News

What you have to do to get blind people to hear about your service. - 02 Oct 2005

Having tried all the usual advertising routes Alastair McPhee decided that rather than banging his head of any more brick walls he would accept Alastair Alford?s invitation to talk about his heart attack on SAGA 105.2FM

With 44,000 blind people in the West of Scotland you would think that more than the present 62 people would take up the chance to hear the award winning prose of Evening Times journalists. For the last eight years a team of volunteers have been recording a weekly synopsis of the paper, we believe that the reason so few people take the tapes is because blind people are not aware that the service exists. Each time a free print advert appears in the paper more people do telephone our office, but this tends to be sighted family members or social and health workers. As many blind people live alone and therefore don't have people who can tell them about the service Alastair McPhee and the team would love to be able to raise the money to undertake a series of radio adverts directed at visually impaired people who use audio as their main source of information.

Alastair said "a heart attack is a very personal thing but as it was caused partly by the stresses of running our talking newspaper service I thought it would be a good opportunity to encourage more people to join up. As Alastair Alford also had an interest in the talking newspaper movement he kindly invited me in to talk about my life changing moment. We have to take every opportunity at the moment to get on radio as we have not raised the £8,500 needed for one six week campaign.

Is there a reader out there willing to donate to this appeal?"

-Ends-

For further information please contact:

Alastair McPhee, Cue and Review Recording Service

Tel: 0141-563-0306

Mob: 07802967486

Email: alastairmcphee@cueandreview.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

Cue and Review Recording Service is Scotland's largest independently funded talking newspaper group, transcribing fifteen print magazines and newspapers into audio formats for the benefit of visually- and reading-impaired people.

Cue and Review Recording Service is one of over 600 talking newspapers and magazine groups throughout the United Kingdom, but the only one providing a range of audio tapes specifically for young people.

Cue and Review Recording Service is based in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow. It is a Scottish registered charity and a company limited by guarantee but without share capital. As a non-statutory organisation it must raise every penny it spends. Income is drawn from membership fees, donations, street collections, individual grants and from transcription work carried out for public and private sector clients. This helps them meet their responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Since January 2004 the service has introduced a membership fee which presently stands at 60p per week enabling people to gain access to the full range of audio titles.

Titles recorded by the service are The Herald, Sunday Herald, Evening Times, Scottish Sun, Radio Times, Inside Soap, Earth Matters, Star Trek, SFX, Empire, History Today, Kerrang, Cue and Review, Four Four Two and More magazines