Kingston upon Thames Talking Newspaper

What does it do?

The Kingston upon Thames Talking Newspaper brings any visually impaired person in our borough a weekly digest of local news and information on a 90-minute tape. It is totally free to the recipients as it is produced entirely by volunteers and makes use of the free ‘Articles for the Blind’ postal service.

All the news is taken from local newspapers. There is also a short magazine section which can contain information from the local authority and organisations that have something of interest to offer to the visually impaired .

Who it is for?

Any visually impaired person in Kingston upon Thames

Where it is available?

Local service (Kingston upon Thames).

How to access or apply for it:

Please telephone Brian Gaff on 020 8287 4180

Additional information:

The magazine section is put together during the week and is copied to our master tape by one of the producers on a Thursday at our studio in Surbiton. Any late announcements such as bus route changes are recorded at this time as well. The postbags containing returned tapes from the previous week are collected and labels on the pouches are reversed ready to send out again. The local paper, usually the Surrey Comet, is scanned for a good mix of interesting news.

Three volunteer readers and a producer record the articles onto tape. Recording normally ends at midday, then the copying starts. Copiers that can handle multiple tapes copying both sides at the same time, at 16 times the normal speed are used!

Tapes are then taken to the sorting office so that they may reach their destinations hopefully on Saturday morning.

Volunteers are always needed to read and produce the Talking Newspaper.
In particular volunteers to get involved in the transportation and logging stages on Thursday afternoons and copying and transportation on Fridays.

Classification(s):

Info last updated:

07/07/2010