44 Not Out?

Long serving Rotary Club member John Powell attended his last meeting as Chairman of Oswestry Talking Newspaper this week and was presented with a certificate of thanks for 44 years of service and a framed photo of the Racecourse (by Grum) by Oswestry Town Council Mayor Mark Jones.

John has been forced to resign because of the number of stairs to access the studio but he is hoping to return as a recorder after receiving much anticipated knee replacement surgery.

Oswestry Talking Newspaper (OTN) is an organisation which John helped found in 1980 to help keep blind and partially sighted people in touch with local news and sport as reported in the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertizer.

John recalls: "My own involvement has been from inception of OTN in 1979. My wife, Maureen, and I had been involved with producing an Oswestry based item for Shropshire Talking Newspaper before 1979."  

He takes pride in the the fact that Oswestry Talking Newspaper is unique in the way that the recordings are sent out unedited. "Reading mistakes, background noise and laughing fits often feature in the episodes; it actually makes us sound more human."

A completely free service relying on donations, Oswestry Talking Newspapers has a rosta of readers and a team of supporters who prepare recordings for distribution on memory sticks.

Oswestry Talking Newspaper is a completely free service delivered free by Royal Mail.

A new Chair, Bethan Cross, will take over from John to lead a new committee as the current Honorary Secretary Helen Sharman will also be standing down.  OTN now has a number of new assistants on board but will not turn anyone away who is interested in helping.

For information, email oswestrytn@outlook.com

Some details from https://www.oswestry.life/article/success-for-oswestry-talking-newspaper/