CATN News and Information

AGM took place on Thursday 15th October 2009

Warm tributes were paid to Jean Sayers and Christine Parker who were standing down as readers.	Robbie Burns, Chairman, speaking at the AGM with seated Vice President Sue Rotherham; The Mayor of Chichester; Secretary, Judy Pedgrift; and Treasurer, Steve Tibballs.

May 2009 - 'Walk for Mike'

Two volunteers from CATN Graham Brooks and Michael Bevis took part in 'Walk for Mike' in May across the country side around Midhurst. A total of £5,611 was raised for the Cancer Day Unit. the event was in memory of Mike Austin, founder member of Chichester Area Talking News who sadly died of Leukemia in March 2009. For nearly 35 years Mike was responsible for the technical and recording side of our operation.

July 2009 Trish Salmons 'Fork In Fork out' Buffet lunch

This year Trish Salmon and her team raised £1743 for CATN funds.

Generous Donations

During 2009 CATN have been very fortunate to receive generous donations of £1000 from Chichester Lions and £150 from Pagham Pram Race Committee.

Diary

AGM Thursday 14th October 2009, 12.30pm Oving Village Hall.

Further event details and venue information can be found in the membership newsletter and from the CATN office.

ONE MORE STEP FOR TALKING NEWS

Another major step forward has been taken by Chichester Area Talking News. Since we produced our first programme of local news on tape more than 30 years ago we have always prided ourselves on keeping pace with the latest technology.

No matter what the cost we have updated our recording and copying equipment at every opportunity. As a result we have the most up-to-date and sophisticated studio facilities in the country.

Now we have moved into CD production. Since 1975 all our programmes have been recorded on to cassette tapes and this arrangement has served us well. Many of our listeners still prefer it.

But in a recent comprehensive survey carried out among our listeners nearly 100 of them said they would welcome our news and magazine programmes on compact disc in future. Their request has been answered.

When we produced our news edition No 811 on May 17th 2007 we adopted a dual recording role for the first time - 100 copies of the programme went to listeners on CD and the remaining 350 on cassettes. About 50 of our volunteers received their first copy on CD the edition before (May 3rd) as we used them for a trial run to make sure things went smoothly!

In the weeks leading up to moving into CD production full information was given to listeners on several programmes so there was no misunderstanding. A letter was also sent to each of the 100 listeners requesting CDs so they were aware of the new arrangements. In future we expect more listeners to switch over to CD, particularly newcomers to our service, but whatever format they want that is the one we will continue to send them.

There is more information on how we produce our programmes here.

Talking News goes HI-Fi

We hear a lot about high definition TV, Digital radio and other electronic advances. Even our own Talking News is now offering our recordings on Compact Disk as well as the tried and tested cassette tape.

A couple of years ago we invested in computer hardware and software which enabled us to digitally record and send the signal straight to the high speed copiers without first producing a master cassette. We have now taken a further step in purchasing a bank of CD copying machines which produce our one hour News in just three minutes.

So why go to all this trouble and expense when most of our listeners seemed happy with cassettes? Our recent survey of listeners indicated that a least 100 would prefer CD's whilst a further 100 had CD players so would be able to hear the News on CD if they so desired. Another factor was that visually impaired people joining CATN are more likely to be familiar with CDs.

An equally important consideration was that digital recordings don't lose any quality so our listeners will now get crystal clear reception.

The downside is that the CDs can only be used once and then discarded. But some nursery schools in the area have taken our old CD's and used them in various art projects and we have found a local youth group who will use them to decorate their coffee bar area! There is a cost implication and CATN needs to find an additional £1.500 per year to provide this service.

The technical team have recently introduced the indexing of sections of each news edition to help listeners navigate through the various items on the CD just as you would if you were looking through the actual newspaper.

The CATN news programme in production

New Length

One major change following the move to CD and tape production involves the quarterly magazine Insight.

Since the magazine was launched 25 years ago this June, it has always been produced on a C90 tape - in other words it is a 90 minute programme of articles, features and interviews. With CD's the capacity is 80 minutes and for recording purposes it is better to rely on a safe 75 minutes. So, since the issue of the Summer 2007 Insight magazine the length has been reduced by 15 minutes. For those listeners still receiving tapes it will mean that each side is now 37½ minutes long and new cassettes of this length have been purchased. No extra cost is involved as all the magazine tapes were due to be replaced this year anyway.

From a content point this will mean about two fewer articles and it is unlikely that this will be noticed by our listeners.

For further information please write to:

Chichester Area Talking News Studio,

St Richard's Hospital, Chichester,

West Sussex PO19 4SE

Telephone 01243 775050

or E-mail: studio@catn.org.uk

Chichester Area Talking News Association ...local news for the visually impaired... Registered Charity: Number 273279

Chichester Gala Day 2008
	On Saturday 14th June CATN took part in the Chichester City Council Gala procession. A large contingent of members took part on foot wearing their talking news tea shirts and boaters.