Our most recent Eastside Radio Station Meeting was capped off with the presentation of the Marg Barry Award for Community Service. No discussion of the station’s history should ever overlook the contribution made by one of our longest serving directors, Marg Barry, who died on 28th of February, 2001. She was an original board member of 2RES who served as treasurer from 1976 to 2001. She served as a mentor to successive managers who greatly appreciated her wisdom and experience. Officially she was the Coordinator of the Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development until 1999. Unofficially, she was a social provocateur, a community activist and organiser. At the time Barry was paid for only three days a week, but in fact worked all week and most weekends. She was on Boards, regional forums, Labour committees, had been on Sydney City Council and was a secretary of the Waterloo branch of the ALP.

Since her death in 2001, Eastside Radio has given the “Marg Barry Community Service Award” to a different presenter every year for volunteer community work at the station.

At 80+ years of age this year’s recipient has been a positive and progressive contributor to Eastside Radio. Her weekly program Playing Favourites enjoys loyal listener status with many repeat callers and is a unique style and genre of jazz that sits alone amongst our programming. Her insistence that the station reignite radio plays has seen her pet project garner no fewer than 3 funding grants as well as countless awards from our award winning playwrights and actors. Sonic Tales is also rebroadcast around the country via the community radio network and a favourite programming initiative of the Eastside Radio for the past 10 years. There is more to this volunteer too than simply programming and she always makes a point of encouraging others to get to know one another while inviting all our interns from overseas around to her home for a home cooked meal or an adventure into the city.

She’s a little late to the world of community broadcasting having only been a part of the place for 5 years but we’re very lucky that she walked in when she did. Congratulations Gill Falson!

A further award was given on Wednesday at Midday to Bob Bertles for 20 years service to the station. The award coincided with the departure of his program All That’s Jazz given touring constraints of his wife Nancy Hayes AM. We would like to thank Bob for all his time and effort in producing a weekly show on Eastside Radio. It would seem like only yesterday that Bob answered an ad in the paper from Philip Shine looking for a jazz presenter on Eastside Radio.