Wisbech & District Talking Newspaper has received a massive boost thanks to the local Rotarians.

The Rotary Club has given £1,000 to the talking newspaper, half the sum needed to convert all of its recordings to a digital format.

The talking newspaper also hopes to provide all its listeners with specialist playback equipment called BookBoxes.

Talking Newspaper press officer Isobel Shippey, said ‘We were completely overwhelmed by the generosity of the Rotary Club’s donation, we simply couldn’t believe it, it’s a great start to our appeal.”

She said: “We have received further donations from other groups and hope to reach our target of £2000 very shortly’.

The Wisbech & District Talking Newspaper produces two 1-hour issues of local news and one 1-hour magazine of varied interest each month. The group currently produces these recordings in both cassette and CD format, but wants to convert to memory sticks, to be used on specially designed Boom Boxes for its blind and partially sighted listeners.

The recordings are posted and returned by post via the Royal Mail’s free articles for the blind scheme. As a charity, the newspaper relies solely on donations, bequests, grants and fundraising events to carry out its work, and is run entirely by volunteers, who read, record, copy and post it’s recordings from its recording studio based at Peckover House in Wisbech.

For more information about the Wisbech & District Talking Newspaper please visit its new website at www.wisbechafb.wordpress.com