2024 Newstalk AGM - Chairman’s Report.

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NEWSTALK CHAIRMAN’S REPORT for 2024 AGM

BOLTON NEWSTALK

2023/24 has been a year of more routine activity for Bolton Newstalk, after the excitement of previous years with the QAVS award, which culminated in a bit of a damp squib with the Royal Garden Party washout at Holyrood Palace last July attended by June and me.

During the last year, we sadly lost the services of one of our stalwart supporters with the passing of Sandra Leatherbarrow who, as well as being a reader for many years, subsequently became a programme producer and a committee member. Always one to offer her services, and ever one to come up with ideas, she will be sadly missed, not only by Newstalk, but by all the other organisations with which she was connected - and there were many.

However, as one door closes, another one opens, and Sandra’s place as a producer was taken over by Alison and Katie who have worked out a system of programme sharing, with Katie doing the Summer/Spring seasons and Alison doing the Autumn/Winter ones. This suits them both and it appears to be working satisfactorily. They started their regime with a shared-programme, with both contributing, but each have done a solo slot now and, as there have been no complaints, we can assume that our listeners are happy with their efforts. It was good to see an email of thanks from our President, Mosie, after Katie’s recent programme, and I have added my personal thanks to them both after their solo debuts.

But we have still not resolved the problem of finding another studio manager/technician, despite strenuous efforts by me personally and others. We thought we had got a new guy in Dawid, from the Bolton CVS, but his 2 visits to us were only a stepping-stone to him moving on. I have been bitterly disappointed in the lack of response from the University of Bolton, who promised so much, and the local High Schools that have been approached in trying to recruit new young volunteers to assist us.

Although we occasionally use information from local churches/theatres/societies etc about upcoming events, we maintain our long connection with the Bolton News as our main source of news items, despite them no longer being a purely local organisation, but part of the Newsquest Media Group, which includes 27 titles of local newspapers over the country, and local editor Richard Duggan, who acts as regional director for the north west helps us whenever and wherever he can. On payment of a subscription, all producers can access the website of the Bolton News, without pop-ups, and use the information therein for our programmes.

We retain our membership of our national federation, the Talking News Federation (TNF), and Jim and Gaynor attended the last AGM/Conference. Via the TNF we have established contact with neighbouring TNs in Bury and Salford but the exchange of ideas/suggestions that I had hoped would be engendered by this contact has not materialised. Their representatives did visit us one Sunday and “sat in” on one of our recordings, and were impressed with what they saw. but since then nothing from them. We shall see what further contact appears, if any.

We retain our close connection with Henshaw’s, whose connections have proved useful to us, as has one of our rooms to them, when not required for our recordings! We have also been in contact with the RNIB and have been added to their ‘Sightline Directory’ a directory of services and organisations that help blind or partially sighted people in the UK.

As a media-based organisation, we are now recognised by the local Council and other associated municipal bodies, and regularly get invitations to events involved with local affairs, such as the re-opening of Central Library. This helps us to put our own slant on such matters, and not just rely on the reports from the Bolton News. We are selective about which events we should attend and have recently agreed to have a stand at Vision Zone Bolton an event that will be happening in July, which aims to bridge the gap from sight loss to support services and products for people in the visually-impaired community. This is more like what we feel suits Newstalk’s ambitions. As does ‘VISIBL’ Bolton’s local sight-impaired group that Jim attends on our behalf, and he reports back with news that we can include in our broadcasts.Our listener-base still remains higher than it was pre-pandemic as a result of our programmes being done digitally and we are regularly getting listeners from the Manchester/Salford area, despite there being the Salford Talking News. Although we have contact with this organisation, we can hardly tell them that we are “pinching” their potential customers. As a side comment here, President Mosie did listen in to one of Salford’s programmes, but says that she prefers ours as they are more professionally done. So, thank you producers and technicians.

Our finances remain very strong and I would like us to use some of our financial resources to upgrade our recording and IT equipment. We have had one or two “hiccups” during the recordings over the last few months and although 2 of these recordings were partially rescued by the studio managers to ensure that a programme of sorts was issued, such a blip causes frustration and even some anger amongst us programme producers when 2 weeks work “goes down the pan”. I have the utmost respect and admiration for the technical team in a recording, as I wouldn’t have the faintest idea as to how to carry out the task, but the few hours that they carry out on a Sunday afternoon pales into insignificance compared with the hours that are undertaken in preparing the script for a programme. I usually bank on about 10-12 hours over the 2 weeks toget the script in a programme-worthy format.

Finally, my grateful thanks go to not only my fellow-officers, Jim and Gaynor, but to all committee members, programme producers and technicians (one and the same, in the main) and to all our volunteer readers, all of whom help to maintain this valuable service. In this regard I’m sure that I also speak on behalf of all our listeners, wherever they may be.

I intend to stand down as Chairman of Bolton Newstalk after the next 12 months (if elected) and so I hope that in my last year in office, the status of Newstalk, and its reputation in the town, will remain as strong as ever.

MICHAEL HAWORTH

Chairman, Bolton Newstalk

May 2024

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.