DAWN came into existence due to the foresight and determination of one visionary person, Kim Miller, who was the Rehabilitation Officer for visually-impaired people in Oxfordshire. She had noticed that the South Oxfordshire region lacked any form of talking news service, in contrast to most other parts of the county, so she set about establishing one. Around the end of 1992, a number of like-minded people were persuaded to join her in forming a Steering Committee. Kim’s partner, Keith Faulder, was a key player on this committee, providing DAWN with a wealth of technical experience.
On 18th February 1993 the Public Launch of DAWN was held at the King’s Head and Bell in Abingdon. It was opened by the then Mayor of Abingdon, Councillor Bill Wivell, and attended by 46 people, including representatives from Witney Talking Newspaper and the Talking Newspaper Association of the United Kingdom (TNAUK). A constitution was approved and the initial committee of nine members was elected unopposed. At the first committee meeting a week later, Kim was unanimously elected as the first Chair of DAWN. Prior to the first issue of DAWN tapes, intensive fund-raising had produced over £4,000 for the purchase of equipment, cassette tapes and pouches, although this was not yet sufficient to provide DAWN with the high-speed tape copiers needed for mass duplication. Fortunately, Abingdon Rotaract kindly donated some old copiers to allow the service to get started while further fund-raising continued.
By spring 1993 about 24 volunteers had offered their services to DAWN, and a local musician and songwriter had kindly offered to compose a short theme tune in the form of jingles to start and end the tapes. The Post Office agreed to allow the use of the “Articles for the Blind” free postal concession for distribution of the tapes, and the local newspapers – in particular the Herald series – granted permission for the use of their articles. The infrastructure was finally completed with a generous offer from the Abingdon Community Hospital to allow the use of the Day Hospital as a recording centre. With everything now in place, the decision was made to begin the service. On Thursday April 15th 1993, ten volunteers produced the first edition of the weekly DAWN tape, which was sent out to around 90 listeners.
During the next six months, DAWN was fortunate in being given donations and grants totalling over £6,000, finally enabling the purchase of a suite of high-speed tape copiers in August 1993. This was a very opportune time, as by now the number of listeners had already grown to almost 150, and the old copiers were struggling to meet the demand. In addition to these technical improvements, 1993 also saw DAWN becoming a registered charity, and the mayors of Didcot, Abingdon and Wantage all agreeing to be its patrons. During the year, additional plans had been made for a complementary monthly magazine tape to be known as DAYBREAK to start in 1994, but unfortunately insufficient effort could be found to sustain this as well as DAWN.
Following its launch in 1993, DAWN has rapidly established itself as a valued part of the local community, with around 160 recipients and a volunteer base numbering over 35 people, a few of whom were present at the time of launch. Since its inception, more than 700 editions have been produced and over 100,000 tapes have been distributed. The Abingdon Community Hospital continues to act as DAWN’s operating base, although there was a temporary move to the Podiatry Unit when the Day Hospital was closed for over a year for building work. Operating conditions were considerably eased in the early years by the provision of cupboards inside the hospital itself, obviating the transfer of heavy equipment on trolleys to and from an outside bicycle shed! Kim stood down as Chair of DAWN in October 1994, to be succeeded by Ken Adams, who was Chair for the next four and a half years. When Ken resigned this role in May 1999 his place was taken by Tony Gillman, one of the original founders of DAWN. Tony was Chair for eight years until he stood down in May 2007, when Oliver Hemming was elected to the post. In 2003, DAWN celebrated its tenth anniversary, an event which was widely covered by the local press and by Radio Oxford. The committee decided that this would be an appropriate year to replace the suite of high-speed copiers that had given sterling service for ten years but were now becoming expensive to maintain. A major fund-raising initiative was launched which rapidly achieved its target, and by July a new suite of modern high-speed tape copiers had been purchased and installed.
In 2009 we were forced to leave the Abingdon Community Hospital at short notice and for a while used Trinity Church Hall as a recording venue. We have now found a more permanant home at the Abingdon Resource and Wellbing Centre in Audlett Drive.