News & Events

2024 Funding

22 February 2024

Witney Talking News is staffed entirely by volunteers and relies on donations and grants to keep our service running. Last year we received funding from Witney Rotary Club and the Brian Crawford Trust, which enabled us to continue our service to you by covering such essentials as recording room hire and software updates. This year we are especially grateful to three organisations – the Lord Lieutenancy, the Lions Club of Witney and Thames Valley Police Community Fund. Together, they have contributed enough to maintain our services well into 2025 and beyond, and have covered the purchase of a set of new RNIB Accord USB Audio Readers.

Grant Awards News

8 March 2023

We’ve had an amazing start to 2023 due to the kindness of four grant-awarding community funds.

Our first award came in early January from the Brian Crawford Trust, then in February we received a donation from the Bartlett Taylor Trust. In March came two grants in quick succession, one from the Witney Town Council and the second from Witney Town Charity.

WTN is staffed entirely by volunteers, and no charges are made for the service we provide; our income for the period 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022 was just over £300 (mainly through gifts from our listeners), but our operating costs exceed £2500 annually.

AGM 2020

28 October 2020

The 42nd Annual General Meeting will take place via Zoom and telephone on Monday 9th November 2020 at 7pm. The meeting is open to all volunteers and all registered listeners. If you would like details of how to join please contact us.

The program will be as follows: Reports from the Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary and Technical Consultant, followed by the election of officers and committee members.

Please note that neither the minutes of the 41st AGM held on the 11th November 2019 (available in print and summarised in audio below) nor the reports (available in print and audio below) will not be read out at the AGM. Please do read or listen to them, and if you have any comments or questions you wish to make, these may be done either at the meeting or by email beforehand if you cannot attend.

COVID-19 Response

17 April 2020

Page Updated 15th April 2021

Following recent changes to government advice, we are now able to meet to recording at the High Street Methodist Church in Witney. This means that we will be able to record in better quality than we have been using the telephone, but more importantly, it means that we will be able to return to sending out USB sticks. Tonight (15th April 2021) we will meet at the Church to make the necessary preparations and the first “normal” edition will be 1860 – 22nd April 2021.

Social distancing arrangements still in place mean that we will still be restricted to just two readers for the time being.

As with all organisations, we will be keeping our activities under constant review as we monitor the risks to both listeners and volunteers, and we may need to amend our service again if the guidance changes. If we do have to remove our USB service, you will still be able to listen by telephoning 01993 555 986. Calls from our catchment area to that number are charged the same as a local call. In case we need to revert to the telephone option at short notice, we will be keeping it running for the foreseeable future.