Meet Worcester Talking News

With Christmas just around the corner, we wanted to celebrate the festive period with a stint of events to salute the local music scene. So, by teaming up with local artists and promoters, the 12 days of Seasonal Shenanigans were formed, taking place across the city in some of our favourite venues. But the Worcester Music Festival team thought that before the shenanigans kick off on Wednesday 13th December, we should get to know the charity we’ll be supporting a little bit more…

For those who may not know, tell us a bit about Worcester Talking News!

Worcester Talking Newspaper is a Worcester-based charity providing local news to visually impaired listeners and is run entirely by volunteers. We are fast approaching our 40 th Anniversary – since 1978, we have provided a free service to our listeners.

Who does the charity mainly aim to help?

Visually impaired listeners in the Worcestershire area.

What sort of things does the charity do?

Worcester Talking Newspaper is compiled each week by our team of volunteers at our studio in Colin Chance House, Wylds Lane, Worcester. A 90-minute recording of local news is recorded and circulated weekly from our HQ to over 120 homes in the Worcester area.

All recordings and listener equipment are supplied and delivered free to our listeners. We also provide free bi monthly magazines and offer free loans of talking books from our extensive in-house library that we have built up over many years.

Why should people want to donate and help out Worcester Talking News?

We rely entirely on kind donations to support our work and the provision of equipment to our listeners. Our money gets spent on items such as studio recording equipment, USB sticks and USB players as they very quickly get worn out through general wear and tear.

What will the money we’ll be raising be going toward?

We are ever so grateful for any support. A few hundred pounds would enable us to buy at least 10 new USB players for new listeners and a host of brand new USB sticks to copy recordings on to for sharing, or perhaps a set of new audiobooks for our library that could be shared with our listeners for many more years to come.

For more info on our 12 Days of Seasonal Shenanigans, click here.

You can find out more about Worcester Talking News on their website.