Centre Report – July 2019

Introduction

It has been a busy period for the Centre in the lead up to the summer break. We
continue to exceed 500 visitors per week. In June we were delighted to welcome a
whole range of organisations to the Centre including Social Security Scotland,
SCVO, Forth Valley Breastfeeding Group and Mindful Living Group. RNIB and FVSC
hosted a VIP Connect Open Day on a Saturday to engage with local people with a
vision impairment and identify potential activities they may like to develop. Blind
Veterans UK hosted a Volunteer Thank You event at the Centre which linked digitally
to a UK wide celebration.

Due to the retirement of our Activities Co-ordinator we have appointed a new Co-
ordinator, Linsay Stocks who joined our staff team on 1 July. Linsay was previously
employed as a Community Champion by Morrisons supermarket and has brought
new ideas and a great network of community contacts. Linsay has a hearing loss
and a real awareness of overcoming some of the challenges of living with sensory
loss. We also welcomed Kirsty Banks to our Team on 8 July when she took up the
post of Energy Efficiency Project Manager. Kirsty is another great addition to our
staff team and will be working with us for the next 18 months to ensure that home
energy information is accessible for people with Sensory Loss. Kirsty’s post is
funded by the Climate Challenge Fund.

Fundraising

We received some fantastic news in the last few weeks regarding funding. We have
been awarded £48,000 (£16,000 per year for three years) from The Robertson Trust
to help towards the cost of salaries for our Groups and activities Coordinator and
Volunteer Coordinator. In addition, The Robertson Trust have also promised £5000
towards the cost of refurbishing the RNIB and Action on Hearing Loss Resource
Areas which we plan to transform into a Technology Hub.

This is great news for us as it frees up some core funding. The promise of funding for
the Technology Hub is conditional, and depends on the Centre securing further
funds from other grant making bodies, however, it allows us to work towards match
funding from other grant making bodies. We have already had some positive
discussions regarding match funding with RS Macdonald and Blindcraft Trust.
The Centre have been awarded £3000 from the Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI)
which encourages school pupils from across Scotland to get behind a local charity.
FVSC was chosen by four girls from Lornshill Academy in Alloa as their preferred
charity after they met one of our young vision impaired volunteers, Kyle and Finance
Assistant Lesley a few weeks ago. The girls did a great job, setting up an obstacle
course to raise awareness of sight loss and also taking time to learn some BSL and
signing to the audience. This ingenuity impressed the judges and enabled the team
to beat off some still competition. We plan to keep in contact with the School and
continue to raise awareness of sensory loss with pupils.

We held our pop-up charity shop event in Grangemouth at the end of June raising
over £1000. All the Centre Partners came along and supported the event, donating
items and helping in the shop. It was a great team effort and opportunity to promote
what the Centre does and the variety of support available from the organisations
based within the building.

Our Centre Users continue to actively support us with fund raising. BSL Users Ian
and Cathie Carmichael organised a ‘guess the name of the tinman’ competition
which raised over £70. After 13 long and nameless years, we can now announce
that our tin man is called…… Douglas.

Our House of Commons raffle for a bottle of HoC Champagne donated and signed
by John McNally MP was won by NHS FV Audiologist Nicola Ramsay.

Publicity

Apologies to anyone who may have experienced an issue with our website towards
the end of June. A fault at our hosting company meant it was offline for several days,
but it is now back online and contains our latest news and activities.

In response to a request from Centre Users we made the last Volunteer newsletter
available as a podcast which could be downloaded from or streamed from popular
hosting site Soundcloud.

Our FVSC Facebook and Twitter accounts remain great ways to keep abreast of
Centre news and activities. These can be accessed @FVSensoryCentre on either
platform. We now have over 1100 followers on Twitter and 1500 on Facebook.

Blind Veterans UK (BVUK) have now taken up residence in the Centre as a base for
their admin and outreach work. It is great to have another leading UK charity within
the building. This provides yet another potential point of contact and contributes to
our running costs.

We hosted a Summer BBQ at the end of June for Centre Users and Partner
organisations to launch our Green Network Funded Kitchen Garden project and
Climate Climate Challenge project. This provided an excellent opportunity for
networking and partnership. The event was supported by; Forth Environment Link,
Falkirk active Travel Hub, Morrisons, Sustainable Thinking Scotland, Falkirk Delivers
and Solicitors for Older People Scotland. The weather was fantastic and it was good
to see so many people enjoying the food, including burgers, pizza and hotdogs as
well as getting the chance to speak to Centre Users, our partners and other third
sector groups.

Forth Environment Link will also be working with us on our new ‘Taste School’ which
starts on 16th July. Funded by Central Scotland Green Network, this innovative
project will encourage children to be more adventurous and healthy with their food
choices and more aware of food growing. We will be delivering 4 workshops for
pupils from Windsor Park school during the school holidays, linking to our kitchen
garden growing project.

Finally, we are currently working on our new Climate Challenge Fund project,
‘Making Sense of Energy Saving’ and are linking in with all the local Third Sector
Interfaces, including; Stirling Voluntary Enterprise, CVS Falkirk and CTSI in Clacks.
Project manager Kirsty has also arranged to meet with Home Energy Scotland, Forth
Environment Link and Town Break.

Volunteering

June was a very busy month in terms of volunteering starting with our annual
Volunteer Celebration event on 3 June to coincide with national volunteer week. The
theme was “it’s time to celebrate” and so we did! A total of 37 volunteers attended to
receive their recognition certificates from Board Chair Pat Reid. Volunteers were
treated to lunch and a lively interactive session where they took part in some sensory
activities to refresh on sensory awareness training. It was great to acknowledge the
contribution and support that our volunteers provide to Centre users, events, staff
and each other.

Volunteers from Social Security Scotland and partner organisations Falkirk Council
and Sign Language Interaction helped to set up the charity shop on 21st June with
additional help during the week from DWP. We had great support from all our
partners – NHS Disability Team, the Sensory Team, Scottish War Blinded and Blind
Veterans as well as our regular volunteers. 50 volunteer slots were covered over the
course of the week.

FVSC were represented by Caroline Storey, our Volunteer Co-ordinator at a

volunteer network event at the Alliance in Glasgow. It was good to share our
practice and see how other organisations work with their volunteers and support
them. Volunteer Scotland facilitated the session and reminded us how important and
wonderful it is to give your time for the benefit of others.
Summary

FVSC continues to thrive and grow. Our partnership network is expanding and whilst
our work diversifies into areas including Energy Efficiency and Food Growing, we
remain true to our mission to provide accessible, quality services to enable people
with sensory loss to live independent and fulfilling lives. Trustees are planning to
review our 2018 – 2021 strategy later this year to ensure we continue to maximise
our success and remain a sustainable organisation with a future.

Jacquie Winning
5 July 2019