Volunteer Trustee - moving to Vice Chair

What will you be doing?

How would you find out what’s going on in your area if you were unable to read a newspaper?  You would have to rely on relatives, friends and neighbours - unless you were receiving a Talking Newspaper.  Formed 40 years ago, Wycombe Talking Newspaper (WTN), which operates under the brand name of South Bucks Talking News to reflect its current geographic coverage, is a successful small charity. We serve blind, visually impaired and other print disabled residents in the southern part of Buckinghamshire who would otherwise have serious difficulty of finding out what is going on locally in their communities.  The charity is entirely run by volunteers(more than 60) from all walks of life, and dedicated to bringing local news to those in the southern part of Buckinghamshire who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise unable to read the news.    Our teams record articles every week from the Bucks Free Press Group and other local journals covering southern Buckinghamshire. These articles are supplemented with useful items from RNIB, Bucks Vision and The Macular Society, and a weekly quiz. We regularly have other interesting features that make it more like a magazine you are listening to.  Typically, there are 75 to 100 minutes of recordings each week.  It is recorded on Fridays, the day that the Bucks Free Press is published, copied onto small USB memory sticks and posted on Saturday in specially designed plastic envelopes to recipients, who can then listen at their convenience at home. When they have finished, the listener, or their carer, sends the message stick back to us in the same envelope; both the stick and the envelope are then re-used time and time again.   We also loan out to our listeners USB players which are specially designed for easy use by people who are visually impaired.  Thanks to the Royal Mail’s ‘Articles for the Blind’ service there is no charge for postage and the entire service is free. The weekly recordings are also available on our website.  The Charity’s basics are strong, with good financial reserves, up to date technology, over 60 committed volunteers and a growing listener base as aresult of our promotional activities. We have strong relationships with many other organisations operating in similar and related fields. 

What are we looking for?

Business development / Sales Strategic development and planning General / operations management

What difference will you make?

Our listeners are some of the most vulnerable residents in our communities. As well as their visual impairment, more than half are over 80, many over 90, and nearly half live alone. The service you will be part of gives them a window into what is going on locally which would otherwise be shut off from them. For many, receiving our message stick is the highlight of their week. The Bucks Free Press described it as a lifeline service for the print-disabled. You will pay a lead role in the decisions the charity makes and participate in implementing those decisions to attract new listeners, ensure we maintain a very high quality service for them, and keep us on track in a changing technological environment.  Your inputs and influence will help make a difference to the wellbeing of our users.