Wilmslow Talking Newspaper 40th Anniversary Celebration

Wilmslow Talking Newspaper Celebrates its 40th Anniversary.
There will be an afternoon tea at Wilmslow Library on Tuesday 25th June to celebrate 40 years since Wilmslow Talking Newspaper (WTN) started to record local news and distribute it to blind and partially sighted listeners in the area.
Listeners and readers old and new, and anyone else interested in WTN are invited to drop into Wilmslow Library for afternoon tea between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Tuesday 25th June.

More information:
The service was established in October 1983 with support from Wilmslow Lions Club, who provided funds to purchase the equipment needed, and the first recording was on 3rd May 1984. Recording took place in the evening because many of the volunteers worked during the day, and was originally at the old Citizens Advice building on Manchester Road. Over the years a number of locations were used before it moved to its present home 20 years ago.
There has been very little change to the format apart from a change from tape cassettes to flash drive memory sticks in May 2012.
During the pandemic, Paul Chilton, committee Chairman and now the group’s only technician, kept the service going single-handedly, acting as editor, reader and recordist. Nowadays teams of three volunteer readers record news items from local papers and online sources on three Thursday afternoons each month. Each edition is posted out on memory sticks to loyal local listeners and is also available online through the Speech Talking Newspaper app.
Stephanie is a founder member, having attended the initial meeting at Lindow School when WTN was established, and is still a reader almost 41 years later. She said “It’s great to be part of the Wilmslow Talking Newspaper team, helping to ensure that everybody in our community can keep ahead of local news and activities. Note: we love feedback.” Denise Toms, a committee member who has been a listener for over 10 years, said “I think the Talking Newspaper is really important because it’s keeping me in touch with the local news. The local community is either disappearing or going online, and for lots of people this is isolating. From that point of view it’s very important because it makes things accessible.”

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