The Voluntary Transcribers' Group

If you're blind, or you want something put into braille for a blind friend or relative - the service is free. We think the blind have the same right to information, on the same terms, as the sighted.

From its formation some 60 years ago, the Group never charged for its services. This was part of an understanding we had with RNIB, who up till the end of March 2003 supplied some of our paper at the discounted rate.

Since those early days, the effect of the Warnock Report on UK schools, and of the Disability Discrimination Act on UK businesses, public bodies and local government, has been to increase the demand for braille textbooks, leaflets, charters and so on.  Some commercial braille producers have started up to satisfy this demand at a fair price, and if they can make a living out of it, we don't want to poach work from them.

So while we may accept work for charities, churches, schools and local or health authorities, without a formal fee tariff, we would hope for a fair donation from these bodies, enough to cover the cost of paper and binding at least. We give our time free, but running costs, including a provision for maintaining our machines, are very high. We survive solely on donations, having no other income. We are not a registered charity, but our Income and Expenditure account is open for inspection. (In the past we regularly ended each year with a deficit. Over the past two years we received some generous donations, and now at the start of 2008 we have had to dig into them for repairs and extensions to our embosser and computers.

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