Five Valley Sounds are celebrating World Sight Day today by inviting more blind or visually impaired people to join their group.

The voluntary organisation helps people stay connected by producing an audio version of our very own Stroud News and Journal.

Every Wednesday, volunteers get two copies of the newspaper and scan the pages for listeners.

The technique used means having all the odd pages in one pile and all the even pages in another.

Volunteers from the charity then cut the two newspapers down the middle and create odd and even piles.

Cutting and pasting then begins to produce the articles on to sheets of A4 paper for the listeners.

Volunteers then visually describe the photos to the listeners.

A recording then takes place in Minchinhampton on Wednesday evenings with four readers and a technician and then, on Thursday morning, the duplicator comes in and provides USB keys to all of the listeners.

If you know someone who is blind or visually impaired and would like to stay in touch with the weekly goings on in the five valleys, then get in touch with the organisation and get them connected to the service.

If you think you’d like to become a reader, editor or technician then contact the organisation on 07882 672 647 or through the email, 5valleysounds@gmail.com.