01 Identity
Scottish charity record
- OSCR charity number
- SC020820
- Status
- Active
- Regulatory type
- Standard
- Designated religious body
- No
- Geographical spread
- Wider, but within one local authority area
- Volunteers
- 1-50 volunteers
- Staff
- 0
- Postcode
- TD13 5YS
02 Purpose and work
What the charity exists to do
We were set up to record items from printed local newspapers so that blind or visually impaired people could listen to the local news even if they could not read a printed version. We have 5 recording teams, each led by a technical controller who uses a laptop attached to a mixer. Each team has an editor who selects the items for recording. We select articles from two local newspapers, record them onto USB sticks and post them out to visually impaired people in East Lothian, as well as a few people who have moved away from the county but are still interested in the area. Other volunteers copy the master stick and post the copies in wallets to our listeners. The service is totally free to the user and we benefit from the Royal Mail concession of free postage for articles for the blind. We buy USB players and give them to the listeners, visiting each new listener to take them a player and show them how to use it.
Charitable purposes
- the relief of those in need by reason of age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage
Beneficiaries
- People with disabilities or health problems
Activities
- It carries out activities or services itself
Constitutional objectives
ELM is established for charitable purposes only and specifically to provide news, information and other material in a recorded form that can be easily used to relieve the strain of reading for those who are blind or partially sighted or those labouring under temporary or permanent incapacity or disability.
03 Annual returns
Income and expenditure history
| Year end | Income | Expenditure | Staff | Return received |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 March 2025 | £625 | £1,315 | 0 | 17 November 2025 |
| 31 March 2024 | £3,156 | £1,393 | 0 | 2 December 2024 |
| 31 March 2023 | £1,842 | £3,735 | 0 | 1 August 2023 |
| 31 March 2022 | £497 | £1,901 | 0 | 31 May 2022 |
| 31 March 2021 | £1,220 | £914 | 0 | 18 November 2021 |
Figures are those reported by the charity and supplied in the OSCR bulk download. Blank facts remain distinct from zero.
04 Contact record
Principal office or trustees address
- Address supplied to OSCR
- 1, Redheugh Cottages , Redheugh Farm, Cockburnspath, Berwickshire
- Website supplied to OSCR
- Not supplied
- Parent charity
- Not supplied
No direct external links on this profile. The official OSCR record and source documentation are available through BritDB’s dedicated source page.
05 Provenance
Source for this profile
© Crown Copyright and database right 2026. Contains information from the Scottish Charity Register supplied by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. BritDB is an independent service and does not claim to be the Scottish Charity Register.