COUNTY DURHAM TALKING NEWSPAPER
CIO Charity: Registered No.1159940
Unit 1, City West Business Park, St John’s Road, Meadowfield, Durham, DH7 8ER T: 0191 378 9051 E: info@cdtn.org.uk www.cdtn.org.uk
ANNUAL REPORT FOR PERIOD JANUARY 2022 - DECEMBER 2022
Trustees : Stephen Prior (Chair); Alice Severs; Linda Johnson; Leita Prior (Managing Editor/Administrator)
Charitable Objects:
“ To relieve blind and partially sighted people, or those labouring under some temporary or permanent incapacity or disability which makes reading a strain, in County Durham and the surrounding areas by the provision of audio resources in particular, but not exclusively, a talking newspaper.”
A FREE RESOURCE FOR 100 VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE in COUNTY DURHAM
CDTN provides free, regular audio packages of local news and features for the sole benefit of County Durham's visually impaired. News content is curated from The Northern Echo and other local or regional publications. The 40-minute ‘magazine’ section of our 80-minute recording comes mostly from the history and nostalgia sections of regional and one or two other print sources. The recordings are supplied on CD or memory stick and delivered by Royal Mail free of charge under the ‘Articles for the Blind’ concession. We send around 100 recordings to listeners every week.
Our charity is run entirely by a small group of unpaid volunteers.
We set ourselves up as a charity at the end of 2014 in order to maintain a long-running service that was about to end with the abrupt closure of former provider, VIPs in County Durham. Nine years on we continue to keep County Durham’s blind and sight-impaired listeners abreast of news relating to their own communities. Local radio and television stations do not offer much of the content that our recordings provide.
Most of our listeners are at least 85 years old. Nearly all have lost their sight later in life with many saying they were once regular readers of one or more of the region’s papers: The Northern Echo, the Sunday Sun, the Teesdale Mercury, the Chronicle—and also the popular Scottish Sunday Post (English edition). From these we compile our news and magazine package to include a quiz, opinion pieces and nostalgia and history items.
In 2020, Covid restrictions saw our total volunteer number drop from 20 to eight, with the bulk of the work moved from the office to our respective homes. We continue to work this way, covering the multiple roles of sound technician, reader, copy editor, administrator and despatcher. (Our office is used solely for the copying and despatch of finished recordings.) CDTN’s output is overseen by our managing editor who holds an NCTJ (MA) qualification in bimedia journalism.
CDTN is a member of the Talking Newspaper Federation—a source of ideas, advice and a comprehensive and heavily discounted insurance package.
THE FINANCES
(See Receipts & Payments Accounts in Appendix below)
Our services users pay nothing whatsoever for our services and we never ask them for donations. Their recordings travel free via Royal Mail under the ‘Articles for the Blind’ concession; listeners merely drop their returning postal wallets into a postbox, no stamp required.
Our operating costs include office rent, CDs, postal wallets, insurances, newspapers, USB sticks, USB players, maintenance and purchase of recording and copying equipment, office supplies, computer data protection, telephone and internet and TNF subscriptions. Only two of our eight volunteers claim any reimbursement or travel expenses (other than where such amounts are donated straight back to the charity).
We receive no grant aid. Our costs are met by (a) the dwindling remains of a legacy from former charity VIPS in County Durham which closed in 2014; (b) public donations. In 2022 we received unsolicited donations from Rotary Durham, Fred Henderson Ltd, The Shakespeare Temperance Trust and Forest Carbon Ltd.
With respect to reserves: we have no employment obligations but our reserves policy states that we should keep at least 6 months’ running costs in reserve (to serve notice on our rented accommodation and pay any outstanding volunteer expenses, newspaper bills, etc.). At present this figure would be around £4,000.
Trustees declare they have approved the trustees report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
………………………………… Stephen Prior (Chair of Trustees) 9th October 2023
APPENDIX: RECEIPTS AND PAYMENT ACCOUNT (January 2022 – December 2022) COUNTY DURHAM TALKING NEWSPAPER
CIO Charity: Registered No.1159940
Signed by Chair of Trustees: ………………………………. Stephen Prior, 9th October 2023