The RAF Association, in association with RAF Community Support has a fantastic welfare initiative called Storybook Wings. This scheme provides a link between deployed parents and their children by enabling parents to record stories, nursery rhymes and poems for their children to listen to whilst they are away.
How Storybook Wings Works
- Parents are given access to professional recording equipment and a booklet of stories or CD and record their chosen story, along with a personal greeting.
- Once recorded, the stories are professionally edited using specialist software.
- Music and sound effects are added, transforming the story into a unique keepsake.
- The completed CD is sent to the children in a personalised CD cover, and is ready for them to listen to whenever they like; at bedtime, in the car or even at school during 'show and tell'!
We now have 30 stations participating in the project and RAF personnel are also able to record stories while in Theatre as we have two recorders in Afghanistan plus one at RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands.
Akrotiri (Cyprus), Benson, Boulmer, Conningsby, Corsham, Cosford, Cottesmore, Cranwell, Digby, Halton, Henlow, High Wycombe, Honington, Kinloss, Leeming, Leuchars, Lossiemouth, Lyneham, Marham, Northolt, Odiham, Shawbury, St Athan, Waddington, Wittering, Valley, Gibraltar, Kuwait, Qatar
Our website includes comprehensive information about the project, as well as a log in protected resource centre including downloadable PDFs of useful documents. See www.storybookwings.org.uk for further details!
Comments received from families who have benefited from the scheme:
- “Thank you for establishing this wonderful idea and providing such an excellent service”
- “The children enjoyed hearing their Dad read to them last night!”
- “The CD was a lovely surprise and meant a great deal to us”
- “It is so nice for the children to hear Daddy’s voice and to know we can play it whenever we want to”
- “The CD was absolutely fabulous; it brought a few tears to my eyes; it was just wonderful and I am sure the children will treasure this for many years to come”
If you would like any more information on this scheme, or would like to become one of our valued volunteer editors, please contact the Storybook Wings Co-ordinator on 01780 783838 ext 7538 or email Storybook Wings
See www.storybookwings.org.uk for more information!
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