Helen Rommelaar, Patron & Volunteer
I’ve had an excellent grounding in classical music performance, and I’ve also worked in libraries, so it was a no-brainer in 2017 to apply for volunteer work at the 3MBS Library.
I say work, but really, it’s a joy to visit the station each week. To share knowledge about music with like-minded people is just the best. We volunteers may all be from quite different backgrounds with our own quirky personalities, but the super glue that ties us all together is music.
My first experience behind the microphone came a few years later when I produced several Illuminations programs on women composers and performers. My interest in overlooked and unknown female artists led me along an unexpected path, and I now run the Women Composers Working Group. Since forming in 2021, we’ve steadily increased our acquisition of music by female composers, and I’m so pleased to see that the amount of music being broadcast by women has doubled. Celebrating International Women’s Day during the first week of March has also now become an annual event in the 3MBS Calendar, which we’re very proud of.
A few years later, again I took the plunge and undertook the 3MBS Presenter Training, a fantastic three-month course where I learned to e-nun-ci-ate my words, decipher the studio panel and focus more on the listener. I spent a year presenting Saturday Night Classics before turning to the other end of the day, and I now do Thursday Daybreak every fortnight. Although the preparatory work involved in this three-hour flow program is often double that, I really do enjoy programming and discovering new gems of music. And when I’m on air, I try to ensure listeners get off to a good start, and on a positive 'note’.
Over the years, I’ve also enjoyed writing a dozen or so articles for the 3MBS On Air magazine on all things from International Women’s Day, singing in choirs, to dementia and music. And recently, when I learned I was related to Elvis, I wrote about that too… but that’s another story.