Summer 2010 Newsletter

Gloucestershire County Association for the Blind

Helping and supporting over 3,000 blind and partially sighted people throughout Gloucestershire since 1858

 News

Insight news by Steph and Corrie

I am happy to report that the change of venue for Gloucester Insight has been very successful. The number of people visiting me since I moved to St. Michael’s Tower, has increased dramatically. I wish I could claim that this is solely due to my charm and sparkling personality, but feel it’s more likely down to location, location, location! St. Michael’s Tower is right in the centre of town so it’s much easier to get to than Age Concern.

Moreton Insight is also keeping me busy and our Insight Day on the 12^th April was extremely well attended. People from Moreton and the surrounding area have always been very supportive of Insight so I was confident we would have a good turnout. We hadn’t bargained for road works, however, so traffic was a bit heavy on the day, but even so, more than 60 people turned up. Oak House Foods provided tasting sessions of their ready meals throughout the day, which were very popular, although unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to sample them myself! We also had a wide range of specialist equipment on display, from Dolphin, Optilec and Enhanced Vision. As some of this equipment is too large to bring along to my usual Monday Insight, it was the perfect opportunity for our clients to have demonstrations of items such as CCTVs and electronic magnifiers. Calibre’s Boombox proved a great hit with all who tried it and could be the ideal solution for people who are still on the waiting list for the RNIB’s Talking Books service. Calibre’s service is free to use, so, although you have to buy your player, once you have it, you can start receiving books straight away.

We understand that it is not always easy to get into our resource centre in Cheltenham, so these Insight days are a good way to provide the more rural areas with information on products and services which are helpful to visually impaired people.

For those of you who live in the Stroud and Cirencester areas, please bear in mind that our Insight Information Points are going strong at both locations, where Corrie will be happy to answer queries and take orders for equipment (there is a small selection of display equipment).

Stroud Insight is held every Thursday from 10am to 1pm at the Subscription Rooms, in the Café Bar at the back of the building. Just ask staff at the Tourist Information Office if you are unsure as they will happily bring you through.

 Following the success of April’s Insight Information Event at Moreton-in-Marsh, we are planning the next event at Stroud, so please watch this space for further information.

Cirencester Insight is held at the Parish Centre, in Gosditch Street, every Friday from 10am to 1pm.  

So far these Insight Information Points have proved to be an invaluable source of information and advice for many of our clients throughout the county, and we are thrilled that this fledgling scheme is proving to be such a success story.     Please do not hesitate to drop in to see us there – we are there to help.

For those living in sheltered accommodation by Celia

I’m the Visual Awareness Advisor for GCAB and have been visiting residential homes in the county giving training workshops for care staff. Since I started in the middle of last year, I have had requests from some scheme managers of sheltered accommodation to bring along a selection of aids and equipment and have a chat with residents over a cup of coffee.

If you think that you and some of your fellow residents – who don’t need to be registered sight impaired, or on our list – would like me to call, try out equipment and talk about the difficulties caused by deteriorating sight (and some strategies for coping with it), please get in touch either through your scheme manager or by telephoning me, Celia at GCAB on 01242 22 11 70.

Natural History Walks for People with Hearing and Visual Impairment

The programme of natural history walks is designed for people who would like to carry on exploring the countryside despite their disability. The

walks are less than a mile long and worked out to suit the groups’ needs. Stroud Valleys Project has trained volunteers as hearing and sighted

guides to offer support and countryside interpretation. Walks have different wildlife or natural history angles and most walks end in one of local

cafés. Lifts can be arranged.

Monday, 21 June. A geology walk to Heartbreak Quarry, Dursley to learn about the rich geology and hopefully find some fossils.

Other walks are being planned for the late summer. For more details please contact Ivi Szaboova on 01453 753358 ivi@stroudvalleysproject.org or 07876 050878

Resource Centre update by Marc

Hello everyone I have lots of news including new products, some products that unfortunately have to go and a couple of price changes.

I will start with the most exciting news. We now have mobile phones in the resource centre to demonstrate. We have 3 different models and all are adapted for visually impaired people. I am sure this is going to be very popular but we are not currently stocking them so there may be a little wait for us to order and have them delivered to you. If you already have a sim card you can use it in the mobile phones we sell. Other new products this month include the very easy to use television handset. This control has only got 7 buttons, making it perfect if you only wish to use a limited number of channels. Also we have introduced a talking GPS system which can help you travel to different destinations by listening to directions through a pair of headphones. Please note that the voice recognition on this product is not that great and this makes it not all that simple to use. Finally we now have large print keyboards for computers available in white letters on black keys for £30 each. For any information on the news products please call me on 01242 22 11 70

Price changes

The radio controlled watch is £40 and the atomic watch is £35. Our 2010 diaries are still available at a reduced price of £4 for the large and £3 for the Pocket Diary.

Second hand equipment

As always we have an ever changing selection on the second hand shelf but at the moment I also have three second hand CCTV’s for sale. They are all between 6 and 9 years old but are all in good working order. We are just asking for a £150.00 donation for these machines.

Outlook

I am pleased to announce that we have a new person running Outlook (The young and young at heart visually impaired people group.) After a little break for various reasons volunteer David has taken over the running of the group so hopefully now we can move the group forward and continue to challenge ourselves to do more things you wouldn’t think people with sight loss could do.

Volunteer News by Lucy

I am pleased to say we have had a steady intake of new volunteers and current volunteers offering to help out more which is great news. I am looking for people to help out with a variety of roles for our fundraising event Bark in Pittville Park. The event is on Sunday 27^th June and the roles include: street collecting, help on our lucky dip stand, registration tent and dog show registration, marshalling the route and helping with the balloon race release. If you are free to help out anytime of the day then please call Lucy on 01242 22 11 70. All help is welcome.

Volunteer Week

Tuesday 1^st June – Monday 7^th June

Did you know that without the volunteers who help us, GCAB would not be able to carry on providing the services it does for over 3,000 visually impaired people in Gloucestershire?

Whilst putting the newsletter together we worked out that GCAB has 129 active volunteers.

81 people help with our befriending service visiting clients helping with post or shopping. Some even visit more than one or two people! Thank you to the girls from the Ladies College who are a valued part of our volunteering team – it has not been an easy year for them as two of the people they have been visiting for some time passed away earlier this year.

Our hospital information service is supported by 12 volunteers at the 4 hospitals in Gloucestershire.

We have 5 volunteers who run our reception at the centre every week day.

The theatre group is organised by a volunteer and many of the clubs held around the county are also run by volunteers who give up their own time to help GCAB and you.

I have a long list of volunteers I can call to help me with the variety of fundraising events including standing out in the cold and sometimes sun helping with a supermarket collection. There is also a great group of volunteers that come in 4 times a year to stuff over 2,500 newsletters into envelopes ready to be posted out to you.

 To thank our volunteers we invited them for afternoon tea and a slice of cake at our resource centre in Cheltenham on Wednesday 2^nd June. The newsletter has gone to print before the event took place so photos and a report will be in the next newsletter.

For the volunteers that couldn’t come along, all the staff and trustees of GCAB say THANK YOU so much for your help.

Theatre News

Since the Summer newsletter may not reach you in time to book, here is early notice of our next visit to the Everyman in Cheltenham.  We have 44 seats on reserve for Oklahoma starring Marti Webb and Mark Evans for the 2pm matinee performance on Thursday 23rd September.  This will be audio-described and we are also hoping we will be able to have a morning 'touch tour' (we haven't had one for a long time).

Seat prices for these big professional musicals are high, especially in the front stalls, but GCAB is offering tickets at £19 each.

It's a great show, of course, set in the American west, with conflict between the farmers and the cattlemen, and lots of wonderful old songs...Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', The Surrey with the Fringe on Top', 'People Will Say We're in Love', 'I Cain't Say No'...you know them all.

If you'd like tickets, please let GCAB (01242 221170) know as soon as possible.  It's probable this show will be very popular.  And, if you're interested in the 'touch-tour', do let us know at the same time.  Cheques should be made payable to GCAB, please.

Club news

30 members from the Stroud and Wotton Clubs couldn’t have chosen a better day than Tuesday 27 April for our trip along the canal from Saul to Purton with the Willow Boat Trust. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day – ideal for sitting out on deck, steering the boat or just enjoying the views, chatting to each other and making new friends. Thank you to all the volunteers (from the Willow Boat Trust and the clubs) and the family and friends who helped make it such a memorable day.

For some, the day brought back memories of walks along the canal paths in younger days, for others it reminded them of working on the Queen Elizabeth. There was talk of local pubs visited and meals enjoyed. We even waved to friends who were on the towpath. We also saw a family of ducks - mother and 13 ducklings and at one point it looked as though three swans were going to do a “beat up” over the boat!

It was a perfect day – everything went as planned. Thank you Willow Boat.

Fundraising News by Lucy

It’s only a few days away, Bark in Pittville Park sponsored dog walk and family fun day out takes place on Sunday 27^th June. There is still time to register so please call 01242 246 110 or email barkinpittvillepark@glos-blind.co.uk for a registration pack. Fingers crossed for a sunny day and we hope to see you there. A full report on the day and how much we raise will be in the next newsletter.

We have been attending some local fetes and open days this year and with great success. On our stand we have a lucky dip, guess how many sweets in a jar and selling our balloon race tickets. Also by attending these events we are raising GCAB’s profile and spreading the word that we are here to help anyone who suffers with a sight problem in Gloucestershire.

On Sunday 2^nd May Dave and Ian Whittaker took on the wind and rain and completed a 26 mile cycle challenge in aid of GCAB. Thank you very much for taking on the challenge and I am pleased to say they have raised over £120 in sponsorship so far!

Our supermarket collections have been quite varied this spring. We were at the Brewery complex in Cheltenham in March which was a very quiet day regarding donations but the weekend after we were at Morrison’s supermarket in Cheltenham and we raised over £600 in one day. We were also one of Waitrose’s chosen charities in March and from that we have been donated over £400. Thank you very much for all the volunteers that helped out with the collections.

I am pleased to say we have been given permission to hold a 4 day collection at Sainsbury’s in Prestbury, Cheltenham. The dates are Monday 13^th – Thursday 16^th September. If anyone can help out then please call me on 01242 22 11 70

Benefit Success!

As part of our service to vip’s throughout Gloucestershire, we advise on benefits.  We often complete application forms for Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance usually with a great deal of success.

We were recently contacted by a Mr N from Tewkesbury who had applied for Attendance Allowance but had been refused.  He contacted us for help and even though we had not done the original application we were pleased to get involved.  Mr N is in his 70’s and registered blind and when reviewing his case we couldn’t understand why his application had been rejected.  Our Visiting Advisor Pam, along with our Chair Ann Lightfoot, appealed on his behalf stressing the difficulties Mr N encounters on a daily basis.

Within a couple of weeks Mr N received a letter confirming that he was entitled to the benefit and would be receiving his payments shortly.  Needless to say Mr N was delighted as these payments will make a huge difference to him.

We were delighted to help and even more pleased that it had been successful!