Talking newspaper moves into the digital age

index followhttps://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ALTN-1024×683-1.jpgarticlemodule_group modules Array 1 knSKCYH4x00 Alnwick Lions a beneficiary of the Newcastle Building Society Community Fund module video 1

A long-standing Northumberland talking newspaper project is moving into the digital age thanks to a grant from the Newcastle Building Society Community Fund at the Community Foundation.

For more than 30 years, The Alnwick Lions Club has produced a talking version of the Northumberland Gazette which is distributed free of charge to around 30 people with visual impairments around the county.

Teams of volunteers meet every fortnight to choose, read and record selected articles from the newspaper, with around 30 copies of the tapes being sent to readers as far north as Belford and Bamburgh, and as far south as Morpeth.

The tape recording equipment on which the talking newspaper was being produced had been becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and repair, with parts being almost impossible to source, and the Lions didn’t have the funds in place to buy a replacement.

But now, after being nominated by Graham Luke, a customer at Newcastle Building Society’s Bondgate Within branch in Alnwick and a member of the Talking Newspaper project committee, a £3,000 grant has been given to the Lions to pay for a range of new digital recording equipment, including two USB recorders, a mixing table, microphones, a wiring cabinet and Sovereign sonic players.

Each edition of the newspaper is now being distributed on a memory stick, with readers sending back the previous edition for future reuse.

The Lions are now looking into whether the talking newspaper can be produced on a weekly basis using the new equipment, and aiming to increase the numbers of people who both create and receive the newspapers.

Graham Luke says: “The service we provide has always been very well received, and it helps to ensure that readers feel informed about and included in what’s happening around the county.

“The Lions made a commitment a long time ago to keep funding the talking newspaper, but the problems we were having with the equipment were threatening our capacity to keep doing so.

“We only had the funds in place to buy the bare minimum of what we needed to keep things going, so the generous support we’ve had has been brilliant, and it’s made a huge difference to what we’re able to do.

“The quality of our recordings is so much higher now than it was before, and we’re very hopeful of widening the talking newspaper’s circulation in the coming months, as well as attracting even more people in to help with its production.”

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For more information about funding opportunities at the Community Foundation visit www.communityfoundation.org.uk/apply

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