DAWN PATRONS: The Mayors of Didcot, Abingdon & Wantage
Since 1993, DAWN has been providing weekly audio-tapes of local news to (currently) about 160 blind or visually impaired recipients. Teams of volunteers produce the tapes every Wednesday evening, when the Abbey Centre is available to us for use as a temporary recording studio and administrative area.
On our 1 hour tapes we record selected news items from Wednesday’s local papers and our recipients receive the tapes in the Thursday morning post. We take some pride in ensuring that our recipients get the local news within 24 hours of the publication of the main local papers.
DAWN is funded from voluntary donations, which come largely from the recipients themselves but with occasional contributions from a variety of local sources, plus interest from our Building Society account.
FAQs
1. What are the detailed objectives of DAWN?
2.1 How long has DAWN been in operation?
2.2 How was the start-up funded?
2.3 Does DAWN get other grants?
3.1 How do potential recipients hear about DAWN?
3.2 What must they do to start receiving DAWN tapes?
3.3 Do we know how they like the tapes?
4.1 Is DAWN part of a larger organisation?
4.3 What premises are used by DAWN?
4.4 Does DAWN have all the volunteers it needs?
4.5 What are the tasks for volunteers?
4.6 What is DAWN’s routine procedure?
5 Why is DAWN still using Audio tape?
1. Objectives of DAWN
1.1 What are the detailed Objectives of DAWN?
The constitution of the Didcot, Abingdon and Wantage talking Newspaper Association states (inter alia):
“The object of the Association is to relieve the blind, or the partially-sighted, or those labouring under some temporary or permanent incapacity or disability which makes reading a strain, by the provision of recorded tapes or tactile reading matter. ..”
Within these terms, the work of DAWN is focussed on the provision of local news and information, mainly from the local newspapers (Didcot, Abingdon and Wantage versions of the weekly Herald series and the fortnightly Wantage and Grove Review). With very rare exceptions, the tapes are sent every week of the year, except after Christmas (when there is no local paper).
2. DAWN Funding
2.1 How long has DAWN been in operation?
DAWN was launched publicly on 18th February 1993 at the King’s Head and Bell, Abingdon, and the first tapes were distributed in April of that year. - History
2.2 How was the start-up funded?
In twelve months the founders of DAWN raised a total of £11,700. Generous contributions were received from local district councils, local organisations and private / independent donations.
2.3 Does DAWN get other grants?
Since our start-up we have only sought grant funds on one occasion, for the purchase of new copiers in 2003 at a cost of £8,750. The grants came from the Lottery (40%); Gannet, who are the publishers of the Herald series of local papers, (40%); the Oxford, Swindon and Gloucester Co-operative Society (10%); and several other bodies as above. The rather noisy old copiers were sold for a nominal charge to a fledgling Talking Newspaper, through the recommendation of the TNF.
3. DAWN Recipients.
3.1 How do potential recipients hear about DAWN?
Recipients are referred to DAWN from various organisations including the Social Services, Oxford Association for the Blind and Wantage Blind Club. In addition, some recipients first hear of DAWN through publicity organised by us, which consists of leaflets and posters at appropriate venues in the area, as well as displays at occasional publicity events for charities.
3.2 What must they do to start receiving DAWN tapes?
We only need to know a new recipient’s name and address and they can start receiving the weekly tapes immediately. No subscription is required. Most recipients already have an audio cassette player, but if they do not, we can loan them one of ours. We service these as required.
3.3 Do we know how they like the tapes?
We receive feedback from the recipients in several ways. They may enclose a letter when returning their weekly tape, they can attend the Annual General Meeting in April and three recipients serve on the DAWN committee. We sent a questionnaire to all recipients seeking their views on the subjects covered in the tapes. The great majority responded, expressing satisfaction with the existing tapes, together with some “fine-tuning” suggestions. Many recipients made additional comments, typical examples of which are reproduced below:
“Always looking forward to the tape. We sit down together and listen to it.”
“DAWN had been a great asset …”
“… Carry on the good work.”
“Thank you for a very comprehensive service which I enjoy each week.”
“Thank you very much for DAWN, it is a lifeline…”
3.4 Where do they live?
Click here for a MAP of the local area, with numbered dots showing recipients’ home locations. The colours of the dots have no significance. Dots on the periphery are for those further afield.
4. Organisation of DAWN
4.1 Is DAWN part of a larger organisation?
Yes, DAWN is one of over 520 talking newspaper groups around the country, which are affiliated to, but autonomous from, the Talking Newspaper Federation (TNF www.tnf.org.uk ). The TNF provide advice and information. DAWN contributes a membership fee of (currently) £45 per annum. DAWN pays for insurance cover, including trustee liability insurance, through the TNF. In other respects DAWN is completely independent. The TNF is now separate from the Talking Newspaper Association of the UK (TNAUK www.tnauk.org.uk), which provides national newspapers and magazines on audio tape, computer disk and e-mail for visually impaired people.
4.2 Who runs DAWN?
DAWN is run by a committee of up to twelve elected people, drawn from our volunteers and recipients. A further three people may be co-opted. As required by our constitution, three of the committee members are visually impaired. The officers of the committee are the Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. All committee members are automatically trustees of the charity. All are unpaid.
4.3 What premises are used by DAWN?
DAWN does not own or rent any premises and from its inception has used rooms at the Abingdon Community Hospital , Marcham Road, Abingdon. However we have now had to move (2009) to the Abbey Centre, Audlett Drive. We express our thanks to everyone there for allowing us to move in.
4.4 Does DAWN have all the volunteers it needs?
Currently we are fortunate to have sufficient volunteer helpers. Nevertheless there is a “turnover” of helpers as their circumstances change and we are always pleased to introduce newcomers. We have 37 helpers at the moment, who have a wide range of skills including organisational, technical and reading abilities. Ten helpers are needed for each session, including a committee member who is responsible and in charge. A rota is prepared every 12 weeks, which allocates tasks to appropriate helpers for each week according to their availability and skills.
4.5 What are the tasks for volunteers?
On any one Wednesday evening the tasks are:
Editor/Presenter (who comes to the session having spent a few hours in advance, clipping selected news items from the local newspapers),
four Readers (where possible a mix of male and female voices),
Tech 1 (who operates the recording equipment)
Tech 2 (who operates the copying equipment)
Eraser (who bulk erases the tapes returned by recipients for re-use)
Three Admin people (who unpack the returned tapes - noting which recipients sent them and any enclosed correspondence - and who prepare a set of postal pouches to receive the outgoing tapes. They also do a few other tasks as required). Admin 1 in particular prepares items for the “Notice Board” script, which the Presenter reads at the beginning of side 2 of the tape. The Notice Board includes local marriages and deaths, birthday greetings to any recipients with birthdays in the coming week, and acknowledgements to any recipients who have enclosed letters or cheques with their returned tapes. Admin 1 and 2 stay after the recording is finished and pack the copied tapes into the prepared pouches, and sort them into four mailbags according to the postcode.
“Postman” (who takes the outgoing tapes, in the mailbags, to the Abingdon Post Office sorting office).
In Charge (a committee member – responsible for problem solving, safety and security).
Some “multitasking” is possible. For example, a reader, having finished reading, may go on to do the copying, etc. So the actual number of volunteers needed in one evening is typically ten.
4.6 What is DAWN’s routine procedure?
The Wenesday evening routine goes as follows:
18:30 First arrivals open the Abbey Centre and arrange the furniture and equipment to give a recording “studio” and an administration area;
19:00 Start recording Side 1 (News items)
~19:40 Start recording Side 2 (Notice Board, Thought for the Week, and more News items);
~20:15 End of recording. Readers, Tech 1 and Admin 3 can go home.
~21:30 Copying and packing complete, Furniture put back where it was, and post delivered.
5. Why is DAWN still using Audio Tapes ?
The DAWN committee has looked into the question of going “digital”. The obvious medium would be re-writable CDs and the production of these would be no problem. However a significant proportion of CD players cannot play rewritable CDs! An alternative would be write-once CDs, which would be thrown away after use. As we send out to 160 people every week that would require 8,000 CDs per year, which (at say 10p each) would cost us £800 per year – a serious drain on our resources as well as generating a lot of scrap. So we are currently staying with Audio Cassettes. We buy these from A&C Audio Visual ( www.aandcaudio.co.uk), who have the tapes cut to a very uniform length as we require.
