Wowsers!  What a year 2015 has been. In February we moved to my dream home, essentially a huge, tree-filled garden with the bonus of a house built on it. The house itself is a lovingly-restored greenstone barn, formerly the milking barn for the farm, and it’s crammed with beautiful touches. The previous owner was a talented joiner and furniture restorer, and the house is full of every type of wood imaginable. We’re just on the edge of my favourite village, with all the essentials –  a wonderful village school sat next door to a stunning church, a thriving community shop, and fantastic, award winning pub (great “proper” food, CAMRA beer, lovely people).

The move has enabled me to finally gain a bigger, better studio space, with plenty of room for wild arm flinging, and even space for all three children to join in a voiceover session. Not that I have the nerve to entertain that kind of microphone bun fight too often.

Up until last month the only real sticking point was the broadband. 1mb download speeds are a challenge for anyone, but when you’re trying to send and receive large audio files, working becomes almost impossible. Especially if your 13 year old daughter is constantly Snap-Chatting. Thankfully, local company Wessex Internet have come to my rescue with a rock solid line-of-sight service offering 30mb to anyone in the village that can see the mast. My days have been revolutionised and my sanity restored!

This also means I can once again offer Source Connect Now, ipDTL and Skype sessions, plus of course fast file uploads, as well as my existing ISDN service.

I’m thrilled to see the business has continued to grow this year, and I’ve been blessed with some wonderful new clients to add to those that I’ve worked with for 15 years. Highlights have included working with Jaguar for their F Pace launch, on-going work across radio, tv and in-store with Clarks Village (just down the road from here, in Street) and national radio ads for Royal Caribbean. I was sad to say goodbye to Smooth Radio after 14 months voicing Sponsorship and Promotions for them. I don’t think their producers ever quite understood why it gave me such a thrill, but it truly was such a pleasure working with them.

I’ve continued to support local charity the Trussell Trust each month and I’m looking forward to finding some ways to raise a little extra for them in 2016. Watch this space (here’s a clue, it’ll be February) – if you’re tempted to dip a toe in the water of professional voice services, that might be the push you need.

And I’m also pleased to say I won’t be adding coaching to my portfolio any time soon. Although if you are interested in voiceover coaching, I’m always happy to recommend the inimitable tough-love coach Nancy Wolfson. Or if you’re simply curious about becoming a voiceover, ping me an email and I’ll send you a little something to whet your appetite.

So, thank you. For your support, business, friendship, and reading this far in a blog. Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas, and here’s to a fabulous 2016.

Studio re-opens on January 4th, 2016