We are very pleased to let you know that the registrations are now open for the 8th General Assembly of the International Council on English Braille. This will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, from Saturday 25 May to Thursday 30 May 2024.
The ICEB General Assembly is proudly hosted by The Braille Authority of New Zealand Aotearoa Trust. We look forward to welcoming you at the General Assembly as we celebrate the theme Two Centuries of Braille and the past and future tasks of ICEB.
Every 18 months or so, Web Accessibility IN Mind (WebAIM) runs a survey to assess current screen reader usage patterns and compare them to usage patterns in the past. This is extremely valuable data which influences the advice given by accessibility professionals.
Survey number 10 is currently running until 31 January, and as well as asking about screen reader choice and usage, it also asks whether you use a braille display.
We encourage you to take the survey
https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey10/
As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, we’re inviting you to join us for a cosy fireside chat to round off the year on Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
How do you write and address your Christmas cards? How do you know whose Christmas presents are whose? And what part does braille play in all of this?
We’ll be joined by our expert Braille for Beginners team, Mel Pritchard and Chantelle Griffiths, to get the conversation started, but we’d love to hear your ideas too – and if you have any other Christmas-themed braille topics, feel free to throw them into the mix as well!
Register for the Masterclass here.
To join by phone, please use these details:
We have been asked to share the following information:
Christine Richman who lives in Teignmouth is prepared to offer face to face tuition to people wishing to learn the braille music code. She has taught within a special school before retiring, and one of our Braille Bar participants took some lessons with her last month which she found useful.
Christine is prepared to do this from November to March. She would be happy for you to call her on 01626775154 so that she can tell you herself what she can do.
Please note the following during the Christmas and New Year period:
The European Blind Union (EBU) invites you to take part in a survey to enhance the use of braille displays.
Braille displays become more and more important to read and edit text in an electronic way. But the performance of electronic braille should get better.
So EBU wants to talk to braille display and screen readers producers to improve the access to electronic braille.
For this we ask you about your experiences, needs and suggestions in the use of braille displays with computer, smartphone and braille display as a stand-alone device.
Answering the following questions takes you maximum 10 minutes.
Please answer our questionnaire until 29th February 2024.
And please forward this invitation to other persons.
Other versions of the questionnaire in French, Spanish, German and Czech you can find here.
The results of this surway and our further activities will be published on livingbraille.eu.
More information on braille of EBU and the EBU braille working group.
We (The Tactile Times) are once again running an online fully-accessible advent calendar this year. The link is the same as last year (https://games.tactiletimes.org/advent).
Do you use the Queensland Braille Letter Songs? If so, please note there is a new link. If not, please check them out! https://soundcloud.com/visionimpairmentservices/sets/braille-letter-songs
They have also recently released 25 additional songs to help with the learning of numbers and additional contractions, which can be found at the same link.
Braille IT is delighted to announce that its qualifications are ofqual accredited. Adult courses- Level 1 and 2 UEB Braille. Level 3 supporting the development of teaching in Braille.
They have face-to-face classes in Blackburn, Burnley, Clitheroe and Accrington, and can also provide a postal/digital service for the level one and level two qualifications.
We are sorry to announce the death of Dr Mike Townsend. Mike was a significant figure in the world of braille, having been part of the Braille Authority of the United Kingdom (BAUK) for many years and latterly a member of the Braille Subject Area of the UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAAF). In this capacity, he represented the UK on the Executive Committee of the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) between 2012 and 2016, where he also served as Public Relations Officer, and he continued to represent the UK on ICEB’s Public Relations Committee until his death.
An extract from a statement from Torch Trust, where he served as Chair of Trustees, follows:
It is with a heavy heart and a sense of profound loss that we announce the death of Mike Townsend. He and Edith had been on a cruise in the Caribbean when Mike developed a bad cough and collapsed. He was taken to a hospital in Antigua where they found he had a repeat of the pneumonia that he had suffered with a couple of times in recent years. They also found that he had had a cardiac arrest and that his blood pressure was very low meaning that some of his organs were beginning to shut down. He was too ill to move to another island with more of the facilities he needed and despite a brief increase in his blood pressure earlier this week, his body finally succumbed, and he died on 28th November).
Edith has been with him in Antigua and thankfully her sister was able to fly out to be with her before Mike died. Our thoughts and prayers are with Edith, their daughter Christine and the rest of the family as they begin to absorb this news and start their journey of grief. Please do pray for them and particularly for Edith as she has to make arrangements to return to the UK and all that entails and all that will follow it in terms of plans for funerals etc.
We mourn Mike’s death. We grieve the loss of someone who has been so involved in and committed to Torch’s ministry almost since its start. Mike touched the lives of many many people both directly and also in the many contributions he made through Torch and other organisations that he was involved in. We will miss him.