News

Braille and Beer after Sight Village, Tuesday 17 August

For the first time in nearly a decade, Sight Village will be held at its home venue of Queen Alexandra College, Court Oak Road, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 9TG. It will be open 9:00 AM-5:00 PM on Tuesday 17 August and 9:00 AM-3:30 PM on Wednesday 18 August, and pre-registration is essential.

A wealth of braille products will be exhibited over the two days from suppliers including RNIB, Sight and Sound Technology, HumanWare and, of course, Bristol Braille Technology.

Sadly, there is a limited number of exhibitors this year due to COVID-19, and the Braillists won’t have a presence at the exhibition itself. However, a few of us will be meeting for one of our “Braille and Beer” events after the first day, and you’d be very welcome to join us.

We’ll be meeting at The Old House at Home, 193, Lordswood Road, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 8QP. The pub is 700 yards from the College, with a bus stop just outside.

We hope to be able to demonstrate a small selection of braille products during the evening including the Canute and Orbit Reader. If you have a braille product that you’d like to show to other braille enthusiasts, please bring it along!

We will also be bringing A4 braille frames, styluses and 8-cell word forming blocks to give away to anyone who wants one, and offering free 1:1 training on the use of this equipment to anyone who needs it. If you have already obtained your equipment by post, but need help using it, this is an ideal opportunity for you to receive it.

The gathering will be very informal and there are no set start or end times, but you can expect a flurry of activity at about 6:00 PM, once people have packed down after Sight Village.

This event is being supported by Bristol Braille Technology CIC. If you would like to meet up at QAC and walk over to the pub in a group, or you have other enquiries on the day, please find Ed or Steph on the BBT stand or call 020 3893 3392.

Perkins Braillers Available on Free, Long-Term Loan

N.B. this article is for historical interest only. All Perkins Braillers have now been taken and there are no more currently available.

Our partner organisation, Vision Through Sound, which has been managing our free equipment, has been offered a sizeable donation of Perkins Braillers from Portsmouth Association for the Blind, with logistics support from Bristol Braille Technology CIC.

Stephanie Sergeant, Proprietor of Vision Through Sound and well-known to many readers of this Newsletter, has generously agreed to make some of these machines available to Braillists members on free, long-term loan. They will be offered on a first come, first served basis, but with priority given to people who are learning braille.

It is possible that the first few machines will be available to collect at the Braillists’ “Braille and Beer” gathering next week. If you’d like to reserve one, please email Stephanie at [email protected].

We would like to place on record our heartfelt thanks to Vision Through Sound for allowing our readers to take advantage of this fantastic offer, and to Bristol Braille Technology and Portsmouth Association for the Blind for making this initiative possible.

The Passing of Jim Taylor

We were extremely saddened to receive the message below from Mobeen Iqbal. Although Jim was not himself a member of the Braillists community per se, he was involved in a number of braille-related projects in his lifetime and many readers will have known him.

It is with great sadness that I report the death of Jim Taylor. He was resting after his breakfast. A member of staff looked in on him and he had sadly passed away peacefully in his sleep. I know that Jim touched the lives of many people. I have been in touch with Jim regularly over the last 10 years. He always looked on the bright side of life, a quality I greatly admired. His knowledge of Braille and music was admirable and second to none. He was very ill over the past couple of years. Jim, Your life was a blessing, your memory a treasure. You are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure. May you rest in peace. You will always be remembered in our prayers.

Using the Focus Blue Braille Displays, Thursday 12 August at 2:00 PM

As part of their “Unpacking Tech that Makes you Feel at Home” series, join Sight and Sound for a webinar all about the fifth generation of the popular Focus Blue braille displays. The session will be presented by Ron Miller, Blindness Technology Product Specialist at Vispero (manufacturers of the Focus line of displays), who is himself blind and a braille user.

The session will also cover other hardware products from Vispero including the Pearl camera.

Register for Unpacking Tech that Makes you Feel at Home: https://zoom.us/w/91508728603

Getting to Know the BrailleSense 6, 23-26 August at 2:00 PM

The BrailleSense 6 is an extremely powerful and sophisticated device, offering all the features of modern Android smartphones and tablets with the traditional note-taker look and feel. Join Sight and Sound Technology for a series of four webinars where you can find out more about this incredible machine and start to learn how to use some of its features:

  • Monday 23 August: Setting up and using email
  • Tuesday 24 August: Using Google Drive.
  • Wednesday 25 August: Downloading Android apps.
  • Thursday 26 August: Using new features: Dictionary, Bookshare and Web Radio.

All the sessions run from 2:00 PM-3:30 PM, and you can register for them using this link:

Register for Getting to Know the BrailleSense 6: https://zoom.us/w/99064307639

Media Page and Newsletter Archive Updated

Just in time for the holidays, we’re delighted to announce that all of our Masterclasses in the “Braille for Academic and Career Development” series have now been transcribed. We also have handouts for some of our more recent Masterclasses. All of these have been added to our Media page and we will continue to add resources as they are made available to us.

We have also brought our Newsletter Archive up-to-date.

Reminder: Summer Break

We’d like to gently remind you that there are now only three more weeks of events until our summer break. We will finish with the Book Club on Thursday 29 July and restart with the Book Club on Thursday 2 September. We will not be checking emails or running events during this period, but you are welcome to continue to use the Forum and listen to Braillecast.