Annual Conference Sponsors 2025

Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans

Sight Scotland is Scotland’s largest sight loss charity. Our diverse services span all ages and stages of sight loss and visual impairment. It also includes the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh and specialist learning services across Scotland, residential care for children and adults, community services, and research funding into sight loss conditions. We also run the Scottish Braille Press which provides supported employment – half of the employees of the Scottish Braille Press are disabled people, including people with visual impairment. Our community services are reaching out to support even more people with sight loss in Scotland, as well as their relatives and carers.

Sight Scotland Veterans provides support to armed forces veterans in Scotland – including those who served National Service – who are affected by sight loss, regardless of the cause. The charity helps veterans with sight loss regain confidence, restore their independence and make new connections.  Together, our charities are determined that no one should face sight loss alone.

Visit: www.sightscotland.org.uk

Blind Ambition 

Blind Ambition (888) Ltd is an internationally award-winning disability inclusion consultancy led by Seema Flower, a blind entrepreneur and passionate advocate for accessibility and employment equality. We work across sectors—legal, financial, healthcare, transport and construction—delivering visual awareness training, inclusive recruitment consultancy, and audits of policy, practice and physical environments.

We’re proud to have worked with organisations such as LinkedIn, Lloyds Bank, Microsoft and NHS Trusts to help them build accessible and inclusive workplaces.

This year, we’ve launched a new accessible recruitment platform for blind and partially sighted jobseekers:

www.blindambition.co.uk/recruitment

With 75% of blind and partially sighted people unemployed, our new jobs board aims to connect inclusive employers with talented candidates, and to raise the bar for accessibility in recruitment.

We warmly invite you to publish your vacancies on our platform and be part of the movement to close the disability employment gap.

At Blind Ambition, we believe inclusion is more than a policy—it’s a promise to do better, every day.

Fight for Sight

Imagine being told that you, or someone you love, is losing their sight. In that moment, two profound questions demand urgent answers:

• Can this be stopped?
• How will I live my life?

Currently, research into preventing and treating sight loss is chronically underfunded, receiving a mere 1.3% of publicly funded health research grants: people who are blind or vision impaired are three times more likely to experience loneliness and isolation than the general population.

We find and fund the brilliant minds and bright ideas that put change in sight. Our researchers are at the forefront, making breakthroughs and discoveries that will help us better understand, prevent, diagnose and treat eye disease. The partnerships we build and initiatives we support are changing life for blind and vision impaired people.

We are Fight for Sight and we won’t stop until we: Save Sight. Change Lives.

Visit:  www.fightforsight.org.uk

Glaucoma UK

At Glaucoma UK we are dedicated to ending preventable sight loss caused by glaucoma, because no-one should lose their sight to a disease that is preventable and treatable.

As a membership charity, we ensure people living with glaucoma have a voice in how and where their care and treatment are delivered.

We provide a host of support services to help people at all stages of their glaucoma journey, including:

• A dedicated helpline
• Online webinars
• Digital and face-to-face support groups
• Information leaflets and booklets
• A website full of information and advice about the disease.

We also provide training and an annual conference for glaucoma care professionals.

Beyond support services, we fund research to advance our knowledge and understanding of the causes of glaucoma, and to improve prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment of the disease and allied conditions.

Through our annual grants programme, we empower UK based researchers to drive innovation and improve outcomes for people with glaucoma, now and into the future.

Visit: www.glaucoma.uk

Guide Dogs UK

Guide Dogs is here to help people with sight loss live the life they choose. Our aim is to level the playing field and create a world where people with a vision impairment can do what they want, when they want.

We understand that living with sight loss is different for everyone and our services reflect that. From the very first enquiry, our experts talk and listen to people’s needs and aspirations and offer advice and provide support. Beyond our iconic guide dogs, we provide a wide range of services for adults, children and young people, as well as providing sighted guide training to help make the world more inclusive for people with sight loss.

In these fast-changing times, we’re also exploring the opportunities that technology brings, including tech-driven navigation. Reflecting this, we’re delighted to sponsor the Develop and Share Award which recognises innovation and collaboration across the sector.

Visit:  www.guidedogs.org.uk

Macular Society

Macular disease is the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK, with around 300 people diagnosed every day. The Macular Society is determined to beat the fear and isolation of macular disease with world-class research, and the best advice and support.

The Society works in close collaboration with local and regional sight loss organisations, and the members of Visionary, to support people affected by this devastating condition and to beat macular disease, for good. The conference is a great opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other, in order to continue to improve the lives of those living sight loss.

Visit: www.macularsociety.org

RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People)

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), is one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities. We offer practical and emotional support to blind and partially sighted people, their families and carers. We raise awareness of the experiences of blind and partially sighted people and campaign for change to make our society more accessible for all. We want to change our world so there are no barriers to people with sight loss.

RNIB is delighted to sponsor and support the Visionary Annual Conference. We wish to build stronger more productive relationships at a local level and are seeking to engage with local sight loss charities to provide more opportunities for blind and partially sighted people and improve equity of access.  If you are interested in having a discussion, please do not hesitate to email Carolyn Chamberlain

Visit:  www.rnib.org.uk

RNIB – Business Services

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is the largest sight loss charity in the UK. At RNIB, we are passionate about accessibility and usability. This includes supporting local societies and charities to use our services and ensure blind and partially sighted people have the information they need in their required reading format.

We are pleased to be supporting this year’s Visionary conference by providing the conference information in a range of accessible formats including large print and braille.

Our expert consultants have valuable lived experience and want to ensure businesses websites, apps, products and services not only comply with current legislation, but are accessible and usable to all users. Through web audits, user testing, training, accessible design and consultancy, we aim to help businesses maximise the value of their products and services through a tailored approach.  We also offer transcriptions services for charities and business, visit our website for more information about Audio transcription, braille, easy read and large print transcription | RNIB

To find out more about all of our services, please visit: Business professionals | RNIB

Associated Optical

Since 1983 Associated Optical, Eschenbach’s UK partner, has sought to provide eye-care professionals with innovative magnification devices to further enhance their patient care. Working closely with all of our key manufacturers and education team, our aim is to inspire our customers to further improve people’s lives using patient-centred optical solutions.

Our key brands include Eschenbach Optik for Optical and Digital magnification,  Ocutech Bioptics & LiveEyewear for Cocoons FitOvers and Filters.

Visit: www.associatedoptical.com

Russell-Cooke

We are delighted to sponsor and deliver a workshop at the Visionary Annual Conference 2025. We’re also very pleased to continue our ongoing support for Visionary members through the Russell Cooke free legal advice telephone helpline.

Russell-Cooke’s charity and not-for-profit team is one of the country’s leading charity law practices. We are a team of lawyers who work exclusively with charities and other not-for-profit organisations. We have substantial breadth and depth within the team, with lawyers who specialise in a wide range of areas, including governance, operational and commercial matters, employment, property, intellectual property, safeguarding and data protection.

Many members of the team are charity trustees. The team is supported by other specialist lawyers throughout the firm where required. Russell-Cooke is one of the country’s top 100 law firms and has over 200 lawyers and other legal professionals based across three offices in London.

Specsavers

As the leading provider of optometry services for NHS Primary Care and the largest provider of community audiology services, Specsavers changes lives through better sight and hearing. Each practice is owned and run by experts who care for communities throughout the UK. There are currently more than 2,815 optics, audiology, domiciliary and ophthalmology businesses with more than 45,000 dedicated colleagues worldwide, and this year we have cared for more than 48 million people.

For more information visit www.specsavers.co.uk 

The Powell Family Foundation

We provide grants to individuals and charities, with the aim of creating opportunities for children and young people with a vision impairment to reach their full potential.

To learn more about us or apply for a grant please visit The Powell Family Foundation website.

Utility Aid

Utility Aid is the UK’s largest energy broker for the voluntary sector, working with over 4,000 organisations and counting. We are passionate about reducing energy costs, so that you have more money to spend on your services.

As well as helping to secure new contracts at the best possible cost, we can also retrieve any money you have been overcharged on your energy bills. Through our invoice validation service, we have recovered over £8m for our charity customers to date.

Our Services

• Energy Switching – We only work with trustworthy suppliers to ensure you get the best possible service.
• Account Management – Our friendly Account Management Team provides quality aftercare advice and support. All queries are allocated to a dedicated member of the team who takes full ownership from start to finish.
• Invoice Validation – Our team of skilled analysts conducts thorough checks on invoices to ensure you are billed correctly and there are no overcharges. We automatically investigate any issues and liaise with suppliers to get mistakes rectified.
• Net Zero & Carbon Reporting – Our Net Zero services aim to help organisations reduce consumption in a financially feasible manner. We work with organisations to identify the budgets necessary and promote a methodology based on circular investment

Visit: www.utility-aid.co.uk