Barclay’s Princes Street Staff Raise £2,500 for Books for the Blind

Staff from Barclay’s Bank run 5K for RNIB

Staff at Barclays Bank’s branch on Princes Street have raised £2,500 to transcribe a new ‘talking’ audio-book for blind and partially sighted people.

Their team ran 5k in the Great Scottish Events festive fun-run last Sunday [December 3rd] in Edinburgh’s Inverleith Park.

Earlier this year, the staff held a ‘Great Barclays Bake Off’ selling cakes at the branch to launch their fundraising efforts.

The money will go to sight loss charity RNIB.

Branch manager Wayne McCarthy said: “We were delighted to take part in the festive fun run to raise money for an RNIB ‘talking’ book. All our staff are encouraged to get involved with charities through the Barclays Citizenship programme, and Barclays match-funds any money raised by staff.”

Angela Preston, fundraising manager for the charity, said: “Wayne was very happy to support RNIB ‘talking’ books after inviting me to the bank to raise awareness on Princes Street for Disability Awareness Day in September.

“The staff’s wonderful fundraising means that a new ‘talking’ book will be heading to our library just in time for Christmas, helping to make sure the joy of reading is shared by people who often have much less choice when it comes to accessible literature.

“We’re very grateful to all those who took part and made such a real difference to many people’s lives.”

A ‘talking’ book for adults costs RNIB up to £2,500 to professionally narrate and record, and £1,500 for a children’s one. These are lent out free to people with sight loss.

With more than 25,000 books, RNIB’s ‘talking’ books library is the biggest of its kind in Europe. It sends out more than one million books every year to 30,000 blind and partially sighted adults and children in a variety of formats including audio CD, USB and digital download.