About Andy

Andy Kershaw is a presenter, broadcaster and new reporter BBC Radio Sheffield. His brief as a news reporter at the station along with with BBC colleagues, is to produce great content for Radio, TV and Online.

Andy is currently covering the North derbyshire areas of Chesterfield, Bolsover, Hope Valley and Rotherham. He also covers community stories across the patch for BBC Radio Sheffield’s Toby Foster ‘Bigger@Breakfast’ Show, Howard Pressman’s Drivetime Show and other local BBC Programmes.

BBC Radio Sheffield has an audience of around 240,000 across Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and North Derbyshire. You can contact Andy separately about this aspect of his work by emailing info@andykershawmedia.com

Education

Andy Kershaw is a Law Graduate with B.A (Hons) in Law from the University of Glamorgan.

He also holds a Diploma in Management Studies and a teaching qualification and is an experienced adult education tutor, lecturing on social security, employment and charity law. He was the Senior Welfare Rights Officer for Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council for 6 years from 1987 to 1993 covering the Dearne Valley area of  Barnsley and represented hundreds of people with benefits claims and appeals running advice work training and surgeries across the Borough,  thousands of  pounds for claimants through appeals and reviews.

Acorn Centre

In 1993 Andy became the General Manager of the Acorn Community Resource & Business Centre in Grimethorpe, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, a £3 million Regeneration Centre with ten staff, following the closure of coal industry in the area. The centre made a real impact on the community and helped many people return to work through training, self-employment and other types of social support

The Acorn Centre was a One-Stop-Shop featuring advice services, business support, crèche, IT facilities and Community Development support. Andy Kershaw was the first Secretary of the Grimethorpe & Shafton Community Partnership and later became Barnsley MBC’s Resource Centres Team Leader responsible for learning and community outreach support in the Athersley, Goldthorpe, Kendray, Cudworth and Grimethorpe areas.

In 1999, Andy became Community Development Manager with Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council with responsibility for Community Development work across the Borough of Rotherham for the Social Inclusion Unit of the Council’s Chief Executives’ Department. Andy was responsible for funding and helped the Council secure £200,000 from Europe and the Single Regeneration Budget for Community Development in the Borough.

BBC Radio Sheffield

In 2001 Andy joined BBC Radio Sheffield as the CSV Action Desk Presenter, where he was responsible for the stations’ daily action desk bulletins featuring news and appeals from community groups and news from across the region. He now works as a news reporter and produces packages and ‘live’ items from locations across South Yorkshire. He produces a range of features and highlights the vast range of work going on in voluntary, community and faith sector organisations in the region.

You can see and hear some of Andy’s work by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/community/csv_action_desk/.

Andy is regularly invited to be a guest speaker or compere at events, conferences and seminars having recently chaired the Sheffield ME group Conference, presented the Rotherham Community Achievement Awards and was a Guest Speaker with the BBC’s Paul Hudson at the three-day Climate Change Conference in March 2008 at Sheffield Hallam University showcasing some of the work Andy did at BBC Radio Sheffield during the recent 2007 floods with a team of volunteers and staff. See www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/floods

Personal

Andy was born in Sheffield and brought up in Woodseats, Sheffield.  He is married with three grown up sons and his hobbies are cycling, reading, jazz music and learning to play the saxophone.  Andy is a supporter of Breast Cancer Care, the Bluebell Wood Childen’s Hospice in South Yorkshire http://www.bluebellwood.org/ and Dan Aid http://www.danaid.com