A thank-you for your talking newspaper volunteers: a photo from the recording room as a jigsaw, with your note at the end

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any talking newspaper, talking magazine, radio reading service, audio information service, sight loss charity, library, newspaper, broadcaster, council or health service, or with the Talking News Federation, RNIB, CNIB, the International Association of Audio Information Services, Vision Australia Radio, RPH Australia, Blind Low Vision NZ, NCBI or any similar organisation. Nothing here is legal, accessibility, safeguarding, medical or privacy advice. Check your service's own rules on volunteers, gifts and photos.

It's half past six on a Wednesday evening in a small room at the back of a community centre, and a retired head teacher is clearing her throat in front of a microphone. The walls are lined with egg-box foam and old curtains. Across the table, a young man in headphones gives her a thumbs up from behind a laptop. In front of her is a pile of cuttings from this week's local paper: the council's plans for the high street, a letter about potholes, a lost cat, the results from the bowls club, the death notices, a recipe from the farmers' market and a long piece about the restoration of the old cinema. She reads every one of them aloud, slowly and clearly, the way she used to read to a class of nine-year-olds. When she stumbles on a name, they record it again. At half past eight, the young man edits the recording, two other volunteers copy it onto memory sticks and pack them into yellow wallets, and by Thursday afternoon the post office has delivered the week's local news to two hundred and forty people who can no longer read a newspaper.

That's a talking newspaper. In towns and cities across the English-speaking world, and well beyond it, volunteers have been reading the local news aloud for people with sight loss for more than fifty years. It started with reel-to-reel tapes, moved to cassettes, then CDs, and now memory sticks, podcasts, smart speakers and phone apps. Some services read the local paper every week; others record magazines, parish newsletters, what's-on guides, or a whole range of reading through a radio reading service broadcast every day. For a listener who has lost their sight later in life, a talking newspaper can be the difference between knowing what's happening in their own street and feeling slowly cut off from it. The people who make it happen are almost never seen. They're just a familiar voice.

Who we mean by talking newspaper volunteers

Every service is organised a little differently, but the people behind each edition usually include some of these:

• The readers, who read the news, features, letters and notices aloud, often taking turns each week, and who become familiar voices to listeners they will never meet.
• The editors and selectors, who go through the paper and choose what goes in, cut long articles down to the right length, and make sure there's a balance of news, sport, notices and lighter pieces.
• The sound and recording volunteers, who set up the microphones, keep the levels right, edit out the coughs and the traffic noise, and somehow make a back room sound like a studio.
• The copying and dispatch volunteers, who copy the recordings, pack the wallets, label them, take them to the post office, and handle the returns when they come back.
• The magazine and radio reading volunteers, who record longer features, magazines and books, or read live on a radio reading service, often early in the morning.
• The listener liaison and tech-help volunteers, who visit new listeners, set up a player or a smart speaker, explain the buttons, and pop round when something stops working.
• The committee members, treasurers and fundraisers, who keep the service going, find a room to record in, and replace the equipment when it finally gives up.

If you know someone in any of those roles, this is for you.

Words first

Before any gift, the thing most talking newspaper volunteers say they value is knowing that someone is listening. They record into a microphone in a quiet room and send the result out into the world, and most of the time they hear nothing back. A short, specific message can mean more than anything you could buy.

Specific is the key word. "Thanks for the recordings" is kind. "My mum lost most of her sight three years ago and stopped reading the paper, which she'd done every day of her life. Your recording arrives on Thursdays, and she listens to it at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, all the way through, including the planning applications. She told me last week about the cinema being restored before I'd heard about it. Thank you for giving her back the town" is the kind of message that gets read out at the volunteers' annual meeting and pinned up on the wall of the recording room.

A few things that help:

• Name the edition and roughly when: "the Thursday local news", "the monthly village magazine", "the Sunday morning radio reading", "the Christmas special with the carols".
• Say what changed: knowing what's going on, feeling part of the community again, having something to talk about with visitors, keeping up with the football club or the church, hearing about a friend's death in the notices rather than months later.
• If a reader's voice has become part of someone's week, say so. Listeners often have favourite readers, and volunteers rarely find out.
• You don't need anyone's surname. "The reader with the Scottish accent who does the sports page" is enough for the editor to know who you mean.

Who it suits

A thank-you for talking newspaper volunteers suits:

• Listeners with sight loss, or with another reason they can't read print easily, whose week is better because of the recording, and who would like a family member or friend to help them send a thank-you.
• Family members who live far away and can't read the paper to a parent themselves, and who stopped worrying that Mum or Dad was losing touch with home.
• Care homes, day centres, sight loss groups and libraries whose members listen to the recordings together.
• Fellow volunteers thanking an editor, a long-serving reader or the person who has kept the recording equipment working for twenty years.
• Families of a volunteer who has given decades of Wednesday evenings to reading other people the news.

A word of honesty: a jigsaw is a visual thing, and many listeners can't see well enough to enjoy one. That doesn't matter here, because the puzzle isn't for the listener; it's for the volunteers, most of whom are sighted. But if you're a listener yourself, you may prefer to record a short spoken thank-you, or ask the service to read out your message, which is often the most fitting thank-you of all. A puzzle can sit alongside that, made by a family member or a friend on your behalf.

Gift rules and good timing

Most talking newspaper services are small, local charities run by volunteers. Many also have a larger network behind them, and some are part of a sight loss charity, library service or radio station. They usually keep things simple, but a few gentle points keep a thank-you comfortable for everyone:

• Keep it small. A card, a note or a small token is plenty. If you want to give more, make it a donation to the service, which always needs new memory sticks, wallets, microphones and postage money.
• Go through the service. Send your thank-you to the service's general contact address, email or website form, or by post to the address on the wallet. Don't try to track down a reader at home or on personal social media, even if you think you recognise the voice.
• Keep it separate. Don't mix a thank-you with a complaint about the sound, a request for a different edition or a change of address. Send those separately, so each gets the right attention.
• Let the service lead. If there's an annual meeting, a volunteers' tea or a newsletter, ask whether your message can be read out or included there.
• Be careful with the wallets. If you post something back in a free listener wallet, check what the service allows. Many postal services only carry those wallets free for recordings and material for people with sight loss, not for gifts.

Good moments to say thank you:

• When a listener has been receiving the recordings for a year, or on a big anniversary like their ninetieth birthday.
• When a reader retires, or reaches a milestone like their five hundredth recording.
• At the service's own anniversary or annual meeting; many local talking newspapers have been running for forty or fifty years.
• Around Christmas, when the special editions come out and volunteers often record extra carols, quizzes and seasonal pieces.
• In memory of a listener the service has lost, or a long-serving volunteer whose voice everyone knew.

Why a jigsaw can fit

A talking newspaper is put together from small pieces. Every week, the editor starts with a whole newspaper and has to decide what goes in and what doesn't, cut it down to fit the recording, split it between the readers, and put it all back together in the right order with the right introductions and the music in between. The readers bring each piece to life, the sound volunteer stitches the recording together, and the dispatch team sends it out. A photo turned into a small puzzle that reveals your thank-you note when the last piece goes in is a light way to say "you put the whole town together for us, piece by piece, every week".

It isn't the only way. Some services would much rather have a donation or another reader on the rota. But for people who spend their evenings in a foam-lined back room reading out bin collection dates, a picture to put together on a phone or a tablet, with a note at the end, can be a nice moment.

If you're a listener

If you listen to a talking newspaper, a few ideas:

• Ask a family member, friend or carer to help you choose a photo and make the puzzle, and tell them what you want the note to say in your own words.
• A photo of where you listen: your armchair by the window, the kitchen table with the player and a cup of tea, the garden bench in summer.
• A photo of something from the news that mattered to you: the restored cinema, the new bench by the war memorial, the football club's new kit, the church fete.
• If you'd rather keep it simple, say so. "From a listener on Station Road who never misses a Thursday" is plenty.

For family members

If someone you love listens to a talking newspaper, especially a parent or grandparent who lives on their own, a thank-you from you can mean a great deal. Readers rarely hear about the person on the other end. A photo of your dad at the kitchen table with his player and a mug of tea, your nan in her chair by the window, or the family together at a birthday, with a note saying "thank you for keeping Mum part of the town when she couldn't read the paper any more", tells the volunteers something they almost never hear.

If the person you love has died, a thank-you to the service is always welcome. Talking newspapers often lose listeners without ever knowing what the recordings meant to them, and a few words from the family, sent through the service's general address, can be very moving for the volunteers.

For fellow volunteers and committees

Fellow volunteers know who always turns up when a reader is ill, who has the patience to edit out every cough, who drives the wallets to the post office in the snow, and who brings the biscuits. A photo of the recording room with its foam walls and mismatched chairs, the pile of packed wallets ready for the post (address labels turned away), or the volunteers' anniversary cake (with everyone's agreement) makes a puzzle that feels like an inside joke and a thank-you at once. For a long-serving reader who is retiring, a puzzle can sit alongside a card everyone signs, perhaps with a few words from listeners, collected by the editor with permission.

Photo consent and choosing the picture

Talking newspaper listeners are often older, and many live alone. Choose the photo with that in mind:

• Never include listener details. Address labels, wallets with names on them, mailing lists, spreadsheets and phone screens all contain personal information and should stay out of the frame entirely.
• Ask before photographing readers. Some volunteers are happy to be pictured; others prefer to be just a voice, and some like their listeners not to know exactly who they are.
• Ask before photographing listeners. A listener with sight loss may not be able to see the photo you've taken, so explain what's in it and check they're happy before you send it anywhere.
• Leave out addresses. House numbers, street signs, the front door, number plates and post on the doormat can all show where someone lives.
• Be careful in care homes and day centres. Follow the venue's photo rules, and leave out residents' faces, names and anything medical unless everyone has agreed.
• A view is often best. The high street from the paper's front page, the village green, the river by the bridge, or a child's drawing of Grandad listening to the news says "thank you" without showing anyone at all.

Getting a good JPG

Recording rooms and kitchen tables are not always the most photogenic subjects, so a few things help:

• Colourful things make satisfying puzzles: a garden in bloom, a market stall, a bright armchair with a patterned cushion, a pile of colourful wallets, a child's felt-tip drawing.
• Big areas of plain wall, grey foam panels or dark equipment are hard to solve, so crop in on the interesting part, or go lower on pieces.
• Indoor photos in a dim back room or a cosy lounge are often blurry or grainy; turn on all the lights, open the curtains, or take the photo in the daytime near a window.
• If there's writing you want people to read, like "Thank you for the news" in a child's handwriting or a newspaper headline about the service, take the photo straight on and pick a higher piece count.
• Save the original JPG straight from your phone or camera rather than a copy from a messaging app, which compresses it. If your photo is in another format, save it as a JPG first.

Privacy, an optional PIN, and saying it's from you

The puzzle sits behind a private link, so only people you send it to can open it. If you'd like an extra layer, add a short PIN and share it separately, for example in a card posted to the service or read out at the annual meeting.

Small charities are rightly careful about links from people they don't know. Tell them clearly that the link is from you and that it's a thank-you, not a request. A one-line message helps: "This is a thank-you puzzle from the Okafor family, for the volunteers who read the Thursday news Mum has listened to for three years. It's not a request for anything. The PIN is in the card." If you want to stay anonymous, say so: "from a listener who'd rather not say who". Sending it through the service's general address means the editor can check it, pass it on, and the volunteers can see it's genuine.

How many pieces?

Times vary with the photo. For a thank-you, finishing beats difficulty; 48 or 80 is a gentle middle. A colourful garden or a felt-tip drawing can be easier than it looks, while a grey wall or a dark recording room is harder, so go lower if most of the picture is one colour.

The leaderboard: only for a group of volunteers

If you're thanking all the volunteers at a service, you can turn on the leaderboard so everyone solves the same photo. Ask the editor or the chair first; some teams would rather keep things simple. Keep it light and optional, never a contest that singles anyone out. For one volunteer, or a puzzle in memory of a listener or a reader, leave the leaderboard off.

A few note ideas

The note appears when the last piece goes in, so keep it short and warm:

• "Every Thursday for three years, Mum has listened to you at the kitchen table. Thank you for keeping her part of the town."
• "To the reader who does the sports page: Dad says nobody reads the football results like you. Thank you."
• "From the family three hundred miles away: thank you for reading Gran the news when we couldn't."
• "Twenty-five years of Wednesday evenings in the back room. Thank you from everyone at the service."
• "To Margaret, who read the notices with such care: you were the first to tell Dad his old friend had died, and you did it kindly. Thank you."
• "From a listener who'd rather not say who: your voices are the best company I have all week. Thank you."

How to make one (about a minute of setup)

1. Open Puzzlify's puzzle maker in a browser: https://puzzlify.app/en/puzzle-maker/
2. Upload the photo (JPG works best).
3. Choose a piece count for how much time they might have and how detailed the photo is.
4. Add your thank-you note and, if you like, a PIN and a leaderboard (for a group of volunteers only).
5. Preview for free. When you're happy, publish the link with one credit and send it with a message, a card, or through the service's general email or postal address.

Honest pricing and notes

The preview is free, so you can see exactly what the puzzle looks like before paying anything. You only pay when you publish the link: one credit is €3.99, three credits are €8.99, and Plus is €14.99 a year for ten credits. If you're thanking several people (the readers, the editor and the dispatch team, say), three credits works out cheaper per puzzle; for one thank-you, one credit is enough. If money is tight, or you'd rather put it towards the service itself, a heartfelt card, a spoken message or a few kind words cost nothing and are a perfectly good choice. If you'd like to see it first, the free preview is here: https://puzzlify.app/en/puzzle-maker/

The person who receives the link doesn't need an account, an app or a printer; it opens in a normal web browser. Photos are not used to train AI and are not shared with third parties.

This is a digital jigsaw you play on a screen. It isn't a cardboard puzzle in the post, a printed product or a public puzzle board, and it isn't an audio or accessibility product, and it isn't connected to any talking newspaper, sight loss charity, library or broadcaster. It's also not puzzlify.io (a chess site), Puzzlit, Puzzly or Puzzify, which are different things with similar names. A message in your own words is often what people remember, so the puzzle works best alongside one rather than instead of one.

Keep the gift small and separate from any donation. Never present a personal gift as if it came from the talking newspaper, a charity or a council unless they've asked you to send it on their behalf.

Other ways to say thank you (no Puzzlify needed)

1. Volunteering yourself: as a reader, an editor, a sound volunteer, a copier or a driver to the post office. Most services are always looking for new voices and helping hands, and for many volunteers that's the thank-you that matters most.
2. A donation to your local talking newspaper, rather than a national body, so it stays in your area; or sponsoring new recording equipment, a year's memory sticks or a gift in your will.
3. A spoken thank-you, recorded on a phone and sent to the service, or a message the editor can read out at the end of an edition, with your permission.
4. Telling people about the service: a neighbour who has stopped reading the paper, the optician, the GP surgery, the library or a sight loss group, so that more people who need it can sign up.
5. A short, kind letter to your local newspaper, with no personal details, saying what the talking edition means to your family; many papers are glad to support their talking newspaper and print the letter.
6. For a long-serving reader stepping back, a small book of thank-you notes from listeners, collected by the editor with permission, alongside one from the team, or a recording of listeners saying thank you in their own voices.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the people who sit in a foam-lined back room on a Wednesday evening, read out the bin collection dates and the bowls club results as if they were the most important news in the world, pack two hundred yellow wallets for the post, and say, cheerfully, "That's all from us this week", so that someone at a kitchen table across town still knows what's happening in their own street.

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Not affiliated with any talking newspaper, talking magazine, radio reading service, audio information service, sight loss charity, library, newspaper, broadcaster, council or health service, or with the Talking News Federation, RNIB, CNIB, IAAIS, Vision Australia Radio, RPH Australia, Blind Low Vision NZ or NCBI. Not legal, accessibility, safeguarding, medical or privacy advice. Check your service's own rules on volunteers, gifts and photos.