Talking Friends – The Quaker Recording Service for Visually Impaired People

Who are we?

Talking Friends is a registered Quaker charity, with trustees appointed by Central England Quakers. We provide visually impaired Friends and Attenders (and some with other disabilities) with access to Quaker periodicals, and a few other publications.

What do we offer?

You may subscribe to any or all of The Friend, Friends Quarterly and Towards Wholeness. Subscribers receive the recordings on a USB memory stick. We can also supply a USB player if necessary.

How does it work?

The recordings are made by a number of Quaker volunteer readers. Duplication and distribution is carried out by a small team of ‘Friday Volunteers’ at Priory Rooms/Bull St QMH in Birmingham. Recordings are sent post-free under the Post Office ‘Articles for the Blind’ regulations.

Contact

Postal address: Talking Friends, Priory Rooms, 40 Bull St, Birmingham B4 6AF

Telephone for Clerk of Talking Friends: 0121 350 6498 or 07450 357817

Email: info@talkingfriends.org.uk

Other Publications

Advices and Queries, A Light to Live By – Rex Ambler, Quaker Renewal – Craig Barnett, Swarthmore Lecture 2014 -Faith, Power and Peace, Swarthmore Lecture 2015 – Open for Transformation

Twelve Quakers and God, Worship, Pacifism, Evil, Simplicity, Jesus, Faith, Prayer, Truth, Equality, Death.

We need more volunteers!  Can you help?

Readers – individually or in pairs or even a small group – need a laptop with windows operating system, and about 3 or 4 hours of your time, every 6 weeks or so.

Friday volunteers – to duplicate and post the memory sticks. We do this at Priory Rooms on a Friday morning. It takes about 1 hour.

We are very happy to provide instructions and a bit of training for these roles. It helps to have basic technical competence!

Talking Friends Committee members

We meet 4 times a year on zoom.

Current members are: Cathy Khurana (SUT), Susan Steadman (COT), Nicholas Tulley (BOU), Wendy Burnett (BUL), Eleanor Tew (York AM)

Association of Talking Friends, registered charity number: 299656