What we do.

We make audio recordings of local news items and other matters of interest for those who are blind or sight impaired and who live in our area.

All the members of the organisation are volunteers and we currently have the following teams:

Monthly Magazine
Records one Wednesday morning each month, 9.30 am start

2 x Rayleigh & Rochford teams
One team every 14 days on Wednesday evenings, 7.30 pm start

2 x Castle Point teams
One team every 14 days on Tuesday evenings, 7.30 pm start

1 x Copying team
Every 14 days on Thursday mornings, 8 am start

Each of the recording teams is run by an Editor who chooses and prepares articles and items from the local newspapers. Other items may include Sports Reports, Book Reviews, Radio Reviews, Jokes, Recipes, What’s On, etc.

Four or five volunteers read the items under the direction of the Editor. Engineers produce a master cassette tape (maximum time 1 hour) and a master CD.

The masters are then copied and inserted into FREEPOST ‘Articles for the Blind’ yellow plastic wallets. These wallets contain return address labels and, once the listener has finished with the cassette tape, it can be returned to us in the wallet. CDs are not re-usable – but we do try to recycle them. We also supply cassette/CD players on loan to those people who do not have their own.

We have our own rented studio at St Luke’s Place, Rochford and it is here that we make our recordings and copy the tapes/CDs. We have our own equipment and we try to keep up with technology that is changing all the time.