Christmas and our carol concert are approaching rapidly.
This will be the 12th year for the concert which was launched in 1997 with three aims: to thank our readers for their support during the year with a free event, to have a seasonal celebration and to bring people into Wells Cathedral who rarely enjoy such a wonderful building.
Organising the concert begins in January when I meet our musical director, Ray Willis, to discuss how the last one went and plan the next.
Then we choose the local charity we will support.Last year it was Children’s World, this time St Margaret’s Somerset Hospice.
Schools tell us if they would like to send choirs, I invite representatives from different aspects of mid-Somerset life to read lessons, tickets and programmes are printed, and we look forward to a heart-warming evening in the run-up to Christmas.
The cathedral staff are always most helpful and within a week of this year's event I will book the cathedral for a December Thursday next year.
Naively I thought, back in 1997, that we would fill the cathedral without a hire charge as we are raising money for charity through the concert. But that was before I learned about the Church of England’s stretched finances.So we pay the cathedral about £600 a year, which is at the bottom end of their pricing structure.
We are more than happy to write this cheque and make a small contribution towards the enormous cost of maintaining this extraordinary and iconic building.
Philip Welch
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
40 years of ink and news
This month I celebrate 12 years as editor here and 40 years working in newspapers.
In 1969, as a young reporter, I pounded a massive typewriter, carried pockets of coins to feed phone boxes, worked in a grim Dickensian office and lived in fear of the news editor’s wrath.
In 1973, as a young sub-editor on a daily, I corrected reports on little bits of cheap paper with pencils, designed pages on bigger bits of cheap paper and lived in fear of grizzled printers who threatened to strike if you handled the metal type.
Now reporters tickle computer keyboards, carry mobile phones, work in air-conditioned offices with friendly bosses and live in fear of power surges.
The printers who composed pages from hundreds of lines cast from molten lead alloy are long gone, made redundant by computers.
In Fleet Street, they were tyrants taking pleasure in damaging their papers and pride in doing as little as possible for extortionate pay packets.But most printers on small papers like this quickly earned your respect for their knowledge and commitment to the job.
Technology has proved an enormous boon for journalists, giving us more control over work, easier communication with readers through email and quicker research through websites.Our own websites also mean we are read by a much larger audience.
The future looks bright for Mid Somerset News & Media as we benefit from new technology and the growing demand for accurate local news in a digital world increasingly swamped by information of dubious reliability.
Philip Welch
In 1969, as a young reporter, I pounded a massive typewriter, carried pockets of coins to feed phone boxes, worked in a grim Dickensian office and lived in fear of the news editor’s wrath.
In 1973, as a young sub-editor on a daily, I corrected reports on little bits of cheap paper with pencils, designed pages on bigger bits of cheap paper and lived in fear of grizzled printers who threatened to strike if you handled the metal type.
Now reporters tickle computer keyboards, carry mobile phones, work in air-conditioned offices with friendly bosses and live in fear of power surges.
The printers who composed pages from hundreds of lines cast from molten lead alloy are long gone, made redundant by computers.
In Fleet Street, they were tyrants taking pleasure in damaging their papers and pride in doing as little as possible for extortionate pay packets.But most printers on small papers like this quickly earned your respect for their knowledge and commitment to the job.
Technology has proved an enormous boon for journalists, giving us more control over work, easier communication with readers through email and quicker research through websites.Our own websites also mean we are read by a much larger audience.
The future looks bright for Mid Somerset News & Media as we benefit from new technology and the growing demand for accurate local news in a digital world increasingly swamped by information of dubious reliability.
Philip Welch
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