Malcolm Mardon, chairman of Hospital Radio Exeter, tells the story of a station that has been on air since 1974, and reflects on fifty-one years of walking hospital wards, collecting requests, and keeping patients company.

Hospital Radio Exeter was founded by police inspector Terry Roberts, who had spent years trying to persuade hospital management to give it a go. When they finally said yes, the station started with five hundred pounds from the League of Friends, a small mixing desk, two microphones and two record players. Malcolm joined at the founding meeting in December 1974, offered to make the tea, and has never left. He is the only member from that original group still on the station.

The station broadcasts seven days a week to patients at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and to care homes across the area, with a weeknight request show at eight o'clock that has run unchanged since the beginning. Each evening, volunteer ward visitors go out in pairs to chat with patients and collect requests, returning in time for a mad dash to prepare the show. Some patients have not spoken to anyone all day.

Malcolm also supports around twenty hospital radio stations across the country and talks frankly about the challenges facing the sector, and the joy of friendships built around a shared love for playing records.

Get Involved

• Hospital Radio Exeter website
• Hospital Radio Exeter on Facebook
• Make a request online
• Listen free in the RDE Hospital (Wonford) on your bedside TV, Channel 1.
• Listen anywhere via hospitalradioexeter.com, the Hospital Radio Exeter app (iOS and Android), or Alexa: say 'Enable Hospital Radio Exeter' then 'Play Hospital Radio Exeter'.
• To make a request: phone 01392 402020 (reception) or 01392 402019 (studio, 7pm to 10pm); text 07469 979 881; email [email protected]; or use the online request form.
• Volunteer opportunities available in presenting, ward visiting, technical support, marketing and social media. Apply via hospitalradioexeter.com. Note: joining takes a minimum of two to three months including DBS check and seven mandatory training modules.

Ellie Taylor, Chief Executive of Exeter Community Initiatives, traces the thirty-year history of one of the city's oldest charities and explains why the most important outcomes of its work are often the ones that never make it into a spreadsheet.

ECI was founded in 1993 by a coalition of city centre churches responding to homelessness and poverty. Its first two major projects -- what became St Petrock's and Turntable -- grew into independent charities that are still operating today. ECI now runs six projects with a team of thirty-seven, covering community building, family support, adult coaching, arts and health programming, children's preloved retail at Jelly on Fore Street, and the newly opened Custard Town family play space in the Guildhall. In 2024 it welcomed Magic Carpet, a forty-year-old disability arts charity, under its umbrella. D'Arts followed shortly after.

Ellie arrived in Exeter a week before lockdown, spent six months in the garden with two small children, and found her way into the city's voluntary sector through a single job application. She talks about the nine community builders who knock on doors across Exeter's neighbourhoods and help residents turn small ideas into lasting change; the Transitions project that coaches adults through life challenges without doing the work for them; the Family Resource project supporting families across Devon and Cornwall who have experienced serious crime; and the Safer Separation Framework being developed to fill a gap in court-ready family documentation. She is also frank about what it means to run preventative services in a city where the hardest thing to explain is what did not happen.

Get Involved

• Exeter Community Initiatives website
• ECI on Facebook
• Devon Connect -- volunteering opportunities across Exeter
• Jelly children's charity shop: 148-149 Fore Street, Exeter EX4 3AN. Preloved children's clothing, toys, equipment and maternity wear. Volunteer opportunities available in store.
• Custard Town family play space: first floor of the Guildhall, Exeter. Open to families with young children. Check eci.org.uk for session times and booking.
• Transitions workshops: free to attend, open to anyone over 18. Topics include managing money, anxiety, executive function and decluttering. Book via eci.org.uk or 07531 870203.
• Transitions coaching: one-to-one volunteer coaching matched to individuals. Contact ECI to find out more.
• Magic Carpet arts and drama groups: weekly sessions for people with learning disabilities and mental health challenges, in Exeter, Honiton and Exmouth. Contact ECI for details.
• Annual volunteer fair at Exeter Cathedral -- usually spring. Sign up to the ECI mailing list for dates.

Nick Hall and Dave Knox of Music in Devon Initiative (MIDI) share the story of a decade spent building the infrastructure Devon's music scene never had, and reveal the two city centre spaces that are changing what's possible for musicians in Exeter.

Nick came to Devon via Somerset, London's Britpop years, and three years living in Senegal, where he absorbed West African music and met his partner. Back in Exmouth, he built a following playing at pubs and festivals, and set up MIDI in 2016.

Dave arrived through MIDI TV — the live performance platform MIDI built during lockdown to keep Devon artists connected with audiences — and has since co-directed the Devon-wide Battle of the Bands, managed recording projects, and helped grow the organisation's reach across the county.

MIDI has now run nine editions of the Exeter Street Arts Festival, delivered Soundtribe music sessions for children outside mainstream education, and helped over 500 artists take their first steps. In 2026 they have opened two new spaces: Source Studio, a basement recording studio, and the Source, a community music hub on Paris Street designed for open jams, beatbox workshops, and whatever the network brings through the door.

Nick and Dave talk about the day their open house became an all-day jam, why Devon's music scene is richer than it knows, and what the city needs to do to stop it being a missed opportunity.

Get Involved

• Music in Devon Initiative website
• MIDI on Facebook
• Exeter Street Arts Festival
• The Source Studio basement recording studio under Concord House, South Street, Exeter (below Casper's Dessert Shop). Contact MIDI via the website to book sessions.
• The Source community music hub is at 21 Paris Street, Exeter.
• Volunteer opportunities available — stewarding, fundraising and admin. Contact [email protected].
• MIDI TV archive of Devon artists and live sessions available on YouTube. Search MIDI TV Devon.

Jen Harris, founder of the Baby Room on Paris Street, traces an eighteen-year journey from a cold scout hut in Heavitree to one of the most essential community spaces in Exeter, and makes an unanswerable case for what new families need.

Jen arrived in Exeter at sixteen and has never really left. When her first daughter was born in 2008, she wanted to use cloth nappies and asked the council about a job she had seen advertised in Scotland. They offered her a voluntary role instead. She said fine, and started Nappucino, a weekly drop-in for cloth nappies, slings and breastfeeding support that grew from once a month to twice a week, from a scout hut to a school to a three-floor city centre shop. She and her colleague Jill have been running it together ever since.

The Baby Room, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company at 23 Paris Street, is now home to the Exeter Sling Library, the Devon Real Nappy Project trial kits, nearly 60 hireable breast pumps, birth pools, maternity and nursing clothes, a free accessible baby change, and a breastfeeding lounge where anyone can walk in and be given tea.

In the last month alone they gave out 97 pieces of cake and 59 bowls of soup at Nappucino. Jen talks about the numbers behind disposable nappies waste in Devon (roughly one every two seconds going in the bin), why the closure of children's centres has sent pump hire through the roof, and what happens when a mum does not make it across the buggy park and stands in the car park crying instead.

Get Involved

• The Baby Room Exeter website
• The Baby Room on Instagram
• The Baby Room on Facebook
• 23 Paris Street, Exeter, EX1 2JB. Open Monday to Saturday, 9:30am to 4pm.
• Nappucino runs every Wednesday, 9:30am to 3pm. Cloth nappies, slings, breastfeeding support, soup and cake. Check the website for the current schedule.
• Cloth nappy trial kits and sling library hires are free to borrow. Breast pump and birth pool hire from £20/month. Book or drop in during opening hours.
• Full class and session calendar at thebabyroomexeter.co.uk including baby massage, Sing and Sign, postnatal pod, new dads group, Pride and Joy, home birth group, and active birth yoga.

Debbie Bucella, Chief Executive of Alibi, tells the story of one of Devon's most significant arts organisations; forty years of taking world-class theatre into school halls, and a reinvention that turned a funding crisis into a community hub.

Debbie arrived in Exeter in the late nineties. Her route into theatre ran through the Bike Shed — the legendary two-damp-cellar venue on Fore Street that she helped found. A decade ago she joined Alibi, which had been making theatre for children and school audiences across Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall since 1982, reaching between 11,000 and 13,000 children in their school halls every year.

Alibi made a deliberate choice to open their doors rather than close them. Emmanuel Hall in St Thomas is now shared with St Thomas Library, Zero Mile Gardens CIC, a weekly children's choir, free early years music sessions, and a programme of community events. Its annual Christmas show, an immersive experience that has filled the hall with fifty real pine trees and, most recently, a full hotel populated by quirky animals, has become one of the most inventive family events in the city.

Debbie talks about what it takes to keep an organisation alive on its own terms, why creativity is the skill that matters most as AI reshapes the economy, and what it means to a child to be the one running the lights.

Get Involved

• Alibi website theatrealibi.co.uk
• Emmanuel Hall, Emmanuel Road, St Thomas, Exeter EX4 1EJ.
• Check the website for upcoming events, workshops, holiday clubs, and the Big Silly Sing children's choir.
• Space hire available for rehearsals, meetings, and events — including kitchen. Contact details on the website.
• To volunteer or find out about supporting Alibi, visit theatrealibi.co.uk or contact the team directly.

Maresa Bossano, founder of Love Food CIC, shares the story behind Exeter's community food hub on Cowick Street in St Thomas, and makes a compelling case for why local, plant-based food isn't a lifestyle choice but vital to public health infrastructure.

Maresa has spent thirty years working in sustainable food, first as a five-a-day coordinator for the NHS, then running a food co-op at Sustain in London, managing a vegan cafe in Hastings, and leading the Community Supported Agriculture Network. She moved to the Exeter area and set up Love Food CIC in 2021. In the years since it opened, around a thousand people have come through the door. About half are regulars.

The hub runs a pay-what-you-can Thursday lunch club, a community fridge stocked from surplus donations, free and low-cost cookery sessions focused on food waste and budget eating, and a swap shop for clothes, toys and books. It also serves as a warm space, a hiring venue for community organisations, and a drop-in for anyone who needs to sit somewhere safe and charge their phone.

Maresa talks frankly about what the food system gets wrong, why cooking is not about skill or willpower, and what it would take for every neighbourhood in Exeter to have something like this.

Get Involved

• Love Food CIC website
• Love Food CIC on Instagram
• Love Food CIC on Facebook
• Community food hub at LOVEFood CIC, 95 Cowick Street, St Thomas, Exeter EX4 1JF. Open Monday to Thursday, 10am to 3pm.
• Thursday lunch club 12:30 to 1:30pm, pay what you can. Not running during school holidays — check the website for dates.
• Cookery sessions free and low cost, usually Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Check the website or follow on social media for upcoming sessions.
• Community fridge free surplus food for anyone, open during core hours. Donations of home-grown or surplus food welcome.
• To volunteer, donate, or hire the space: visit lovefoodcic.co.uk or email [email protected].

Perrier Award winner, actor, and the man behind Locally Sourced comedy night, Will Adamsdale traces the unlikely journey from a comedy emergency in a Sidwell Street cafe to founding Exeter's own annual comedy festival, now running around 90 shows across some of the city's most unexpected spaces.

Locally Sourced comedy night began in 2021 at Ebdon's cafe, born from a chance meeting with comedian Charlotte Evans. Since moving to the Little Drop of Poison on Fore Street, it has become a community, with returning faces, an alphabetical raffle, and a WhatsApp emergency group to keep things moving.

The festival grew in the same way: developed with Spencer Jones and Georgia Thomas, it has expanded from a single day at the Sidwell Street Bakehouse into a multi-day programme taking over bars, music shops, and established venues across Exeter. This year's festival runs from 3rd to 6th June.

Get Involved

• Exeter Comedy Festival website https://www.exetercomedyfestival.com/
• Locally Sourced on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/locallysourcedcomedy/
• Exeter Comedy Festival on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/exetercomedyfestival/

Locally Sourced runs every Tuesday from 7:30pm at the Little Drop of Poison, 154 Fore Street, Exeter. Free entry / pay what you can.

Exeter Comedy Festival 2026 Gala on 3 June, festival 4–6 June (plus family shows 7 June). Volunteer sign-up available via the website.

Dr Sarah Spencer and Dr Judith Morgane, the partnership behind arts and heritage organisation Lightbear Lane, share how they are using community film, creative mapping, Shakespeare and asset-based development to help Exeter find its identity, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Founded in 2023, Lightbear Lane takes a deliberately inside-out approach: rather than parachuting in with solutions, they ask communities what they already have. That philosophy produced the Proud to Be film project in Mincinglake and Whipton: a co-created portrait of a neighbourhood that generated a wassail song still sung every January, film-making skills workshops, and a set of resources now available for other communities to use.

From those roots, the organisation has grown with work ranging from heritage consultancy at St Nicholas Priory to touring theatre across the South West. Now they are launching the South West Shakespeare Festival, a three-day programme across Exeter's historic venues that draws in the Cathedral Archives, the Devon and Exeter Institution, the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum and a Young Poets competition, to prove, as Judith puts it, that you do not need to go to London for world-class culture.

They also discuss Lit Lab, their monthly creative gathering for professionals and curious minds, and an as-yet-unannounced publishing venture illustrated by Sarah and written by Judith.

Get Involved

• Lightbear Lane website – https://lightbearlane.org
• South West Shakespeare Festival – full programme and tickets
• Proud to Be — film and community resources
• Lightbear Lane on TicketSource — book events
• Sign up to the Lightbear Lane newsletter via the website to hear about Lit Lab and upcoming workshops

Recorded live at the Devon & Exeter Institution, this episode features Charlie Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, as he reflects on heritage, stewardship, and the future of Exeter.

We explore:

• What it means to “inherit” a story and reshape it for the modern world.
• How the historic Earldom and the city of Exeter remain intertwined, from medieval trade to modern innovation.
• His dual life as a barrister in technology and intellectual property law and a custodian of Powderham Castle, balancing tradition and sustainability.
• Insights from his work with the Exeter Place Partnership, uniting city and rural Devon around shared environmental and economic challenges.
• Powderham’s approach to sustainability, land management, and cultural preservation as a model for intergenerational stewardship.

Resources & Links

• Powderham Castle https://www.powderham.co.uk
• Exeter Place Partnership https://placeexeter.co.uk
• House of Lords Members Profile: Earl of Devon https://members.parliament.uk/member/4744

Jeanie Lynch, Head of Service for CoLab Women, reflects on decades of community work and what it means to build trust, safety, and hope in Exeter.

We discuss:

• Her early activism in the 1980s Exeter women’s movement and her journey back to the city.
• The origins of CoLab Exeter and how it evolved into a multi-agency support hub.
• Founding Resilient Women, now CoLab Women, a programme helping women rebuild their lives after trauma, homelessness, or the justice system.
• A relationship-based model focused on “what’s strong, not what’s wrong.”
• The new Devon Domestic Abuse Alliance and innovative recovery programmes tailored to each woman’s pace.
• How creativity, art, and belonging underpin recovery.

Resources & Links

• CoLab Exeter
• Devon Domestic Abuse Alliance
• Julian House Devon & Cornwall