Introduction

Welcome once again to the Guernsey Blind Association's 5^th Newsletter.

Firstly I would like to say a special thank you to all those who have offered our local charity their help and support over the past actively busy year.

I was delighted by the amount of people who offered up their time to help sell flags for the Guernsey Blind Association last June, we managed to collect £4927 which was a great achievement.

We were also very pleased with the amount of visitors that attended our Autumn Fayre, which was held at our Centre. It proved to be a very popular event.

Our flag day this year will be held on Saturday 10^th June and we are looking for as many volunteer collectors that we can find to make it our best ever effort. We hope that you will be kind enough to offer your services for this, one of our main fund raising efforts.

There are many other events which the Guernsey Blind Association has taken part in and this Newsletter Edition will cover some of them which have taken place over the past six months, together with some details regarding our resident Listening For Pleasure Library and news of the latest special equipment our Charity has been able to purchase to expand our Resource Centre.

Many thanks once again for your support and we look forward to seeing you at some of our forthcoming events that are mentioned near the end of this Newsletter.

Thank you.

Sandy Mauger

Harley Davidson Ride

In September of last year on one very sunny Sunday morning eight visually impaired Guernsey Blind Association members were treated to an exciting experience. Mr. Steen from the Ambassador Hotel very kindly offered to arrange for members of his Harley Owners Group to give up their time to take the GBA members as pillion passengers around the island. Some of the visually impaired people had never ridden a motorbike before and were extremely excited by the prospect.

The group set out from the Ambassador Hotel, St Martins, to join other riders for the regular Sunday morning ride. All those who took part in this event thoroughly enjoyed themselves and afterwards the pillion passengers were on such a high that they wanted to look towards other challenging experiences that they could undertake. Over two years ago driving instructor and former deputy Peter Derham had given members the chance to drive a car in Specsavers car park where people carried out emergency stops and even got into third gear.

The Guernsey Blind Association is very grateful to Mr. Steen and his fellow bikers for the thrilling experience that they had given their members.

Car Boot Sale

On the 25^th September a car boot sale was held at the Alliance Car Park. It was timed to start at 9am and finish at 12 noon. My wife and I arrived there at 8am to set up and found cars already waiting and by 8.30am buyers were also there. Cars were charged at £4 each instead of the usual £5 as this sale was held on a Sunday rather than a Saturday, purely as a trial. With 42 cars there, plus one space given to the Hedgehog Charity and with the amount of buyers and sellers asking if this could be a regular event, I would say this was a great success. £169 was made for the Guernsey Blind Association.

Tony Mahy

Monday Morning Bowling

Every Monday morning for two hours there is much fun, laughter and rivalry between teams at the Indoor Bowls Stadium as five members of the Guernsey Blind Association battle it out along with three fully sighted players. They are there to assist but are sorely challenged by the Guernsey Blind Association’s bowlers.

Vera Bearder, Joy Buckingham, Eric Wallis, Dennis Moore, Alan Bisson and Tony Mahy, our leader, have been joined by Charlie Renouf, Pat Lince and Geoff Barrell. Charlie joined us last year and as a very experienced top bowler and ex President of the club has been most helpful and also enabled us to have the use of two rinks for which we are very grateful.

New Equipment

The Guernsey Blind Association are pleased that we now have an ELG 04 Colour C.C.T.V. for display in our Resource Centre and thanks to some generous donations - one of which was from INVESTEC - we have two C.C.T.V.’s which we are able to loan out. This new equipment may benefit our students when they return home from university so they are able to do course work.

The Electronic ELG 04 Colour is a reading aid that has been specially developed for simplicity that allows all age groups of the visually impaired to use it with ease.

This reading aid can be connected using one cable via the SCART jack to any existing television set. The enlargement (screen magnification), approximately X5 – X70, depends on the size of the television screen used.

The ELC Colour has needle-sharp colour reproduction and may also be used in black-white mode and in reverse video, i.e. white on black.

This reading aid is at an affordable price of £530 and I am sure that it will become very popular.

Listening for Pleasure Library

The Guernsey Blind Association has a library of approximately six hundred audio tapes, which are mostly abridged story tapes. These are suitable for the elderly or those who do not like long stories. They are very useful for introducing those who have recently experienced problems with their vision and who are uncertain whether they would like to listen to story tapes, also visitors whilst on holiday have requested a loan from our library.

Until recently the late Mrs Margaret Clerey had looked after the administration of this library and we are very grateful for the many years she had efficiently performed this task. The audio cassette tapes have now been relocated at the Guernsey Blind Association Centre in the ‘Nina Wood’ room. We are very grateful for all the donations received of both audio tapes and money to purchase new editions.

Forthcoming Events

Wednesday 26^th April
Annual General Meeting

Saturday 10^th June
Flag Day

Thursday 29^thJune
Summer Outing

Saturday 19^th August
Donkey Derby

Saturday 21^st October
Autumn Fayre

Saturday 9^th December
Christmas Lunch

Officers and Committee

President                                                MRS SANDRA MAUGER

Honorary Treasurer                              MR BERNARD SAUNDERS

Advisor to the Visually Impaired          MRS JEAN LE HURAY

Secretary                                                MRS CAROLINE MAYNARD

Handycraft                                             MRS MARION DOREY & MRS DOREEN HURFORD

COMMITTEE OF TRUSTEES

DR DAVID DE LISLE

MR DAVID EATON                                 (Audio News Co-ordinator & Technician)

MR GORDON FOWLER                         (Collection Boxes)

MRS CATHERINE LENFESTEY           (Thursday Afternoon Helper)

MR TONY MAHY

MRS MARGARET MOFFATT               (Friends of the GBA)

MR CHRIS RICHARDSON                    (GBA Property Manager)

ADVOCATE JESSICA ROLAND           (GBA Legal Advisor)

MRS VIV WEBBER                                 (Audio News Editor)

GUERNSEY BLIND ASSOCIATION

TEL 236933 FAX 236932

E-MAIL gba@guernsey.net

WEBSITE www.guernsey.net/~gba/

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