2023 Newstalk AGM - Chairman’s Report.

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NEWSTALK CHAIRMAN’S REPORT for 2023 AGM

Although we haven’t received any new awards since the last AGM, there have been some memorable moments and events to recall in the last year.

  • We were asked to attend the Royal visit of King Charles III in January, when his visit commemorated the 150th anniversary of Bolton Town Hall. Secretary Jim Walton, along with our President Mosie Wild manned our stand in one of the reception areas and got to meet His Majesty, who had a few words with them both. Treasurer Gaynor Cox was also there, but in another capacity.

  • Later this year, in early July, I, along with Senior Producer June Grice, will be attending one of the Royal Garden Parties, at Holyrood House in Edinburgh, part of the “reward” for obtaining our QAVS status last year. This is an event that we are both looking forward to.

  • We continue to issue our programmes on a fortnightly basis, by means of our podcast, though we are well aware that some of our original, pre-pandemic, listeners miss the weekly delivery of the memory stick in the yellow envelope. However, our listener base has increased somewhat, as a result of the programme being more widely accessible through the technology. The memory stick method is still employed by the majority of the other Talking Newspapers throughout the country, and it is my belief that we should reconsider this method of issuing our programmes, albeit on a reduced basis, if we can work out a satisfactory way of re-introducing it.                                                                                                                                                  Senior technician Ben Hodgkinson has upgraded the computer in the recording room, thus improving the sound quality of the programmes. He tells me that it would not be difficult now to do multi-copies from the original and resume the deliveries, on a reduced number basis, but to cater for those who aren’t able to access the podcast on our website or via the app.

  • We have been successful in recruiting one or two new readers over the last few months, as a result of more frequent involvement with the Bolton CVS, as well as exploiting my own contacts. However we are always looking for more, and more particularly, we need to recruit more technicians to ease the burden on Ben, Jim and Gaynor. I have one or two irons in the fire in this regard, so fingers crossed for a successful outcome of my enquiries.

  • I have at last made contact with Richard Duggan, the editor of the Bolton News, who is also a regional director of the parent company, Newsquest. He has also suggested that I make contact with one of his predecessors, Ian Savage, who now works closely with the local University and we may get an intro into one of the technical departments there, with a view to enlisting one or two of their students/graduates. I shall be working on that aspect over the next month or two.

  • We have managed to launch our own Facebook page now, courtesy of sterling work by Alison Critchley. We know that it is not 100% a finished product, (as President Mosie is at pains to point out!) but it has got us there in the market place and Alison is hoping to make it more relevant for our work, once she has had further discussions with various people.

  • I attended the annual conference of our national body, the Talking News Federation, last September in Brentford at which I learned about the advantages of establishing contact with neighbouring TNs. I have still to action this however, but will endeavour to work towards making contact with our neighbours in the TN world.

Lastly, and by no means least, I wish to give my thanks to all those who help in keeping our Newstalk going - not only Jim and Gaynor, my fellow-officers on the Committee, but also the other committee members, my fellow programme producers and all the volunteer readers and studio technicians. Let us hope that we can enlist more people to assist in spreading the Newstalk word.

MICHAEL HAWORTH

Chairman, Bolton Newstalk

June 2023

Bolton Cares

We are pleased to be working now with Bolton Cares, an independent non-profit organisation whose shares are wholly owned by Bolton Council and which, in various ways, has expressed its support for the work of Bolton Newstalk.

 

Our membership numbers have been variable and not easy to establish accurately, but we have about 80 active members, including Studio Engineers, Producers, and Readers, and (again approximately) just over 200 listeners in Bolton. Due to the Covid pandemic, we have seen the number of listeners rise, as more people have access to the internet.

 

The number of Studio Engineers, has reduced to three, with more interest being expressed. There are four Producers, who spend time over a two week period to select and present the material from The Bolton News and from other sources. It is to be hoped that future rotas of team compositions can avoid the same Producer working with the same Studio Engineer each time; a little cross-fertilisation and inter-action can only contribute to the standard of our programmes.