The Henley and District Talking Newspaper Association provide an audio version of The Henley Standard newspaper to around 80 visually impaired people each week. The service is available free of charge to anyone registered blind or partially sighted living within the catchment area of the paper. It is also available to people who are prevented from reading the paper themselves for a different reason.
Although the work is done by amateurs, every effort is made to achieve the best possible result for the listener. Specially prepared pages of the newspaper are collected from the Standard office on a Thursday afternoon each week and that evening a group of four readers and a technical controller produce a recording of about an hour in length. We are aware that not all the listeners live in the town itself, so news is included from the surrounding villages each week too.
The recording is then copied onto memory sticks and posted out to the listeners in a protective wallet and usually received on the Saturday morning. Once the week’s news has been listened to, the listener reverses the address label in the wallet and posts it back to us. There is no need to add any stamps because The Royal Mail operates a freepost service for the blind and partially sighted. This service is free of charge and our running costs are covered by the donations we gratefully receive.
If you know of someone who would benefit from our service then please contact us.
| Chairman | Richard Hodgkin | 01491 573192 |
| Secretary | Caroline Green | 01628 826181 |
For more information, visit our website.