Since Brighton Society for the Blind was founded in 1860 a central tenet has been care for the elderly. To ensure the elderly visually impaired of Brighton and the surrounding area are cared for we run a wide variety of day services, combining social, mental and physical activities to help keep body and mind as lively as possible.

• Social groups - these give members a chance to get together and chat, gossip, play games and make new friends.

• Art & Craft gives people a chance to express themselves, practise skills and learn new ones.

• Re-training in daily living skills - if a person has recently lost their sight, we give them the chance to relearn skills such as cooking, which can be very dangerous to the visually impaired.

• On-site hairdresser - we provide a hair dressing and grooming service for those who find it very difficult to get out on their own.

• We have regular Tea dances with live music, which provides a great deal of fun for our more active members.

• The ’Moonlight’ magazine on tape is produced in-house and sent out to our members by free-post. It provides news, poetry and interviews for our members, and keeps us in touch with people we rarely meet.

• Our Braille, Large print and audio tape Lending Library gives members the chance to keep reading, even with failing eyesight.

• Hydrotherapy in our pool helps ease aching muscles and joints. It is very good for relieving the pain of illnesses such as arthritis. The elderly people using our day services find it very helpful.

Within the day centre we serve two hot meals a week and monitor the health of members to ensure they are using their doctor and not allowing minor complaints to become major. Many of our elderly members have only recently become visually impaired, which can be a very difficult time in their lives. To try to make this as easy as possible for them our staff are very reassuring and we make our day centre as friendly and open as possible.

Grace became visually impaired seven years ago and now has severe arthritis giving her mobility problems. She comes to the Day Centre twice a week and uses Art & Craft for weaving, collage making and most recently a pottery project with the local Arts Council. She uses our minibus for transport to and from our centre. Due to her mobility problems her time with us is often the only chance she has to get out of her house.

Robert is a very independent man who is determined not to let his lack of sight impede him in any way. He plays bowls with our group at a local green, and comes to the centre once a week to meet up with friends and join in with other games. Being visually impaired has in no way stopped him cheating whenever he can get away with it.

Pamela came for our help when she was ‘registering’ as a blind person, a process that can be very traumatic after a lifetime of sight. Having found our support very helpful in her time of need she regularly comes to the day centre to meet her friends and provide moral support to others going through the same process.

"Since joining the Day Centre I've had a new lease of life. When I became blind I thought my life was over, but now I'm doing more than ever!"

Using the training kitchen

Refurbishment - the rooms used by the day services greatly need new furniture. The current items are second or third hand and some pieces are beyond repair. It will cost £5,000 to refurbish the decent furniture, buy a small number of new chairs, and redecorate the social room of the day centre to bring it a brighter and more welcoming atmosphere.

Staff wages - the staff form the core of our services for the elderly and although it can seem unattractive to fund them, their work is vital to the Society. We need a further £6,000 for our Day Services staff this year.

Ceramics Studio - to expand our Art & Craft facilities we would like to install a small studio for creating pottery pieces and models. It will be used by our older members and by the visually impaired children who use the centre with their own services. The studio costs £9,600.

Art & Craft supplies to buy wicker for weaving, wool for knitting, glue, collage material and so on, we need £300.

We also require General funds which go towards subsidising food, trips to interesting places and Christmas shopping for those who are generally immobile, subsidising transport and covering minor expenses such as postage.