Although our time is given freely, there are many continuing expenses that the
Association has to meet. These include:
Replacing our stocks of cassettes and postal wallets as they wear out, plus labels and pouches;
Renewal of recording equipment. We recently had to replace our master recorders, microphones and mixer;
Servicing of high speed copiers;
Provision for replacement of high speed copiers. A single slave unit costs over £2,000;
Purchase of cassette players for loan to listeners who need them.
Stationery, postage, master cassettes, cells for microphones and other sundry items;
We do receive generous support from a number of sponsors but we are
always grateful for donations no matter how small. As a registered charity we can accept tax efficient
donations via CAF (give as you earn).
Volunteers
We are always pleased to hear from people wishing to join the Association as volunteers. There are
several ways you can help:
Join one of our news teams as a reader. Each team meets for one Friday evening approximately every
seven weeks, and the recording usually takes less than two hours. We also have some reserve readers
who can stand in when regulars are away. You must be able to read fluently from newsprint, have good
diction and have a reasonably strong voice (i.e. not too breathy). If you would like to become a
reader you will be assigned to one of the teams for a trial, and we'll take it from there.
If Fridays are out of the question you may be able to join one of the monthly magazine teams.
Join as a recording engineer. Our engineers work on a roster with all of the teams so you will
have one session every six weeks or so. It will help if you have some experience of sound recording
though not necessarily at a professional level. Training with our equipment will be given.
You will need your own transport and be prepared to deliver the equipment to the engineer for the next edition.
Join the "Thursday Team" which is responsible for collecting the returned tapes, logging them
in and preparing both tapes and postal wallets for the next copying session on the following Saturday.
Join the "Saturday Team" which duplicates each week's news tape and the monthly magazine, carries
out quality control checks on the tapes and inserts them into the wallets for despatch by Royal Mail.
We may not be able to fit you into our rosters straight away but we always like to have
volunteers ready to step in when the need arises. All the sessions are held in Maidenhead.
You will find a bit more about the rôles within the Association on the What
We Do pages.
