News
Fastcopier Appeal Banks a Donation - 03 Oct 2002
£3,100 was handed over by Nicholas Dick of Lloyds TSB Scotland to Saira Reid, a volunteer, while she transcribed a young persons magazine into audio format for visually impaired people. Nicholas represented the grant making body Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland who made the award towards Cue and Review Recording Services goal of renewing the duplicating equipment that is so crucial to their charity.
Nicholas Dick of Lloyds TSB Scotland, Bishopbriggs branch, said: The Foundation is delighted to provide funding for new equipment which will allow this valuable service to be continued.
Morag Mackay Operations Director of Cue and Review Recording Service went on to explain what fastcopying units were and the purpose behind the appeal;
After our volunteer presenters and studio technicians have digitally recorded our range of talking magazines and newspapers onto master files they transfer the result into the Digital Master, load audio tapes into the fastcopier units, and press Start. One issue of The Sunday Herald, for example, requires over 270 copies to send out each week to readers throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK. And we duplicate the fastcopying process for each of the 71,040 audio cassettes we distribute each year.
Increasing Capacity
There are 88,000 registered blind people in Scotland and we currently serve 1,050 of them. That is not good enough. With new fastcopying units and the funds to properly service those we already have, we could increase our capacity and provide our services to many more listeners. Each double Fastcopier unit costs £4,000 But given the number of tapes we copy each week the wear and tear on these units is considerable. In 2001 our maintenance bill was £1,200
The Costs of Downtime
When Jim, Margaret, and Gladys are a unit down because a copier is away for repair again, their personal time commitment is increased. Or Morag, our Operations Director, stays late to get the run completed again! Or our listeners dont get their tapes on time. We ask a great deal of our volunteers - and of Morag and they happily meet our demands, but without new fastcopying units we are in danger of wearing out their goodwill. Without that, our production grinds to a halt.
We Are Seeking:
Funding for 10 new fastcopiers to increase our capacity and to provide back-up for maintenance requirements. Amount required: £40,000
Funding for a regular maintenance programme to reduce unanticipated downtime on our systems. Amount required: £1,200
