IELTS Tăng band Listening · Giữa khoá · Listening: Food Market & Community Radio

Laura: Hi, you must be Tom. Thanks for coming in. I'm Laura, and I organise the Saturday food market here on the old station square.

Tom: Nice to meet you. I saw the poster asking for volunteers and thought it sounded fun.

Laura: It is, though it's an early start. The market opens to the public at eight, and the stallholders start setting up at seven. We used to ask volunteers to arrive at seven as well, but that never gave us enough time, so now we ask everyone to be here by 6.45.

Tom: Quarter to seven. OK, that's fine. I'm an early riser anyway.

Laura: Good. On the day, you won't actually report to me, because I'm usually running around dealing with deliveries. You'll report to our volunteer coordinator, Ruth Halverson.

Tom: Sorry, how do you spell her surname?

Laura: H-A-L-V-E-R-S-O-N. She'll be wearing a yellow jacket, so she's easy to spot.

Tom: Halverson. Got it. And where do I come in? Through the main entrance on Station Road?

Laura: No, the main entrance stays locked until eight. Volunteers come in through the side gate on Tanner Street. That's T-A-N-N-E-R. It's just behind the bus stop.

Tom: Tanner Street. And do I need to bring anything? Gloves, or…?

Laura: We provide gloves and aprons, and some people bring a hat if it's sunny, but that's up to you. The one thing we really ask is that you bring a water bottle. We've stopped selling plastic bottles on site, and there's a tap by the information tent where you can refill it.

Tom: Right, a water bottle. No problem.

Laura: Now, let me tell you a bit about the stalls, because visitors will ask you for directions and advice. Let's start with the bakery. It's been here since the market began, so it's certainly not new, but you should know that it sells out very early. By ten o'clock there's usually nothing left, so if anyone asks for bread later than that, send them to the café instead.

Tom: OK.

Laura: Then there's the cheese stall. People who came last year will look for it near the fountain, but it has moved — it's now right beside the main entrance. They used to hand out free samples, too, but they stopped doing that because of the queues.

Tom: Beside the main entrance. And what about hot food?

Laura: The noodle stand is the busiest. Between twelve and two the queue goes right round the square, so that's where we need extra help at lunchtime — someone to manage the line and hand out menus.

Tom: I wouldn't mind doing that.

Laura: Great. Next to it is the juice bar, which only opened this month, so lots of people won't know about it yet. Visitors sometimes assume it only takes cash because it looks so small, but actually it takes cards.

Tom: Good to know.

Laura: The vegetable stall is run by two farmers. They're very proud of the fact that everything they sell is grown within twenty miles of here, so all their produce is local — there's no imported fruit at all.

Tom: And the cake stall? My sister said it was closing down.

Laura: A lot of people have heard that rumour, but it isn't true. The owner is just cutting back to every other Saturday in winter. The thing to tell customers is that the cake stall doesn't have a card machine, so it only accepts cash. There's a cash machine at the post office across the road.

Tom: OK, I think I've got all that.

Grace: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Hillside Community Radio. I'm Grace, the station manager, and I'd like to give you a quick introduction before you start your training next week.

Let me begin with a little history. A lot of people assume the station started at the secondary school, because several of our first presenters were students there. In fact, the very first broadcast went out twelve years ago from a library basement on Mill Lane. The equipment was borrowed, the walls were covered in egg boxes to block the noise, and we were on air for just two hours a week. We moved into this building four years later.

So what are we here for? Music is a big part of what we do, and we're delighted when local bands get their first airplay with us. We also give teenagers the chance to try presenting and reporting. But our main purpose has always been to share local news — the things that national stations and newspapers simply don't cover, like road closures, school events or a new bus timetable.

Of course, none of this is free. When we started, our biggest source of money was a grant from the council, but that was cut sharply three years ago. These days, most of our funding comes from local businesses, which sponsor individual programmes in return for a short mention on air. Listener donations are growing, which is wonderful, but they're still only a small part of our income.

Now, some practical points. Before you touch any equipment, you must complete a studio induction. It takes about an hour, and it covers the mixing desk, the microphones and what to do if something goes wrong while you're live. Nobody goes into the studio without it, however experienced they are.

When you have your own show, please arrive at least 20 minutes before it starts. We used to say ten minutes, but that wasn't enough time to check the playlist and test the microphones, so we changed the rule last year. And all our shows are recorded. The recordings are kept on our website for six months, so listeners can catch up, and after that they're deleted to save space.

Finally, I want to explain how our weekly news programme is put together, because many of you will be helping with it. It all begins with ideas from the community. We used to get most of our story ideas by email, but hardly anyone emails us now. These days, most of our ideas come from listeners' text messages, which arrive throughout the week.

On Tuesday, the news editor reads through everything and selects the stories for that week. Then our reporters go out into the town and record interviews with the people involved — shop owners, parents, council officers and so on. Back at the studio, the reporters write their scripts. Before anything is broadcast, each script is checked for accuracy by a second volunteer. We don't worry too much about length at that stage — the presenter sorts that out on the day.

And then the programme goes out. For years it was broadcast on Thursday evening, but our listener survey showed that more people were at home at the end of the week, so it now goes out on Friday evening at six.

Right, are there any questions before we take a look around the building?