Going Digital

Craigavon Area Talking Newspaper Association was formed in 1978 with the help of a small band of volunteers and the co-operation of the Editors of the Portadown Times, Craigavon Echo and Lurgan Mail. Morton Newspapers, who print the local papers, donate two copies of the Portadown Times and Lurgan Mail to the Talking Newspaper every week. Each week a team of volunteers collects the papers from a local newsagent, where the papers are cut up and sorted ready for the News Teams to read onto tape.

Thanks to a grant received and administered by the RNIB, CATNA goes digital with its first issue of 2010. From now on the tapes will be replaced with memory sticks. The RNIB have provided much of the equipment and a stock of memory sticks as well as providing training in the new technology. Listeners may not notice any change in the content of the recordings but the quality should improve.

During 2009 one of the magazines regularly carried details of the proposed changes so that the Listeners would be aware of what was proposed and why the changes were being made. In August all the Listeners were sent a Questionnaire, which was included in the wallets, to find out if they had a machine suitable for playing a memory stick and if they wanted our assistance to show them how to use a memory stick.

From the replies received it was clear that many of the Listeners did not have a suitable machine and did not anticipate having one by the end of 2009. The Committee decided to buy a number of suitable machines and offer them to the Listeners. In October began the task of contacting all the Listeners to confirm they had a suitable machine, and, if not, to offer them the use of one of the newly purchased machines. As a result of the contact, six of the existing volunteers offered to distribute the machines. Each of the six then contacted up to 15 Listeners and distributed suitable machines to those who needed them.

Now all the Listeners have been contacted and from this week, should all be receiving, and able to play, recordings on memory stick. Another advantage of the new technology is that recordings will be slightly longer with the news being extended by 15 minutes to one hour. The magazines are expected to stay at 45 minutes.

CATNA does not employ any staff and a small army of dedicated individuals give of their time and talent to make the recordings. Even the room we use as a Studio is donated. Thanks to donations of time, talent and money, we are able to meet our operating costs.

However, as with many Registered Charities, we do not receive regular funding, nor do we have any employees to whom we can delegate the work. Perhaps you could help us?

We need:

· Listeners – our service is delivered free to visually impaired people and those who would otherwise have difficulty reading a newspaper. If you would like to receive a recording, you can ask at the local Library or give your contact details to the Mobile Library, or you can use the contact details below. There is no charge for this, either to be added to the list of Listeners or to receive the recordings.

· Volunteers – many of our volunteers have been with is since the first recording went out in 1978 others have been with us a few weeks, but there is room for plenty more. You need to have a good command of written and spoken English and be able to access the Studio, which is on the first floor of a building with no lift.

· Donations – If you have any unwanted memory sticks, of at least 1Gb, we can make use of them. We can also use donations to offset our costs. For this, we would ask that you make cheques or postal orders payable to “CATNA”

For further information about the work of Talking Newspapers you can also look at our website. We can also provide a speaker to talk about the work of Talking Newspapers should an invitation be received from a group, Church or organisation.

Contact details:

Patricia McGuinness

Secretary – CATNA

57 Kernan Avenue

Portadown

County Armagh

BT63 5TB

Phone : 028 38 330 336

Email: catnatn@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.atnni.org.uk