Eye Matter Receives £2000 Grant from the Ronson Foundation to Support 2025 Activities
Eye Matter is thrilled to announce the receipt of a generous £2000 grant from the Ronson Foundation, which will be instrumental in supporting the organisation’s expanding activities throughout 2025.
In 2023, Eye Matter successfully delivered 33 in-person activities, and this number grew to 44 in 2024. To meet the increasing demand, our volunteer numbers also grew, enabling us to offer a wider range of opportunities for our members, including visits to theatres, art galleries, museums, sports activities, therapy sessions, and drama workshops. Alongside this, our Zoom sessions have flourished, with a growing variety of content, such as regular concerts, therapy sessions, technology support, drama workshops, chair yoga, Lindy Hop dance, poetry appreciation, and our Bookworms (book club).
This vital funding will ensure the continuation of activities like our mental health provision, which has been a key part of supporting the well-being of our members.
Suzie Simons, Eye Matter’s Founder and Co-ordinator, expressed her gratitude for the grant: “So many members have told me how accessing activities with Eye Matter and our dedicated team of volunteers has boosted their confidence and made them feel truly part of a community once again. Without the support of grants and donations, Eye Matter would not be able to continue its important work, and we are incredibly thankful to the Ronson Foundation for making this opportunity possible.”
The team at Eye Matter looks forward to continuing its work and expanding its offerings with the support of this generous funding.
Eye Matter just returned from our first PGL activities holiday in Sussex last week (Monday 26th to Thursday 30th August). We took 31 people with us, with 21 VIs and 10 guides. Subsequently they took part in disc golf, archery, rifle shooting, problem solving, aero ball, ab-sailing, giant swinging, axe throwing, rock climbing, buggy making and canoeing. Along with a pool party, a quiz, campfire, a disco and lots of laughs. 100% of those asked would go again next year and Suzie has already started negotiations for August Bank holiday to do it again in 2025.
We hope you can all join us there.
Thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund
Suzie Simons, Eye Matter Founder and Coordinator (RNIB See Differently Awards 2024 – Winner, “Volunteer of the Year”) said, “I wanted to give a massive thank you to the National Lottery Community Fund for this incredible grant which will enable us to continue helping so many visually impaired people. We’re so proud to have received this grant for the second time and look forward to our ongoing work together in the future.”
Eye Matter has over 200 blind and partially sighted members who will benefit from this award. In 2023 Eye Matter delivered 36 in-person outings including theatre trips, visits to art galleries and even a comedy club night! In addition, the team also delivered over 200 Zoom events such as; concerts, comedy nights, drama sessions, cookery, book clubs, counselling and technology advice sessions. In 2023 Eye Matter ran their first sports day for over 60 blind and partially sighted people (in Islington) and celebrated their Winter Extravaganza along with 50 members.
National Lottery funding will enable access to various health and wellbeing projects including our, “Living Well with Sight-Loss” course (in partnership with the RNIB) which is now in its eleventh series. Additionally, this massive boost, from the National Lottery Community Fund, will enable Eye Matter to continue to deliver another sports day in 2025, a number of confidence boosting workshops, drama improvisation sessions, our Christmas concert and subsidy for our Winter Extravaganza in December.
We would like to thank Rachel Bowden-Waterson and Kinnari Patel for all their hard work and support, in assisting with this application.
If you would like to know more about our opportunities, please email: suzie@eyematter.org.uk
Eye Matter is delighted to announce that Suzie has been nominated for an award. Please see the RNIB press release below.
RNIB PRESS RELEASE
March 2024
Charity founder from London shortlisted for RNIB See Differently Award
A woman has been shortlisted for an RNIB See Differently Award in recognition of an organisation she founded to provide multi activity, peer support and social inclusion for blind and partially sighted people.
Suzie Simons, who has sight loss and lives in London, has been shortlisted in the Volunteer of the Year category. This award recognises people who have dedicated their time, skills and energy within their community or organisation to have a positive impact on the lives, health, and wellbeing of blind and partially sighted people.
Suzie is the founder and CEO of Eye Matter; she volunteers full-time with the organisation and facilitates hundreds of online and in-person events each year. In 2023, Eye Matter secured a charitable status.
Founded five and a half years ago, Suzie set up Eye Matter after volunteering as a facilitator at RNIB’s Living Well with Sight Loss (LWWSL) courses and seeing firsthand the difference peer support can make for blind and partially sighted people, like herself. Suzie has also trained other Eye Matter volunteers to deliver RNIB’s LWWSL course.
She organises and hosts four online sessions every week for members and the sessions include VI cookery, audio-described chair yoga, poetry appreciation and concerts performed by artists with sight loss.
Since its inception, Suzie has led on raising funds for Eye Matter and has raised more than £30,000 since it began.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/eyematter
In response to being shortlisted, Suzie said: “It’s an honour to be shortlisted for an RNIB See Differently Award. I’m so proud Eye Matter, it’s grown into a community which supports its participants by educating, empowering, and giving confidence through its work and to enable its members to help each other do things which previously seemed out of reach.”
Last year, Suzie organised 36 face-to-face events, including Eye Matter’s inaugural sports day which saw over thirty members come together with sighted guides to take part in a range of VI sports, as well audio described theatre, museums and two Eye Matter Choir concerts.
The RNIB See Differently Awards will bring together a host of people across the UK and aims to shine a spotlight on the excellent work happening every day across the UK to support people with sight loss. They will recognise and reward individuals and organisations taking positive action to help break down barriers and make the world a better place for blind and partially sighted people.