On
Friday, Peter Viggers visited the Fareport Talking News
studio and had a chance to experience first hand how the
news service for the blind and visually disabled works.
The
service started in 1987 as a Gosport & Fareham
edition of the Portsmouth Area Talking News and by 1995
was inaugurated as Fareport Talking News. The idea is that
volunteers, working in teams, record items from the previous
week’s local newspapers (The News and The Echo).
The
team started out making their recordings in the bathroom
of a house loaned by HMS Dolphin! At the time they had 135
listeners and news tapes were sent out fortnightly. By 1997
they had 200 listeners and Gosport Borough Council provided
temporary accommodation until an application to National
Lottery Charities Board was successful and sufficient money
was provided to build a purpose designed studio on land provided
by Fareham Borough Council.
The
purpose-built studio opened in Jan 1999 and the talking
news service moved to weekly editions that same year. Membership
is now around 350 and there are 34 volunteers working in
teams.). Four teams (each made up of an editor, technician
and 2 readers) take it in turns to prepare the bulletins
and after each is completed, more volunteers copy tapes
and CDs and prepare them for mailing.
Peter
said, “Visiting
the studio and taking part in a recording gave me a good
idea of exactly how much is involved in providing the talking
news to listeners. The service is a valuable source of
information for people who can sometimes feel cut off and
isolated because of their sight disability, keeping them
up to date with everything that is going on in the area”.
Fareport
Talking News is also seeking a volunteer with electronics/recording
experience to become involved as a technician. If you are
interested in helping the team, please call FTN on 01329
664364. |
