of our team – but to all our volunteers past and present – thank you for making NCB Radio everything it is.