Mike Milne
Rocktalk, the Stirling Talking Newspaper charity, has found innovative ways of maintaining production despite the coronavirus crisis.
The charity has been providing a weekly recording of the Stirling Observer to visually impaired listeners for 38 years.
The primary aim of Rocktalk is to provide those who are unable to read with access to the same information as everyone else, in particular local information not available from other sources.
Normally teams of volunteers meet weekly to record, copy and distribute a spoken version of the Observer to its listeners.
But when the lockdown was imposed meeting became impossible and Rocktalk could no longer operate as normal.
Many of the listeners, as well as being visually impaired, are elderly and isolated during this difficult time. It was felt that Rocktalk was an important service, keeping them in touch with their local community, and should keep going if at all possible.
The charity’s volunteers normally operate from Logie Kirk Hall and so, to carry on operations, all the necessary equipment had to be removed from the closed premises.
Luckily, Rocktalk chairman Mike Milne was able to set up the recording and distribution operation at home.
Mike said: “Getting teams of readers together was not an option, so the only alternative was to have volunteers recording from home using mobile phones or tablets.
“This was something completely new and challenging for most but the volunteers have persevered and have now been able to produce remote recordings for the past 10 weeks. One of the readers is even sending recordings from Portugal.”
The chairman copies and distributes the articles from the Observer to the readers by e-mail. The completed recordings are then e-mailed back to him and compiled into a master which is copied on to memory sticks for distribution to the listeners. The memory sticks are posted and returned using the Free Post for the Blind service operated by Royal Mail, without which Rocktalk could not operate.
To prevent infection, the wallets used to carry the memory sticks, and the sticks themselves, have to be sanitised on receipt and again before despatch. Feedback from listeners indicate their regular weekly delivery of Rocktalk is very much