A group of committed news readers have been making sure everyone is kept abreast of what's going on in Richmond.

Richmond Talking Newspaper, a charity, is in its fifth decade of recording the news for blind and partially sighted residents.

It collates local stories from a variety of sources (Richmond Nub News hopes to be one of these in the future!).

Like many organisations, the charity has had to change the way it works during the Covid-19 lockdown and it is aiming to raise £1,000 in an online fundraising drive to cover its recording costs.

Valerie Munro is vice-chair of the group and she told Richmond Council all about the Richmond Talking Newspaper.

You can watch the video above or read a transcript of her interview below.

For the last 41 years Richmond Talking Newspaper has been delivering recorded local and community news for blind and partially sighted residents of the borough.

We used to record as a group on a Friday night.

Lockdown began on March 23 - and that's when some of our volunteers started self-isolating.

However, we're fortunate that we are able to exploit technology to produce our recordings in a very different way.

Now in place of the normal communal recording on a Friday, I as the remote producer will email scripts to four chosen readers.

They in turn will read these news stories using nothing more than their smartphones. And then they will email the voice tracks back to me.

All contributions are then edited, sound balanced and stitched together as one complete programme.

So, instead of using our communal space at the United Reform Church in Twickenham, the production hub is now my dining room table.

Whta are we doing to help with the Covid-19 response?

Well, it might sound like a contradiction, but our aim is to give listeners as much of a sense of normality as possible, while at the same time keeping them up to date with important health information that's relevant, but not overwhelming.

And we've also started a call and chat with listeners and this has been a wonderful thing.

We provide everybody with what they need - memory sticks, postal pouches and, of course, the playback box.

So you could say, every penny counts.

RTN is entirely run by volunteers and the service is free.

Visit the Richmond Talking Newspaper website to donate.