Ellesmere Port & Neston
Project: Ellesmere Port & Neston Talking Newspaper
Grant awarded: £5,000
Date: May 2008 - April 2011
About
The Ellesmere Port & Neston Talking Newspaper is a local voluntary group that has been in operation for several years. The project has 10-15 volunteers who record news items, and distribute them to blind and partially-sighted people in the community. The Talking Newspaper is gradually changing from the use of outdated and hard to source/repair cassette tapes to MP3 players for its listeners.
£5,000 of Fair Share Trust funding has been allocated to purchase digital recording equipment and large MP3 players for each of the listeners. A pilot scheme into the feasibility of digital recording on a large scale and ease of use for listeners has been undertaken with great success. The Talking Newspaper now has a waiting list of listeners wanting to ‘go digital’. It will take a while for this waiting list to clear, as a volunteer has to visit each listener to check that the MP3 player is suitable for the listener and that they are happy using them, but the group certainly feels that this is a good use of time and resources to enable blind and partially-sighted people to continue accessing the news.
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