By Terry Ferdinand

Visitors to Auckland Castle have been offered a taster of next month’s Bishop Auckland Food Festival. Artists Sarah Jane Szikora, who will be exhibiting her work at the festival for the first time this year, offered a sneak preview of her work.

Sarah Jane’s quirky paintings feature exaggerated images of people, animals and naughty food.

Listen to artist Sarah Jane Szikora talk about her work

Sarah Jane Szikora is a local artist now living in South Shields and is particularly noted for her outrageous figures of animals, naughty food and gingerbread men. Sarah paints in oils using vibrant sweet shop colours, even the most hardy of viewers would find it difficult not to smile at the outrageous paintings of the over exaggerated large ladies.

Sarah will be making her first appearance at Bishop Auckland Food Festival on Saturday April 17th, and will be in the Auckland Castle main hall with her art work on display and for sale.

The food festival gets bigger and better every year and this year is no exception, with the emphasis firmly being placed on entertainment and more craft stalls, food outlets, and cooking demonstrations than ever before. There will be the usual marquees with food demonstrations and tasters, outdoor activities and plenty to see and do for the expected 20,000 visitors.

You might even be able to put a name to a face as Bishop FM presenters sample the food on offer.

Figures released by the Department of Communities and Local Governments have placed Wear Valley among 56 home repossession hotspots in the UK. Last year across the country 46,000 homes were repossessed as home owners struggled to keep up with mortgage payments.

The Citizen’s Advice Bureau is working with the Department of Communities and Local Governments to set up local awareness days. “It’s part of a long-term campaign by the DCLG to raise people’s awareness of the issues related to the subject,” explained Dawn Kirsopp from the Bureau in Bishop Auckland.

Following days at a local supermarket and the Four Clocks centre, the Bureau will be offering information at a further event in Stanhope. Awareness is a key part of the initiative, ensuring that help and advice is available for home-owners at an early stage.

Listen – Home Repossession Awareness

Speaking to Paul Campbell on 105.9 Bishop FM Sport, Mike Amos explained the idea behind the scheme.

Aimed at families and football enthusiasts who rarely watch the grass roots game, the FA backed scheme will offer free admission to up to three games at any of the Northern League’s 42 grounds in the North East and Cumbria.

“It’s a hugely welcoming fraternity. We’re confident that if people give it a go they’ll want to come back,” said sNL chairman Mike Amos. “We hope to attract both those who never watch football and those who might follow professional clubs and have a free afternoon or evening when their team’s away.”

Welcome Packs, including a three-match complimentary ticket, will be available at any sNL ground on match days, from any league official or by emailing mikeamos81@aol.com. “Regulars” will be expected to pay as normal.

Further information is available from Mike Amos, 01325 377463.

Duties include

Prior to the broadcast:

• researching topics and background information
• planning and rehearsing shows
• writing, and sometimes memorising, scripts
• liaising with other members of the production and technical team/s

During the broadcast:

• introducing and hosting programmes
• interviewing guests in the studio, by telephone, or on location
• playing music
• reading short news, traffic, sport or weather reports
• reviewing books, films, music or newspapers
• providing links between programmes
• reading from a script and/or autocue, or improvising
• keeping the programme running to schedule – responding positively and quickly to problems or changes, and improvising where necessary

Broadcast assistants undertake key administrative activities as well as assisting in planning, researching and producing live and pre-recorded radio programmes. They often have creative input in the development of new shows or features. The broad scope of the role means that it is a common starting point for a career in radio.

Duties include:

• undertaking general research for programmes
• arranging and overseeing guest visits and freelance staff
• maintaining up-to-date contact lists
• producing transcripts, programme logs and running orders
• answering and archiving details of calls for ‘phone ins’ and competitions
• editing audio ‘packages’ with digital editing software
• ‘driving the desk’ for some pre-recorded or live programmes
• contributing to the creative input of a show, for example writing cues and updating scripts
• liaising with publicity departments about programme trailers and competition prizes
• updating the programme/station website and ensuring that the on-air and online content are the same

Duties include:

Specific responsibilities vary from programme to programme and station to station, and producers may sometimes also take on the roles of presenters or reporters, but typical work activities include:

• generating and researching ideas for programmes, getting them commissioned and contacting potential interviewees and contributors
• developing content, writing material for scripts, bulletins and links
• selecting music appropriate to the programme, the audience and the station
• managing the logistics of getting people, resources and equipment together to the right place at the right time
• presenting or managing presenters for both pre-recorded and recorded output
• checking that copyrights are cleared and that output meets legal guidelines
• converting text, graphics, video and audio files into other formats
• contributing to and making use of an archive of audio resources which can be re-used

As a community radio station, one of our social goals is to provide a platform for charitable organisations (e.g. the scouts or local hospices) operating in our area to publicise their work. The publicity we are able to provide to these organisations will be invaluable in helping them to continue their work, and to raise funds and we would like to be able to use our station to help as many of these good causes as we are able.

We are looking for a volunteer to establish links and work with the charities operating in our area to find out how our community radio station can help them, and to co-ordinate this work. This could involve arranging for members of the charity to guest in our programmes to talk about their work, to co-ordinate the production of on air advertising and promotion for charitable events or even to organise an outside broadcast from their premises or events.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and out-going person with a bit of imagination and creative flair, but most importantly who shares our love of South Durham and our social aims and objectives to provide a platform for worthwhile causes operating in this area. This is a brand new role within Bishop FM and the job description is still a bit of a blank canvas, but I think it’s safe to say that the job will be pretty much what you make of it.

Duties include:

• Researching environmental news and events
• Interviewing local and national businesses and agencies about environmental issues
• Editing and preparing programme packages and inserts for local news about environmental issues
• Providing content for the website www.bishopfm.com
• Archiving interviews and material

We anticipate this role will require input of approximately 8 hours per week, but this could be shared amongst a team of people.

Duties include:

• Contacting various community groups & businesses to find out what’s on, when and where.
• Working with the Bishop FM Web Team to make sure these events are listed on the Bishop FM web site.
• Co-ordinating volunteers and equipment to makes sure that, where possible, Bishop FM is represented in some way at these events. Depending upon the event this could range from organising volunteers to hand out a couple of Bishop FM leaflets to interviewing organisers and attendees, or be a full-scale outside broadcast.

However, as this is a brand new position there is significant scope to develop this role.

How much time is required?

At this stage we anticipate this job will require 2-3 volunteer hours per week – the timing of this is flexible.

What sort of person are we looking for?

If you are a strong team player with an out-going, friendly personality who enjoys meeting new people and has a good rapport with other volunteers this could be the role for you.

There are no specific skills required as full training will be provided.

The Council’s Strategic Highways Manager Dave Wilcox explains, “Together with the police, fire and rescue and ambulance services we are issuing a warning to motorists in the county to assume ice, particularly black ice, will continue to be a significant issue over the coming weeks.

“The restrictions on salt supply continue to dictate how much of the highways network can be routinely salted, and, until that situation changes, we will only be able to pre salt category A and B roads around the county.

“Even so, I would ask motorists to take extra care, even on the pre salted network, as road temperatures and traffic volume can dictate how successful salting is in these conditions.”

Inspector Ken Cook, Head of Strategic Road Policing for Durham Constabulary, says he hopes the joint approach will mean less accidents and injuries, “When a road surface is covered with snow it is easy to see the hazard, but black ice is much more dangerous.

“By its nature it is not easy to see and it can have a devastating impact.

“I would ask all motorists, regardless of whether they can see a problem on the road surface, to assume the worst.

“Please, drive appropriately and according to the conditions, keep your speed down and leave a bigger gap between you and the vehicle in front. Remember, the salted network has been reduced and just because you can’t see any ice doesn’t mean it isn’t there.