What we do. - Rayleigh, Rochford and Castle Point Talking Newspapers.

whatwedo

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.

Jan Churchill will tell you all about us below.

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

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, 9 am start

Each of the recording teams is run by an Editor who chooses and prepares articles and news items from the local newspapers. As well as news items, we may include sports reports, book reviews, radio reviews, jokes, recipes, gardening tips, restaurant reviews, details of coach trips etc.

Four or five volunteers read the items under the direction of the Editor. Engineers work their magic, edit out any mistakes (or, sometimes, too much laughter) and produce a master edition. This is then loaded onto a master USB memory stick.

We have a copying machine capable of duplicating 16 sticks at once, which only takes a couple of minutes. They are then inserted into FREEPOST ‘Articles for the Blind’ yellow plastic wallets. These wallets contain return address labels and, once the listener has finished with the memory stick, it can be returned to us in the wallet. We have a barcoding system that enables us to keep track of our mailings.

We also supply players (specially designed for those with sight problems) on loan to those people who do not have their own.

We have our own rented studio at The Todman Centre Rayleigh and it is here that we make our recordings and copy the USB memory sticks. Technology is moving fast but we are, at the moment, keeping pace with it!