ATN is a registered charity and as such we rely entirely on volunteers to undertake the various functions which together create and distribute our weekly recordings. These are made each Friday morning in our studio at the Test Valley Borough Council Beech Hurst offices, Weyhill Road, Andover.
Brief details of each of the volunteer roles are given below.
Readers work in a team of three for each recording, although not necessarily the same three on each occasion. An individual reader will only be required to read about every five or six weeks, so it is not an arduous commitment. A volunteers rota is drawn up for each year, so all volunteers know well in advance on which dates they are required for duty. Swaps can be arranged with other volunteers if any date is inconvenient.
Readers arrive at 0930 and will usually be finished by 1100.
The Editor selects the items from the Andover Advertiser that will feature on the recording for that week. The items selected are then cut from the newspaper and placed on reading boards, one for each reader. The Editor arrives at 0830 and has one hour to prepare everything before the readers arrive. Currently, each Editor is on duty once every four weeks.
The Producer is in effect the sound engineer and presenter. Arriving at 0830, several opening tracks and regular features are recorded before the readers arrive. The Producer records all the reader's tracks, and when the full recording is complete, it is checked and a master version copied to a USB stick. At this stage the full recording is also uploaded by the Producer to the internet. This is all finished by about 1115. Producers are currently on duty about every three to four weeks.
The Distributor arrives in the studio at about 1100, and it is their responsibility to check in and log the returned USB sticks from registered listeners, wipe them clean and copy the new recording onto as many sticks as is required, to then be sent out to listeners. This whole process takes about an hour. Our current team of Distributors are on duty every three or four weeks.
Do any of the above roles interest you? Do you think you could become one of our volunteers and help us continue to provide this valuable service? As you can see from the above details, it is not an onerous commitment, most volunteers only being required once every three to six weeks, depending on the role.
We would welcome new volunteers for any of the roles, especially Producers and Distributors. Additional help with some of the secretarial and administrative duties would also be welcome. For further information on volunteering or to offer yourself as a potential volunteer, email us at andovertalkingnews@gmail.com or phone 07980 636910.
