I really, truly and honestly mean it when I say that meeting new people is the best part of my job.

I do a lot of that - we all do - and today the entire radio station gave itself over to helping members of the public produce our output, from the travel news to the sport, the drivetime programme to the weather forecast.

The project, called Making It, involved giving no more than few hours' training to 20-plus local people prepared to try their hand at broadcasting, then supervising them as they spent a day taking charge of what we do. So we had a news editor, a newsreader, a sports presenter or two, co-presenters for all our programmes, reporters across the county, TV reporters and much more - all supported by the people who do those jobs day in, day out.

Which of course means our online team had its own new stars, and here I am with Pauline, with whom I crafted an article on some breaking speedway news during the afternoon. Note the new hair and my ability to appear drunk at 3pm having not touched a drop in days.

Pauline was fantastic - imbued with a fine sense of humour and a decisive nature, both of which are fine assets when you're doing my job. She was joined by Thelma, who wrote us a brilliant article on the architecture of the Ascot Grandstand one year on, perfect to fit in with the new BBC series How We Built Britain, and topical with Royal Ascot just around the corner.

Together the three of us edited Thelma's excellent but rather long article down to an in-depth but punchy assessment of the first 12 months for the new-look Ascot. Have a read here.

If only every day brought an eager correspondent carrying a well-researched article on a hot Berkshire topic. If they ever read this, thanks to both of them for making my life so easy today!

Thanks to Malcolm too, our sports journalist in the morning, who conducted a very funny interview with the manager of a Reading football team about to go on a short tour of Poland. It transpired that Malcolm and his interviewee, Josh, both managed community football teams in the same league - and had much about which to talk!

The 'interview' ends with me holding the microphone as the pair of them indulge in a light-hearted war of words over whose team is better. I would have been rubbish doing that interview, but Malcolm had so much in common with Josh that it made a great few minutes of radio for tomorrow night's Sportsweek.

Not everything ran so smoothly. As the interview came to an end, with us all stood out on the football pitch at the front of the building, the fire alarm could be heard from within. A few moments later the entire staff of the radio station, with members of the public in tow, came streaming out, and we had put our emergency broadcast to air. This lasted a full half hour before we were allowed back in - certainly not helpful on a flagship day of broadcasting with twice our usual number of people in the newsroom!

The most important thing, for me, is not to let this feel like a one-off. We don't make a habit of ignoring listeners and members of the public unless it's a day with a special name with special t-shirts to hand out. Take our junior football section on the website, powered in its entirety by dedicated parents and coaches on the touchline sending in match reports and great photos. We have 40 local BBC websites and I'd put any money on ours being the best for junior football, and it's all their work, not mine.

On a separate note, social networking site Facebook is adding dozens of new applications every day, designed to help you customise your profile far beyond the old limits previously allowed. Today I was very pleasantly surprised by Dogbook, an application which enabled me to create a profile for my dog, Toby, attached to my own page. It looks brilliant and I'm dead proud to have my dog alongside me online. Bless the internet, it's been a lot of fun today.