FAQs

How can I get involved?

Chapel FM Arts Centre is all about getting people involved.

Have a look at Education and Training pages to see the range of courses and training that we offer. Some of the courses are specifically for young people; for older people; or sometimes we do some work specifically with people with disabilities. But generally there are always a range of options for anyone!

Then just get in touch. Usually there is a booking form on the page for any of the courses you are interested in.

Or if you are not exactly sure what you want to get involved with that’s fine too. Send us an email to info@chapelfm.co.uk or call us on 0113 22 55 944 or pop in to see us and have a chat. There are various ways that you can just come along and try things out, on our Find Your Frequency course, one of our Open Days or just coming along to one of our volunteer meetings, broadcast or tech groups.

What FM frequency are you on?

Well we are not at the moment. Over the years we have run time-limited ‘Restricted Service Licences’ when we have broadcast on FM for short periods of a week or two at a time. But generally we have been using the internet to broadcast.

But…be warned! We have been offered a full-time community radio licence by OFCOM. We are currently considering whether this is an option we want to take up.  Of course we will continue to broadcast through the website as well and archive all our programmes so you can listen again whenever you want.

Fancy coming on board as one of our volunteer broadcasters? Get involved!

When does ELFM broadcast?

At the moment we broadcast every Tuesday and Friday evenings as well as the second and fourth Sundays of the month. We also do three broadcast festivals a year where we are on air continually: the 24-hour musicathon in December; our Writing on Air festival in March and our No Bystanders broadcast festival in August.

But…be warned! We have been awarded a full-time community radio licence by OFCOM so by the end of 2019 we will be broadcasting every day… Fancy coming on board as one of our volunteer broadcasters? Get involved!

Listening live to ELFM

When we are broadcasting live on ELFM, you can listen wherever you are on the Chapel FM website.

You will notice that the in the top grey bar (next to the Book Now button) there will be a <Listen Now> button (rather than a greyed out Off Air). Click the Listen Now button and a window will pop up from the bottom of the page with details of the programme being played and also access to the commenting system and ways to share the programme.

Go to the ELFM Player for details of the schedule of programmes coming up over the next seven days  and full details of any live programmes coming up.

And if you are listening to the stream and a new programme starts, then a button will appear at the top of the page telling you that if you click on the button to <Reload Page>; “A new programme has started. To listen or find out more…”.

If you do reload the page and click on <Listen Now> again you will be able to see all the details and listen to the new programme.

Getting to Chapel FM

The address is Chapel FM, Old Seacroft Chapel, 1081 York Road, Leeds, LS14 6JB (you will find us on google maps etc) and is set back from the main road down a short driveway. Tel: 0113 22 55 944.

How to get there…

On Foot or By Bike
The Chapel is just 5 minutes walk or less by bike from the Seacroft Centre and Bus Station. If you are facing Tescos you go to the left down York Road. Continue past the village green, the village hall and a big church on your right. Take the turning on your right just before the Best-One corner shop – you will see the Chapel ahead of you. We have a bike rack in front of the Chapel and more secure bike parking around the back if you ask.

By Bus
There are frequent buses to Seacroft Bus Station from Leeds City Centre – the 4 and 16 are the best ones and run every 10 minutes (and the 4 actually goes right past the Chapel—get off at the Village Green). If you are coming from Leeds the bus runs from stop T2 on Boar Lane directly in front of Trinity Church and Trinity Shopping Centre (2 minutes walk from the central station) and takes 25 minutes to get to the Chapel. Other buses include the No. 7 to Harrogate and the Coastliner buses (840/843) which are a bit quicker and will drop you off at Seacroft Village Green.

By Train
From Leeds main train station, you can take the No. 4 bus (see above) or you can take the train from Leeds to Cross Gates (a 7 minute journey and the train runs twice an hour—generally at 18 and 54 minutes past the hour). You can then walk from Cross Gates station to the Chapel (20 minute walk) or you can take the No. 9 bus from the stop on Station Road opposite the Shopping Centre (it only takes 5 minutes but only runs once an hour)

By Car
From Central Leeds take the New York Road (A64), becoming York Road (A65) towards York. Remain on the York Road, taking a left shortly before the roundabout where it meets the A6120. 100 metres past the left turning to South Parkway you should see a driveway on your left leading to the Chapel (just past the Best-One corner shop). There is limited parking at the Chapel. Please park on the York Road outside the Chapel; by the village green or at Tescos car park. If you are using a satnav and it wants a house number—use 1081 York Road (York Road is a very long road!)

Is it really for everyone?

We want people to be able to get involved at Chapel FM, whatever their abilities, background, or experience. There are plenty of experienced professionals who come along to our courses and they work alongside people who have no experience at all. We have people on all our courses who have physical and learning disabilities as well as mental health issues.

We try to be as inclusive as possible, and if you do need extra support, then we are committed to finding simple ways to provide that support.

You can talk to any of the Chapel FM staff, but our Participation Manager, Katy Hayley, has overall responsibility for Learner Support and you can contact her direct on katy@headstogether.org

How much does it cost?

We want people to contribute but we don’t want to put people off coming along or taking part because they can’t afford it.

So we try to make as many of our courses and other opportunities at Chapel FM free, or costing a nominal charge eg our 6-month Next Generation courses for young people cost just £30 (about £1 per session).

Most of our events are on a Pay-What-You-Can basis where we ask the everyone to make a donation depending on how much you can afford.  We will often give you a suggestion of a range of options eg we often say for our Friday night events—£2, £5 or £8, whatever you can afford.

Even our refreshments are Pay-What-You-Can.

From time to time we put on paying gigs or other events when we need to make money to cover the costs of the artists involved. Again we will often have concessionary prices and sometimes special deals for local people ie those who have LS9, 14 or 15 postcodes.

And if you do want to make further donations to support our work, please do!

But what if I’m not interested in radio?

ELFM—our community radio station—is a big part of Chapel FM, but it’s not the only thing we do. Apart from all the events and other performances we put on where you can just come along and join the audience, in the last year we have run courses and activities in theatre, singing, cooking, growing vegetables, sculpture, music, pilates, dance, poetry, film and more. We even have a rounders team that plays on the village green!

And you can always just come along on Thursdays when we have our community cafe between 10 and 4 and have a cuppa and some home-baked cakes.

It’s radio…but so much more!

What about listening on third party apps?

We are currently listed on two third party apps—TuneIn which you can use on most mobile devices and Radioline which is also available on the Virgin Media V6 digital box so you can listen through your television set up if you have one.

On both platforms just search for “East Leeds FM” and then click on Play. Obviously it will only work when we are streaming audio (currently Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays). You can also make East Leeds FM a favourite so you can quickly access the station in the future.

If there are other apps or services that you use, let us know so that we can make sure ELFM is available there too.

Access Details

We designed Chapel FM to be as accessible as possible for people with mobility issues. The whole building is wheelchair accessible with level access on the ground floor and a lift to the first floor. All doorways are wide enough for wheelchairs and we have an accessible toilet on the ground floor. There is level access onto the stage upstairs and two specific wheelchair spaces for audience and, depending on the type of event, we can accommodate up to 6 wheelchairs.

Lighting is good and consistent throughout the building which is good for people with visual impairments. We have very good acoustics in all the spaces and an induction loop installed in the radio theatre to assist people with hearing impairments.

We recognise there are other issues for people with learning disabilities, mental health issues, dementia, etc. We aim to be as inclusive as possible and have a dedicated worker who will discuss learning support needs with any participant and make sure that all staff are aware of individual needs.

Please contact us if you need any further information or would like to discuss any way that we can improve access for you to our facilities, courses or events.

Watching a video stream at Chapel FM

When we are broadcasting from the Radio Theatre we have a multiple camera setup there (like a television studio). We can stream through a number of providers but, at the moment, we currently use Facebook Live. If we are, then when you click to listen a little video thumbnail will appear at the bottom of your screen which you can expand and watch and listen live.

Alternatively you can watch through our Facebook page .

How do I listen to a programme that I missed?

Almost everything we broadcast is available for listen again. There are a number of options to find a particular listen again:

1. You can see all our latest programmes by scrolling down our ELFM Player page
2. You can go through to our full archive on our Programmes page. There you can search by genre (type of programme)
3. You can search by programme name in the search bar at the top right of each page of the website
4. Or if you know it’s one of our regular shows e.g. Love the Words; you can visit it’s Show Page where you can access all the different episodes/programmes and find out other information about the show

Once you find the programme you want to listen to…just click on the play button and a little banner will display at the bottom of your screen and the programme will start playing.

Can I park at the chapel?

Parking is very limited at the Centre but there are plenty of on-street parking options nearby and we do have good public transport links. We also have one reserved parking place for disabled drivers and are happy to reserve other spaces if you can let us know.

Please be aware you can’t park round behind the shop to the left of the chapel—it’s private and the gates do get locked in the evening. And please be considerate to local residents and allotment owners when you are parking.

We do have a bike rack in front of the Chapel and, with our Phase 2 development, now have extended bike parking behind a locked gate at the back of the Chapel—just ask a staff member for the code to the back gate.