Radio challenge

Radio challenge bids to raise €100,000

Olof Gill

PRESENTERS on Midwest Radio have set themselves an enormous and unprecedented challenge: to raise €100, 000 for worthy causes in Mayo, and to add to the enormity of the task – they hope to do it in the space of a week!
Seven of the station’s radio presenters have been given a specific challenge to raise money for a different charity each day from Monday, July 23 through Sunday, July 29, in what is known as ‘The Magnificent Seven €100,000 Charity Challenge’.
The seven events will bring a feast of entertainment – music, theatre, dancing, quizzes, even a mystery tour – to various venues around the county. One of the ‘Magnificent Seven’,  MWR presenter Tommy Marren, spoke to The Mayo News about this exciting series of events.
Tommy set himself the challenge to write, produce and perform a three-act play at the TF Royal Theatre, Castlebar at 8pm on Thursday, July 26.  Tommy is pleased to report that the play has been written and is now at rehearsal stage. Tommy will be joined by two other radio presenters – John Duggan and Gerry Glennon – as part of the cast. He is enormously excited about his own event and the challenge as a whole.
“As far as we are aware,” says Tommy, “no local radio station in Ireland has ever undertaken a challenge like this.” The challenge, he explains, emerged from a brainstorming session at MWR; ‘the intelligence of the radio station’, says Tommy, tongue firmly in cheek.
“There will be a great variety of entertainment on show, it should create quite a buzz around the county.”
The aim of the challenge is to focus on a few Mayo charities. Though many worthy charities expressed an interest in the event, in the end it came down to the seven presenters to choose a charity that meant something to them personally. They feel they have chosen a good spread of charities that will prove most worthy of support.
As for his own event, Tommy Marren has this to say: “I’ve been involved in Panto before but this is my first play. It’s set in the west of Ireland in the early 1980s. It has a lot of humour, although viewers should be warned that it has a dramatic twist in the end that is not suitable for under-15s.”
If that doesn’t whet your appetite, Tommy is pleased to assure the people of Mayo that ‘it’s a brilliant play’.
Speaking about the ‘The Magnificent Seven €100,000 Charity Challenge’, Tommy says that everyone involved has ‘put a huge amount of work into this, it’s phenomenal really’. “We’re in this for the community involvement and we need as much help as we can get. We hope the people of Mayo will attend these events and have a brilliant time, as well as supporting some of our most worthy local charities.”
* For a full schedule of the Magnificent Seven €100,000 Charity Challenge events, see Page 17.