A CHARITY desperately need more volunteers or face winding up their operations later this year

Next, Thursday, April 12, Powys Talking Newspapers are holding their annual general meeting at the Armoury Sports Centre, Committee Room in Welshpool.

There part of the discussion will be centred on the future of the organisation and whether it can carry on.

Powys Talking Newspaper started in 1971 and was the second talking newspaper service to start up in the whole of Wales.

Numbers of people using the Talking Newspaper service are dropping off and the number of volunteers who edit tapes, read out the newspaper articles and post them out to subscribers is also lessening.

Chairman and Secretary, Peter England explained: "Our numbers are falling rapidly, 15 years ago we had 200 people receiving tapes of the newspapers weekly.

"That number is down to about 70 throughout the whole of of Powys and only 20 in Radnorshire.

"This makes us wonder if it's worth continuing."

"It's the same with our volunteers, the age range is just going up and up,.

"We need younger volunteers to come and join us."

The Talking Newspaper has also been thinking of going digital.

Using USB sticks instead of cassette tapes and a making changes to the studio they currently use at the Armoury has been costed at about £7,000.

Mr England added: " At the moment our listeners are happy with the cassettes - but it's a laborious process of receiving the tapes on the Thursday, getting them edited and wiped clean - ready for the next recording on Friday ready to be sent out.

"We have plenty of volunteers to read the newspapers, but we need help on the technical side of things."

"Unless we get more and younger volunteers it's possible we could finish in by Christmas."

Powys Talking Newspaper are asking for all of their volunteers to attend the meeting, for more details ring 01938 552622.