About Visionary Members

Visionary currently has around 100 local sight loss charities in the UK as members.

These are all independent charities delivering vital services to visually impaired people at a local level. Our members are in touch with over 160,000 blind and partially sighted people but that’s only the tip of the iceberg – there are estimated to be over 2 million people in the UK with significant sight loss who would benefit from contact with their local sight loss charity.

A local society/association for blind and partially sighted people can offer a range of services which might include:

• giving advice and information on the range of equipment that is available to make daily living easier. Things such as talking clocks, watches, microwave ovens, bathroom scales, . Large print and/or tactile games such as Scrabble, dominoes,backgammon, playing cards. Magnifiers, lighting, accessible phones. They may have an Equipment/ Resource Centre where you can view and try out these aids before you buy. Certain larger items may be offered on loan.
• giving advice on benefits entitlements. If you are registered as blind or partially sighted (severely sight impaired or sight impaired is the new terminology) you are entitled to certain benefits/concessions such as council tax reduction, free NHS sight tests, travel concessions etc
• providing a home visiting or befriending service with volunteers who can help you with shopping, correspondence reading or simply a friendly chat.
• running weekly social clubs, special interest groups and activities
• organising holidays or days out

If a local society cannot provide a certain service for you, they will signpost you to the nearest source of help.

Local societies for the blind are independent of the large national sight loss charities that you may be aware of. They deliver their own range of services direct to the visually impaired people in their town, city or county area. They may work with national organisations on certain projects (indeed Visionary encourages partnership work where appropriate) but they are autonomous.

Being independent means that local societies have to find their own funding and their income can come from several sources including contract work with their local authority, applications to trust funds or the national lottery programmes but most rely on bequests or voluntary donations from the public. If you make a donation or a bequest to your local society you can be sure that it will be used to help local people. And if you git aid your donation even better! If you are a UK taxpayer the charity can claim an extra 28% from the taxman!

Local societies rely a great deal on volunteers to deliver their services. If you would like to volunteer for a local blind organisation do get in touch to see what opportunities are available in your area. To find your nearest local organisation enter your postcode in the box at the top of this screen.