Events

Workshop Programme Wednesday 1 November 2017 Workshop session one – 11:20 – 12:40 1. Technology – The 4th Industrial Revolution This workshop will explore how technology can be pivotal in the three following areas: Independent Living; Skills and Employment; Mobility and Travel. It will look at how technology is being used locally, regionally and nationally to support people with a visual impairment. It is focused upon sharing knowledge and learning from Beacon to support members when considering their services, developing them, and how they interact with technology and beneficiaries. Lead facilitator/s: Arwyn Jones (Beacon) 2. Dealing with change while maintaining traditions. Is it for your charity? We want to share the experiences we have had over the last 3 years, building on our foundations and embracing new ideas that benefit visually impaired people now and in the future. We will also mention our new Vision Support Centre which we have developed to provide more services from, and the ups and downs of a capital project. Lead facilitator/s: Carl Hodge (Barrow & Districts Society for the Blind); Claire Smith (Barrow & Districts Society for the Blind) 3. Data protection – Understanding good practice and implications of the GDPR With changes to […]

Inspirational Service Delivery This award is open to Visionary members that can demonstrate innovation and achievement in service provision within the sight loss sector. The service could be newly developed or established, benefitting a few or a large number of blind and partially sighted people, but we want to hear examples that will inspire others. Organisation 1 – Bradbury Fields This year, we launched our very first app in collaboration with Web Developer, Thom Shannon. Guide dogs are an important lifeline for visually impaired people. When visiting an unfamiliar city, keeping your dog to a regular routine can be a serious worry. This app will help guide dog owners and other service dog owners find a suitable area of grass nearby for their dog to spend. It will show the distance, size of the grassed area, and link to Google or Apple Maps to give walking directions. This app is free and can be downloaded from the App Store. To date we have had 373 downloads. Organisation 2 – Devon in Sight We were a charity on the brink of closure, struggling to respond to the challenges of securing funding, delivering outcomes, and meeting increasing demand. A bold new Management […]

The 2017 Visionary Leadership Conferences (formerly the CEO Conferences) were held in London, York, Manchester and Bristol in March. We had a total of 63 members attending from 46 organisations and all threw themselves into some lively discussions and debates, so thank you to all of you who attended.   Alison started the day with an overview of what has been happening at Visionary central over the last year and how we have expanded our focus from the initial priorities around engagement to more active work with members. This included some discussion around the latest Visionary Roadmap which can be seen here – Visionary Roadmap / Visionary Roadmap (text). This was followed by an update from Keith Valentine, Deputy CEO of the Thomas Pocklington Trust, who outlined the plans for bringing together VISION 2020 UK and the UK Vision Strategy to provide a unified body for the eye health and sight loss sector. As part of this he set out the importance of Visionary’s role in contributing to these plans and ably dealt with some healthy challenges and questions from members on the topic. Andy Haynes and Alexa Sage then led an interactive session with members on different approaches to Income […]