THE newly formed branch of the charity Read Easy had a highly successful first meeting last week at Wellington Rugby Club.

Organiser Alison Weekes said she was delighted with the response to publicity for Read Easy and the number of people interested who had come forward to offer help and find out more.

Read Easy is a five year old national charity which is growing fast. It aims to teach adult non-readers to read with one-to-one teaching.

“I was really pleased so many people gave up their evening to come and find out more. We should have no problem starting out now. The regional organiser, Jacqui Mitton, came from Wiltshire to the meeting and said she was very encouraged by the response,” Alison said.

“My job now is to respond to all those who have volunteered, try and set up a management team and appoint a co-ordinator, with help from head office.

“Once these things are in place we will choose venues for teaching sessions and start training our coaches, including me.”

Read Easy has started a branch in North Taunton which should start coaching non-readers in August, and the Wellington branch hopes to be not too far behind. They are the first groups in Somerset.

Alison added: “Once we are ready to function comes the hardest part, finding our clients. We know there are hundreds of people locally who have enormous trouble reading.

“We want to help them be able to truly participate in life, which must be incredibly hard if they can’t read. We will do this in a way which respects their privacy, of course. And we need the whole Wellington community to help us find them and help them.”