Tendring Talking Times was formed by Community Voluntary Services Tendring, our local umbrella organisation for charitable organisations, as the registered charity “Tendring Talking Newspapers Association” in March 1976.  They are now looking forward to their 50th Anniversary in 2026.

The objective of the charity is to produce a weekly resume of local news, which is gathered from the only two newspapers remaining which cover our large municipal area. The target is for each issue to be delivered by Royal Mail on a Saturday morning. Each listener is provided with a playback device free of charge if required.

The charity has its own studio in a converted flat with a separate recording room; an engineering room and a readers’ room plus other facilities.  Over the years, the engineers’ room has undergone numerous changes as the recording medium went from cassette tapes to Compact Discs and now memory sticks.  They have now joined the 21st Century with a website which will allow them to upload the recorded issue each week which will hopefully increase the listener numbers as it will then be possible to listen to each issue either direct from the website or via an Alexa or similar device.

Currently, they have around 60 volunteers and the number of listeners is now in the region of 100.

The two local papers contain a sizeable portion of standard material common throughout the whole country where the publishing group operate, so now the charity is now introducing material from other sources such as the RNIB and the Talking News Federation as well as local history articles in order to be able to maintain a similar length of recording.

Over the years an increasing number of our Club members have begun to volunteer with the charity. There are now five Lions are Trustees all of whom act in other roles for the charity whilst four members and two wives of members also volunteer mainly as packers and unpackers helping with the distribution of the memory sticks.

To find out more about Tendring Talking Times and to make contact just go to www.tendringtalkingtimes.org.uk

14th November 2025