The Weekly Oxtalk Production
Oxtalk is recorded weekly on a Tuesday evening and this is ‘how’! Volunteers will have indicated the role they wish to have within the volunteering team: News Editor; Technical Officer; Reader; Copier; Keyholder.
News Editors can work in teams of 2 or singularly. They work from home reading all the Oxford newspapers and local community newspapers available. They will receive relevant information notices about touch tours at the theatres and museums as well as information about activities organised by the Activeyes Team at OAB. They select local Oxford news and information that they think will be of interest to the listeners. If working with a partner, 1 News Editor selects the news items on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and posts these news items to the 2nd News Editor who selects the items in the papers for the rest of the week. This 2nd News Editor, who collates the news, will have received the news items read and recorded the previous week – so making sure no news item is read 2 weeks running! The 2nd News Editor usually takes the final selection of news items to OAB on a Tuesday evening as s/he will also be a Reader. Once recorded the read news items are posted to the next week’s News Editor. A rolling programme!!
Recording the News
There are 3 Readers each week who read the selected news items. It usually takes around an hour to complete the recording, the Technical Officer being the volunteer managing the mixer desk and recording equipment. Once satisfied there is a good recording the Technical Officer uploads the Oxtalk recording to the website as well as producing 2 master copies which are passed on to the Copiers.
Whilst the Technical Officer has been recording the news items being read by the Readers there have been 2 Copiers emptying and checking the yellow postal wallets received during the week from the listeners.
Copying and sending the News
When all the wallets are empty the Copiers prepare wallets with the listeners’ address cards and record who will be receiving Oxtalk for the forthcoming week. The duplicating machine and the USBs are prepared and once the Copiers have the master USBs copying can begin.
Listening to the News
With the USBs copied with the new week’s news one is put into each addressed wallet and the wallet put into a postal sack. It is usually the Keyholder who takes the postal sacks to the Post Offices. The Listeners will receive their copy of Oxtalk within 24 hours. Postage is free via the postal service ‘Articles for the Blind’.
