The work of the TN is carried out by four separate teams who record the local news every Thursday (sometimes there are five Thursdays in the month and then we have to pull together an extra team). When the Guardian is published on a Thursday morning, the first members of that week’s team start work.

Copies of the paper are collected and the editor for that week reads it and selects items for inclusion in the recording that will go out that week.

The readers, the editor and the recordist arrive at our venue (currently the Weaver Hall museum, London Road, Northwich) and record the items taking it in turns to read so that each week’s recording has a variety of voices. The recording is done onto a computer via a sound deck.

A Recording Session
A Recording Session

Meanwhile, the previous week’s memory sticks in wallets have been returned from the listeners via Royal Mail, and these are sorted and checked ready to be re-recorded with the new version.

Sorting Wallets

About two hours later, all the reading and recording is done and handed over to the copiers who, having cleared the memory sticks from the week before, are ready to copy the new recordings.

The recorded memory sticks are checked and placed into yellow plastic postal wallets which are individually labelled with our listeners’ addresses. These are then carried down to the post office ready for dispatch.

The Copy Room

Also by 19:00 that week’s recording is popped onto the internet ready for our Alexa, Smartphone and Website listeners’ enjoyment. The podcast is usually available by Friday afternoon.

After the listeners who have memory sticks have finished listening, they simply reverse the label on the wallet and pop it into the post ready for collection on the next Thursday – and the process begins all over again.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please click the link below and fill in our volunteers submission form:

Please Note: Our recording and copying activities are carried out at premises only accessible via a staircase so we cannot accommodate volunteers who are not able to climb stairs.

https://vr-talkingnews.com/contact/