Bishopbriggs Academy and Cue & Review Recording Service

Information for the YPI Presentations

Cue and Review Recording Service is delighted that pupils of Bishopbriggs Academy are working with our charity. Celebrating the 30th anniversary in October 2012 of our foundation at Bishopbriggs High School we hope to further strengthen our links with the school. Over the last 29 years the former Bishopbriggs High School Talking Magazine Association now also known as Cue and Review – Print Speaking to the Blind has remained supportive of the school through its participation in the school work experience programme and its youth work initiatives. Our founding Chairman Alastair McPhee a former Prefect of Bishopbriggs High School is the Managing Director of the service and since May 2011 he has been assisted by Alasdair McKechnie as a p/t trainee producer. Other former pupils of the local schools have also volunteered with the service.

We are delighted that teams from the school are now taking part in YPI and we hope that their fellow teachers and pupils will be supportive of what we are seeking to achieve with any potential funding.

Our Aim

· To remain at the core of communication in the Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire community.

· To promote the Bishopbriggs Media Centre as the home of a community radio station for the people of north Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire. While also remaining as one of leading providers of audio information for Scotland's blind and partially sighted community.

· To increase awareness of the revamped event space and recording studio in the Bishopbriggs Media Centre in Crowhill Road our base since 1989.

Our Needs

We have now refurbished our five studios and main event space, equipped two of our studios with broadcast standard radio studio equipment. We still need funding to enable the other three rooms to be equipped with microphones and headsets. This will allow easier live broadcasting for both the Sonata service to the blind and also for community radio. Two studios being reserved for the Sonata service and two for the community radio service. The recording experience will then be more comfortable for our volunteers and it will open up the chance of us having live debates from our main space with up 33 people taking part.

We are also looking to purchase Sonata Internet Radio boxes enabling more blind people from throughout East Dunbartonshire access to our daily podcast service from the Herald Scotland and the Evening Times. Remember up until now while you can access your print newspaper or online news daily blind people need to wait a full week before they get their cassette tapes in their postal wallets through the door. The Sonata box allows us to provide them with audio information each day. Even live from our studios once we have a team of trained volunteers in place.

Volunteering Opportunities

We are specifically at the moment looking for teams of 4 people for each morning, afternoon and evening recording session. For health and safety reasons we need a minimum of two people in at any time. Each session would ideally be for two hours of recording. If we are able to achieve 40 voices we would then only be asking you to come in twice a month to achieve this schedule.

Our schedule is dictated by the online publishing times of our print titles with the Herald Scotland going live at around 9 a.m. and the Evening Times at around 1.30 p.m. We would also like to introduce morning sessions daily for the Scottish Sun and sessions throughout the week for our television/radio listings service and Inside Soap magazine. The more volunteers that we have the easier it will be to organise fundraising events and secure sponsorship for podcasts and shows.

Our Funding

Cue and Review has no guaranteed funding. In March 2010 we did receive funding from the Third Sector Enterprise Fund to enable our studios to be refurbished. The Gannett Foundation and Awards for All have also contributed to this project. Our other funding comes from events such as the Bishopbriggs High School 80's reunion held this year and general donations. We presently have a number of grant applications out waiting on feedback but there is no guaranteed funding. Further information on our sources of funding can be found in our Annual Reports. The Bishopbriggs Media Centre is owned by the charity through its not for profit arm Deanwood Ltd. With a substantial mortgage to pay off we are not yet able to sustain a post funded from the building. Please email Alastair for a copy.

Some Crucial Statistics

There were 428 blind and partially sighted people registered in East Dunbartonshire in 2010 and 34,492 registered in Scotland.

The RNIB advises that there are a great many more people who are not registered and put the number closer to 188,000 people in Scotland and 1.7 million in the United Kingdom.

We know there to be 600 Sonata boxes in the field at the moment this project is not just a UK one but as the server is based in Holland there are listeners to the service all over the world.

Cue and Review Recording Service is recognised by the Inland Revenue as a charity. Number SC018016