Welcome to our new year edition of Eye Matter Matters issue 18. This is a fortnightly publication where Eye Matter shares news and information about events and activities, members’ experiences, and other items of interest. Unless otherwise indicated, all articles have been contributed by Fiona Musgrove. If you would like to contribute an article to a future edition, please contact Fiona at: fiona@eyematter.org.uk
This edition includes:
Eye Matter Zoom events
- An exciting new volunteering opportunity to support our members.
- Become a voice-over trainer.
- Facebook’s positives and pitfalls
Eye Matter Outings
- Confidence building workshop with Eye Matter on Saturday 1st of February.
- Saturday 29th March Grief Workshop (in-person):
- Grieving the life you expected
- A list of other events.
Special features
- Understanding the philosophy of our unconscious mind in relation to our everyday anxieties.
- Robin Hood as never experienced before (or ever again) at the Palladium with Eye Matter.
Eye Matter Zoom events
Keep up to date with our activities here.
Highlights include:
An exciting new volunteering opportunity to support our members.
Eye Matter is initiating two-member outreach programs with volunteer opportunities, which will be coordinated by our new volunteer member liaison, Irena Valchera. The first training opportunity will be on Tuesday 21st of January at 11am on the usual Zoom link.
We are seeking volunteers to assist Irena in reaching out to our members to ensure they are doing well, confirm their continued interest in membership, and be assured that they are able to join our Zoom sessions.
The second chance to join this volunteer opportunity will be on Tuesday 18th March.
If you would like to support Eye Matter, even committing to make one call per week would be beneficial. If you are able to contribute more time, that would be greatly appreciated too. Volunteers will receive basic training for this role.
To join our member outreach team, please email suzie@eyematter.org.uk with the subject line “Outreach Volunteer.”
Thank you for considering this opportunity to support our community!
Become a voice-over trainer.
We are seeking confident iPhone and Android users within our membership who are interested in sharing their skills with other visually impaired individuals. To support this initiative, we are excited to introduce our Volunteer VoiceOver Training Manager, Charu Bansal, alongside volunteer IT Trainer Jackie Brown, who will facilitate a short training program designed to enhance your teaching abilities.
Our next training session is scheduled for 28th of January at 2pm. This is for existing trainers and new ones. We will be running this training every 3 months and we’d really love all our trainers to attend where possible.
Facebook’s positives and pitfalls 11th and 18th February at 2pm.
Facebook is an exciting way to communicate with family, friends, and a great source of information for blind and partially sighted people who are often isolated. It provides links to a host of organisations and private groups dedicated to supporting our needs, yet we are aware that myths and high-profile incidents raise concerns for many members.
Eye Matter is working collaboratively with RNIB’s Digital Skills and Engagement team to design a specific session based on accessing Facebook. This pilot course is aimed at those who are concerned about using Facebook or are interested in learning more about the benefits of this social media platform.
This two-day course will be delivered by Eye Matter’s social media manager Fiona and will include an interactive question and answer section which may be compiled into a promotional video with RNIB’s Digital Skills Engagement Team.
An exclusive toolkit will be sent to all those who attend containing helpful tips and contact details for further support.
If you are interested in attending this event, please email: suzie@eyematter.org.uk with the subject title “Facebook training.”
Eye Matter Outings
Find all our events here
Highlights include:
Confidence building workshop with Eye Matter on Saturday 1st of February.
Led by Steven George- this workshop will demonstrate his wide experience of sight loss within the arts and education sector.
This will be a wonderful opportunity to again join together to have fun, develop a new understanding of our sight loss and become more confident. Steve will guide us through various drama games and activities, so be prepared to have a giggle with Eye Matter.
Saturday 1st of February 2025
The Living Centre, Kings Cross, London.
Meet and Greet: 1:30pm at St Pancras Station, by Midland Road Exit at the Thameslink barriers.
£5Voluntary contribution.
For more information or to sign up email suzie@eyematter.org.uk with subject ‘confidence’
The Living Centre Kings Cross St Pancras, Monday
10th of February Simon & Garfunkel £15.25, London Palladium, Wednesday
12th of February Tate Modern, £5 voluntary contribution,
Thursday 6th of March Sno Zone Sledging, Price £17.50 including your travel from Euston to Milton Keynes and 45 minutes sledging. This does not include your lunch at Nando’s. meet and greet at Euston Station at 10:30am
Saturday 29th of March Group Grief Workshop with Joanna Williams, £5 voluntary contribution, Somers Town Hall Kings Cross St Pancras.
Please email us with your chosen outing title.
Voluntary contributions can be made prior the activity using the usual bank account and providing a reference to the activity. These donations are greatly appreciated to ensure future activities.
Saturday 29th March Grief Workshop (in-person):
Grieving the life you expected
All of us have expectations about life and the world around us. Some are societal, some we learn from friends and family, some we figure out for ourselves. The experience of sight loss is what we call a ‘nonfinite loss’ in that it may occur as one event, but the repercussions are ongoing – and may interrupt or derail what we thought our life would be. Even if you are sight impaired from birth, you still might have absorbed ideas about a so-called ideal life and experience grief about those aspects you don’t have and fear for what the future holds.
In this special in-person workshop, there’ll be the chance to share experiences with your peers and, crucially, learn ways of re-working your expectations and letting go of fear.
At Somerstown Community Centre Kings Cross, London.
A voluntary contribution of £5 is appreciated.
If you would like more information about this session or wish to join us, please email.
Special features
Understanding the philosophy of our unconscious mind in relation to our everyday anxieties.
Suzie Simons (Eye Matters Founder) said, “We just had the amazing Sydney do a talk for Eye Matter.”
On Friday 20th December, as part of our ‘Inspiring Speakers’ series we were delighted to introduce Sydney May (coach, speaker, comedian and musician) who gave a presentation on understanding our unconscious mind and its relationship to anxiety. A few years ago, she came across the revelations of a man called Sydney Banks. He spoke of what he called his moment of enlightenment. “He had a life-changing realisation about where our experience comes from — that it comes from inside of us, not outside of us. If every experience we have is being shaped by our thoughts, then doesn’t this give us the power to shape our experience into whatever we would most like it to be?”
Sydney replied, “Thank you so much for having me! I honestly absolutely love doing these talks, as it’s a subject I’m so passionate about! I really hope everyone found it helpful. What a lovely group you have.”
Here are Sydney’s top tips and favourite quotes
- Focus on what you want not what you don’t want. Remember the unconscious mind doesn’t understand a negative, but it wants to give you what it thinks you want, so make sure you’re telling it what you want, not what you don’t want.
- Focus on the present. Anxiety and worry are always based on the future which might happen or the past which might happen again. If you’re truly present, there shouldn’t be anything to be anxious about.
- You can’t actually tell the future, so when you’re worrying about the future, you’re making up a story. You don’t actually know how it’s going to go and it’s probably a lot worse in your head than it will actually be.
- Check in with yourself. Make sure you’re not holding tension or anxiety that you’re not even aware of, and if you find some when you do check in, allow yourself to let go of it. You don’t need it.
- Always remember that while you can’t control everything happening around you, you can choose your response, so choose one which suits you.
- If you’re worrying about something, ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen and what’s the best that could happen? The worst is generally not that bad after all.
- Quote: “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you’re right.” It’s really hard to do something while you’re telling yourself you can. Tell yourself you can, and you will, and your mind and body will work with you to make it happen.
- There is no failure, only feedback. This is an NLP quote. Take everything that goes wrong as feedback. Look at how you can learn from it so it will go better next time, instead of just focusing on the fact that it went wrong.
- Notice your language. Are you catastrophizing? Question yourself. Is that thing really as bad as I’m telling myself or someone else it is? Remember one word can change everything.
- Gratitude. Even if you haven’t had the best day, every night before you go to sleep, think of 5 things to be grateful for no matter how small. It might seem like a struggle to think of 5 at first, but you will be able to, and every day you do this it will come more naturally, until you’re in a really good habit of finding those good things automatically.
If you are feeling anxious you can also participate in our regular “Thriving to Surviving” programme we run twice a month or check out our new blog here: https://eyematter.org.uk/eye-matter-blog-by-joanna-williams-psychotherapeutic-counsellor-specialising-in-grief-and-loss/
If you would like to take part in our next ‘Inspiring Speakers” session, please email us.
Robin Hood as never experienced before (or ever again) at the Palladium with Eye Matter.
Within the usual flair of colour and innuendo Robin Hood at the Palladium on Thursday 9th January didn’t disappoint. Along with the cast which included the fabulous Julian Clary, the amazing cruising Jane MacDonald (who did Dusty Springfield justice and the hobbling Tinky Winky Nigel Havers the stage was set for fun. This was only topped by Sam the puppet and a surprise appearance of David Mitchell (from the Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb) as King Richard. The villain The Sherriff of Nottingham (played by Marissa Wallace) introduced an American element into a quintessential British tradition was another huge success for the production. Despite being an International singer/songwriter along with being nominated for an Olivia award for her role in ‘Guys and Dolls’ she took on board the booing audience.
A huge thanks to everyone who posted photos on our Facebook page: click here to access-
The audio description provided by VocalEyes was delivered through headsets which enabled us to understand the action on stage especially when Julian sniffed his fingers after touching poor Maid Marian who was determined to make him her man!
Before the performance we were introduced to the backstage crew including wardrobe designers and stagehands. One told us how they often source the props from mundane places whilst the more elaborate costume and props are specifically designed for the performance. I laughed as one of our volunteers Parm skipped into the mushroom tutu which Julian later wore on stage.
Eye Matter would like to say a huge thanks to everyone involved in allowing blind and partially sighted people access to this wonderful production and we look forward to next year’s Panto.