Adrian Basso, Former General Manager
I started at 3MBS in 1998 doing bookkeeping, but the role soon grew when I started to get into the development side of things and marketing. I was keen to learn more and expand my role at the station.
The finances were barely okay when I got to 3MBS. We needed to realise that there was more to the station than just playing music. We developed the Radiothon more and got going on sponsorships, donations and bequests.
The volunteers helped with every aspect of the station at that stage as we did not have a big paid staff. I really enjoyed working with them. There were a lot of learned people there, we had a magistrate, John Barns, and a spy, there were wonderful characters from different backgrounds.
David Melzer, who was the station manager at the time, went away and asked if I could the 25th anniversary celebrations in 2000. I was in my late 20s so I thought I could do anything, so I organised this massive series of events. In hindsight it was just madness trying to put it all together but in the end it all worked.
The whole celebration was part of us reaching out to the community and showing that we were a real part of the music scene in Melbourne. We needed to show that we were more than just a glorified jukebox.
I left in 2006 and then came back to project mange the fit out of Abbotsford. We were upgrading everything from analogue to digital and working with the volunteers for the library on how to transport all their all their material. It was all done in nine months, which was an amazing achievement.
I would go to radio conferences and people would get up and do their station call signs—like 'Best music of the 70s'. David Melzer would get up and say '3MBS the best music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries'.
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