Talk

TALK is the talk of the town ….. well, if not the town, certainly of members of Scots Church congregation and their friends! This wonderful magazine has been in production for close to 40 years and each monthly edition, with its local and wider national and international news, is eagerly awaited. It is hand delivered to members who are no longer able to attend church and is posted to friends around the country. Its quality of production and content have been highly praised.

For much of TALK’s history – close to 30 years – the Reverend Norah Norris (pictured) has been the editor. Norah eased into the role in the nineties as the previous editor, Rev. Clive Morey, began to withdraw from the task.

What huge changes have occurred during Norah’s editorial leadership! Many articles were handwritten, or typed with basic computers or typewriters. Images and graphics were inserted into the black and white pages by a manual “cut and paste” method. Norah, herself, had the steep learning curve of learning how to use a computer. The copying of 100 or so magazines on a very basic photocopier was a mammoth task, as roughly 24 pages had be collated and stapled by hand.  A faithful band of volunteers completed this task every month.

Now, of course, with wonderful help from office staff, particularly Deb Prior in recent years, each issue contains coloured images and photographs, a variety of fonts, at times quite complicated layout techniques, and different coloured covers for each month. Our modern sophisticated photocopier prints, inserts covers, collates and staples at the touch of a link from the office computer. These days most copies are handed out at church, taken to “shut ins” or posted to a number of friends around the country.

Throughout all of this, Norah has been a faithful and conscientious editor, supplying material about the wider church from her vast number of contacts, writing many articles concerning the church calendar, church history and other worship notes. She has been persuasive in seeking articles from church members, committees and many others. Having each month’s issue ready for distribution on the last Sunday of the month has always been a priority and this has rarely been missed.

Last month, the Communications Committee, with great regret, accepted Norah’s resignation as Editor of TALK. The committee, Church Council and indeed the whole congregation of Scots Church Adelaide deeply appreciates her dedication, diligence, information gathering and attention to detail during the many years she has been Editor. We have been truly blessed. Thank you Norah!

Rosalie Smith