BEAT BOX SOAP BOX WINNER

ENDA GUINAN, a twenty-year-old student from Kiltormer, Ballinasloe, Co Roscommon is the deserved winner of the inaugural Beat Box Soap Box competition, organised by 2FM in association with Hot Press and which ran weekly on the current series of Beat Box up to Christmas. Enda reviewed the Julee Cruise album The Voice of Love.

Apart from four paid commissions of freelance journalistic work in Hot Press, Enda has received a generous range of products from Cara, the Computer People, to the value of about £3,500.

Beat Box producer Pat Dunne and presenter Ian Dempsey were impressed with the number of entries and the high overall standard of the competition. Another one of the judges, Jackie Hayden, said that apart from the excellent prizes from Cara, the Soap Box project gave valuable practical experience of the print, radio and television media to a number of people, some of whom would certainly have a future in journalism.

The Soap Box competition was open to unpublished journalists from all over Ireland who were invited to submit a review of a current album of their choice. The best submissions were printed in Hot Press and their writers invited to discuss their review live on the Beat Box.

Hot Press would like to thank all the crew on the Beat Box for their enthusiastic involvement in the project, Cara Computers for the excellent prizes and all the readers, listeners and viewers who put so much time and thought into their entries.

Our photo shows (left to right) Jackie Hayden, the winner Enda Guinan, Ian Dempsey, Barney Keegan of Cara Computers and Beat Box producer Pat Dunne.