News

The Braille Authority of Slovakia have produced a 14-minute video highlighting some of the issues faced by blind people and promoting the value of braille. You can watch it here.

In our last Masterclass before the Christmas break, we’re delighted that Kim Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library (part of Perkins School for the Blind), will be joining us again. Kim is author of the book “Drawing with your Perkins Brailler”, which includes step-by-step directions for creating 36 different drawings including shapes, animals and subjects with holiday and transportation themes.

In this Tuesday’s session, she will use Christmas-themed drawings to explain the concepts behind using braille cells to create pictures. Bring a Perkins and some paper and follow along and, by the end of the session, you will have your very own festive pictures made entirely of braille dots!

And don’t worry: if you came to Kim’s excellent session last year, this year’s pictures are brand new!

Register for our Masterclass with Kim charlson here.

To join by phone, please use these details:

• Phone number: 0131 460 1196
• Meeting ID: 824 7645 2710
• Passcode: 123456

World Braille Day Conference from The Braillists Foundation and Sight and Sound Technology.

• 4th January 2023
• 9.15am to 12.45pm
• Online conference, free to attend
• Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqce6uqDotH93Po0zPwiPhOiiq7WJG3Bbz

Wednesday 4th January is World Braille day, and we are delighted to be hosting our inaugural Braille Conference, in association with Sight and Sound Technology.

During this half-day online event attendees will hear directly from visually impaired people about the continuing need for braille and its potential for improving their educational, employment and leisure opportunities.

Whether you work with teachers, classroom assistants, disability professionals, members of academic staff at a college or university, family members or braille users there’s something here for everyone. Myths and misconceptions will be challenged, questions answered and sources of help and support identified.

The conference will include a keynote address by well-known BBC broadcaster Peter White, as well as panel discussions and workshops, as we explore:

• Braille at school
• Braille in Further/Higher Education and Employment
• Braille for Leisure

The event is free and will take place from 9.15 to 12.45.

Please register here to attend and a detailed programme for the day will be sent to you closer to the time.

In addition to our collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology, we are pleased to present an evening panel discussion for World Braille Day focussing on braille technology: its past, present and future. We will be joined by historians, people working in the braille technology industry today and developers of the next generation of braille hardware and software.

The event will take place on Wednesday 4 January at 7:00 PM, and you will need to register in advance. This is a separate registration link to both our regular Masterclasses and the event with Sight and Sound. Please email [email protected] if you have difficulties completing the form.

Register for the World Braille Day evening event here.

To join by phone, please use these details:

• Phone number: 0131 460 1196
• Meeting ID: 875 3606 7824
• Passcode: 123456

On the morning of world braille day, join us for our inaugural conference celebrating braille in all its forms. Whether you work with teachers, classroom assistants, disability professionals, members of academic staff at a college or university, family members or braille users there’s something here for everyone.

Please register here to attend and a detailed programme for the day will be sent to you closer to the time.

N.B. we apologise to those who attempted to register last week – we accidentally promoted the wrong link! The link above has been corrected and should now work in the usual way. Please email [email protected] if you encounter difficulties.

At its meeting on 11 November 2022, the Board of Trustees was pleased to formally appoint Elaine Cheong to the position of Treasurer. This followed an extensive recruitment campaign both inside and outside the sector. We were particularly impressed with Elaine’s appreciation of and commitment to our mission, and are certain that she will provide valuable knowledge and insight into our financial processes and outcomes.

Elaine writes:

My name is Elaine Cheong. I am originally from Singapore and have been living in the UK for the past 24 years. I came to the UK to complete my ACCA, which stands for Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. In 2016, I decided to go for another professional qualification, this time in Human Resources Management, which was awarded by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Having come from SME and Start-up environments in my career as a Financial Controller, I am very hands-on and have brought Accounting and HR functions in-house – and that include process improvements and system implementations.

I was a Trustee at The Biodynamic Association; all biodynamic farmers and growers practice organic methods of production, and share very similar certification standards. Both also share similar aims and ideals, but biodynamics has metaphysical and spiritual roots that organics does not. On a monthly basis, I casted an eye on the Income & Expenditure Statement as well as the Budget.

I would like to join The Braillists Foundation as a Treasurer because I believe in her Mission: More Braille! In the middle of the Pandemic in January 2021, I bought myself a set of 8 books and CDs from RNIB to learn Dot-to-Dot Braille. I wanted to learn Braille in the event of losing my sight, I can be independent. One of the many interesting things I have discovered about myself while learning Braille is, although I am right-handed, I have to read the braille with my left forefinger … which is great to put my right brain into gear!

I look forward to working with all members of the Board and stakeholders in time to come.

Elaine will take over responsibility for the financial functions of the Braillists from January, and we very much look forward to working with her.

We will be taking our customary break over the Christmas period. The last event of 2022 will be our Book Club on Thursday 22 December, and we will re-open for World Braille Day on Wednesday 4 January 2023.

Enquiries received at our help address will be answered as soon as possible after our return.

We would like to take this opportunity to thannk you all for your engagement with and support of the Braillists during 2022, and to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a prosperous 2023.

George Bell has been at the helm of Techno-Vision Systems for at least 35 years. In that time, he has brought many blindness products to the UK market, repaired numerous machines which would have otherwise been condemned, and provided countless hours of technical support. He is particularly well-known for his involvement with the Duxbury Braille Translator, not only as UK sales and support but also through his tireless oversight of the documentation.

As we approach the end of George’s long and established career, we thought it would be fitting to spend some time in conversation with him, picking out the highlights of the past three and a half decades and thinking about what the future might look like.

There will also be an opportunity for the audience to ask their own questions and pay tribute to the vast amount of work that George has done to benefit blind and partially sighted people in the UK and around the world.

The event will take place at the usual time of 7:30 PM, but on Thursday 1 December instead of our usual Tuesday slot. The details, however, remain the same:

• Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYpcO-sqzktG9TvgYRqSttK4_cqV7zNAiby
• Phone number: 0131 460 1196
• Meeting ID: 824 7645 2710
• Passcode: 123456

From 8:30-9:00 PM, TAVIP members can participate for their monthly get together on any aspect of Technology. Others are free to join and encouraged to join TAVIP. Membership is free: www.tavip.org.uk

If you are passionate about braille and have always wanted five minutes of fame, look no further!

Various regions of ITV News are preparing reports for World Braille Day on 4 January and, as part of this, they would love to interview braillists about how they use braille, the role of braille technology and the future of braille.

The interviews will be recorded in advance at the braille user’s location, and they would like to be able to show the user engaging with braille in some way – either reading or writing.

If you live in:

• Norfolk, Suffolk or Essex
• Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire or Northamptonshire

Please contact Callum Fairhurst at ITV East Anglea: [email protected] or 07717 361864

If you live in:

• Devon or Cornwall
• Bristol, Somerset or Gloucestershire

Please contact Graham Lewis at ITV West Country: [email protected] or 07799 861526

We look forward to seeing the finished reports!

The Tactile Times, the world’s first newspaper by young braillists, for young braillists is pleased to announce that its 2022 online advent calendar is now open for business! With a festive, braille-themed surprise waiting behind every door and an interactive countdown to the 25th, it’s set to be the perfect way for young braille enthusiasts all around the world to celebrate the build-up to the big day!

If that’s not enough, following a successful pilot in 2021, the Tactile Times elves (who are all braille users and experts in assistive tech themselves) have been busy behind the scenes making sure that the calendar works with as many different kinds of devices as possible including BrailleNotes, iPads, laptops and much, much more.

You can access the calendar using the below link: https://is.gd/JmoVz0

The Tactile Times is a fun, online newspaper edited by Ellie, Lexy and Theo. United by their shared love for all things braille, it first came into being when they collectively realized that there was no newspaper that published articles about the sort of things that they were interested in as young braillists.

Free to read online and with ambitious plans to begin hardcopy circulation in 2023, the newspaper has developed a loyal, international audience of blind children and teenagers, all bound by their appreciation of the paper’s eclectic selection of tech, jokes, sports and event listings with coverage geared towards fellow blind readers in a way that only The Tactile Times knows how.

You can learn more about the paper and subscribe by visiting https://www.tactiletimes.org.