Dinner in the Dark event for Henshaws

I recently attended a 'Dinner in the Dark' event earlier this month, arranged by Emblaze Events based at Manchester Metropolitan University, in support of Henshaws Society for Blind People. The event was held at Revolution in Deansgate Locks and featured an art exhibition, two course meal, live singing, raffle and vodka tasting.

The theme for the evening was that of New York City and included many meticulous details; from little yellow taxis printed on the straws of drinks, to the menu for the evening being designed as a newspaper article from the New York Times!

The art exhibition featured Braille works from one of the students including Braille essays replicated in fine sheets of metal, housed in plinths, and jewellery embossed with Braille letters. Live singing was performed by another of the students, providing a Bluesy and Jazzy New York environment.

The evening began with an introductory cocktail shortly followed by the main course. As this was an insight into what it's like to be blind, blindfolds were essential and long waterproof napkins were also provided for those who may have made a mess! As this is something I am used to, eating with very limited vision, I breezed through my meal and finished rather quickly!

After the main course, it was time for me to give my speech. I opened with an introduction to my sight loss from a very young age and how I discovered Henshaws, talked about how Henshaws have helped me in various ways such as confidence-building, developing independence and learning new skills, and how I now volunteer on a weekly-basis to give back to the charity.

As the night was food-themed I also thought I'd share how visually impaired and blind people, such as myself, prepare and cook meals safely, how we label and identify foods and how we choose our items from the menu when going out for something to eat. I gave an overview of the essential accessibility apps I use on a daily-basis which help me with a wide variety of tasks, and have recently been told that one of the professors at Manchester University, who attended the Dinner in the Dark event, now uses one of those apps in his classes!

My speech was followed with dessert, then the raffle (the prizes included a large Henshaws-themed cookie kindly donated by Millie's Cookies!) with the evening ending with vodka-tasting - comprising of three different flavours to try; maple syrup, lemon meringue and vanilla shortcake.

I had an absolutely wonderful time at the 'Dining in the Dark' evening and would like to say a big thank you to all involved with Emblaze Events, helping to raise funds for Henshaws, and to everyone who came along!

All photos © Emblaze Events

January Recap!

The first month of 2015 has been extremely busy for me with lots of different group meetings and events! Here is a recap of everything I've been involved with during January:

Tuesday, January 6th:
TechTalk group at Henshaws Society for Blind People, discussing the latest accessible software and apps. The first group meeting of the year.

Tuesday, January 13th:
Visit to Henshaws College and the Arts & Crafts Centre in Harrogate as part of my volunteer work placement at the Henshaws Manchester resource centre as part of the marketing team.

Wednesday, January 14th:
Photoshoot with the RNIB

Friday, January 16th:
Rebranding Workshop at Henshaws 

Thursday, January 22nd:
'Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us' user voice group at the Henshaws Resource Centre in Old Trafford.

Saturday, January 24th:
Collections for Henshaws at the Manchester Beer & Cider Festival 2015 at the National Cycling Centre (Velodrome). £4300 raised altogether over the 4 day period!

Tuesday, January 27th:
Holocaust Memorial Day Service at Westminster City Hall in London commemorating 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Burkenau.

Thursday, January 29th:
Visual Impairment Awareness Training (VIAT) at the Henshaws Resource Centre in Old Trafford as part of the final stage of becoming an official volunteer for Henshaws.

Friday, January 30th:
Collection at Morrison's in Eccles for the Guide Dogs Association for the Blind with the Salford Branch.

Saturday, January 31st:
Collection at Morrison's in Eccles for the Guide Dogs Association for the Blind with the Salford Branch.

Pride of Henshaws Ball 2014

This year's Pride of Henshaws Ball took place on Saturday, 22nd November at The Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel in Manchester. This is the second Ball to date, returning after last year's success, celebrating the achievements and hard work of the inspirational service users and volunteers of Henshaws Society for Blind People.

The event was the finale to the Bright for Sight campaign, helping to raise awareness and much-needed funds for Henshaws, to support people living with sight loss and other disabilities. Mark Edwardson, TV news presenter and journalist for BBC North West Tonight, hosted the Ball which included speeches from Nick Marr, Chief Executive at Henshaws, and Andrew Rose, Trustee Board member, as well as a raffle, auction, disco and three-course meal.

The award categories were expanded this year with 4 awards in total; the Technical Star Award, the No Fear Award, the Volunteer of the Year Award and the Gillian Lawrence Award - the main award of the evening named after a long-standing Chairman and Trustee of Henshaws, who sadly passed away in 2012.

I was notified previous to the event that I had been nominated in some of the categories, and was told in the week running up to the Ball that I was a finalist, but couldn't be told which category for and whether I was a winner until the night of the event. I never imagined that the category would, in fact, be the Gillian Lawrence Award!

Bewildered and suddenly nervous, I was gobsmacked to learn that I was in the event programme and that myself and another service user had made it so far. Just to be told that I was a nominee, and then a finalist, was achievement enough for me - but to have my name called out when the awards were presented was just incredible!

I immediately felt the tears coming as it was just such an overwhelmingly emotional moment to be presented the award by Gillian's daughter, Sarah, and to have everyone clapping and cheering for me. I couldn't stop hugging everyone who congratulated me! It truly was, and still is, an immense honour to have won the award for overcoming all of my personal obstacles and for being a positive role model.

It has been an amazing journey over the past year and a half since I first discovered Henshaws at the Manchester Eye Hospital and started the Living With Sight Loss course in June 2013. From being so insecure and self-depricating to now being hugely confident, optimistic and more independent than ever, it has been a transformation that has surpassed all of my expectations!

I have undertaken Braille, Arts & Crafts, Relaxation and Employability courses, learned kitchen and mobility skills over a 9 month period with re-ablement officers, have given speeches and been involved with some fantastic fundraising events and, since the start of September, now have a work placement with the fundraising and marketing team; helping to promote the life-changing work that Henshaws does for so many other people like me.

I have been through the whole cycle of the Pathway to Independence and wish I could put into words how grateful I am to the staff, volunteers and fellow service users of Henshaws for their continued support!

Henshaws Fashion Fundraiser

The Henshaws Fashion Fundraiser took place on Wednesday, 26th of March, at Alderley Edge Cricket Club in Cheshire. I was kindly invited along to the event, to give a speech about my sight loss, how Henshaws has transformed my life over the past 7 months, and also tying in the fashion aspect of the evening by sharing how I purchase and select clothes as a visually impaired person.

The event began with the Henshaws Short Film being played to the audience, introducing the charity to those who may not have heard about it before and to also represent the service users and how the charity has benefitted them - and how the funds from the event will continue to make a difference.

It was then time for my speech, briefly explaining my sight condition and how Henshaws has helped me since I started visiting the Manchester centre, as well incorporating the theme of fashion and providing insight into how I piece together an outfit with the help of handy organisation skills and the RNIB PENfriend - an electronic device for the blind and visually impaired. This may have been something that people never gave much thought to before, so hopefully it was quite interesting and informative! I gave a demonstration of how I use the PENfriend, with machine-washable labels, to differentiate between similar clothes that feel the same - which I have trouble with. Some items can be identified due to the weight of the fabric and any tell-tale details stitched onto the item of clothing, and accessories can be distinguished from one another - such as my jewellery and hair bows - from the particular elements featured including rhinestones and sequins.

My speech is now available on the Henshaws YouTube channel. You can view it below:

I received such a wonderful response from my speech and had some especially lovely comments from people who came up to me towards the end of the night. That really made my evening, particularly since I was quite nervous to start with! This was only my second speech with Henshaws (and my second venture into public speaking overall!) but already I am feeling a lot more comfortable with it.

Great speech from Kim @Glittered about how she picks her clothes using a Penfriend to tell her the colour of the item pic.twitter.com/QwmQWsIuHo
— Henshaws (@Henshaws) March 26, 2014

After my speech and demonstration, the fashion show rolled out with full force. Clothing was kindly donated by local brands for the evening and the models strutted their stuff on the catwalk. Key pieces integrated colour palettes and patterns from the upcoming spring and summer trends, including soft pastels, bold patterns and loose fabrics. A big thank you to Helen for being so kind as to describe each outfit to me!

Halfway through the fashion show, we were treated to a make-up tutorial from freelance make-up artist, Frank, who demonstrated some of the latest looks for the spring and summer including make-up from MAC and Sleek; with winged eyeliner, contoured features, peach blush and a light pink lip.

After the fashion show wrapped up, it was time for the raffle prizes to be handed out! I drew out each winning raffle ticket and the wonderful prizes included afternoon tea, John Lewis vouchers and a champagne experience. Well done to everyone who won something, including our very own photographer for the evening, Keith Ogden!

The Mulberry Alexa bag, in soft buffalo leather, was up next - generously donated by Mulberry. Congratulations to Sarah (@sarahmarginson) for winning the bag. Very well deserved, and the envy of everybody that evening!

Everyone who attended the event received a goody bag, filled with all sorts of wonderful items - including a Sebastian Shaper Zero Gravity hairspray, Hugo Boss Bottled eau de toilette sampler, Slater Heelis pen, and L'Occitane En Provence gifts; samples of Repairing Shampoo for Dry & Damaged Hair (Red's The Best of Beauty 2013 and The Ultimate Natural Beauty Bible Winner 2014), Immortelle Precious Serum (Harper's Bazaar's Beauty Hot 100 List 2012) and Immortelle Precious Cream. I've linked to all of the products and their official websites so that you can have a closer look at the ingredients, item descriptions and prices of the full-sized products.

Also included in the gift bag was a Henshaws leaflet, detailing the work that the charity does and how the money from fundraising and donations is distributed across the various services - such as Friendship Matters groups, the Children and Families service, the Patient Support service at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, IT training, Visual Impairment Awareness training, and independence courses. It costs £510,000 to run the Manchester centre in one year, which is just over £2,000 per day.

I had an absolutely fantastic evening, and want to give a big thank you to the team at Henshaws for inviting me to the event and for their wonderful support and encouragement for my speech - including Helen, Louisa, Jo, Glenn and Hayley. Also a big thank you to Keith for the photographs and to everyone who attended the event and helped to raise £2,000 for Henshaws!

I recently uploaded an AudioBoom snippet about the Henshaws Fashion Fundraiser, which you can either listen to here or by clicking on the player below.

Champagne & Chocolate Evening with Henshaws

Last night I attended a champagne and chocolate evening, organised by Playhouse Events and held at Libby's Bread and Wine in Cheshire, supporting Henshaws Society for Blind People.

Canapes and champagne were to be served first, and then I would be giving a speech about my sight loss journey and how the Henshaws charity have made a difference to my life. Then, The Naked Chocolatier team would be making an appearance with a chocolate workshop; making truffles and having us guess the mystery flavours, as well as blindfolded chocolate lolly decorating!

When Jo and I arrived, we said hello to the ladies at Playhouse Events and were then seated. The table was decorated with lots of lovely things including flowers, candles, perfume samples, Henshaws cupcakes and nibbles! We had our first glass of bubbly (everyone was given a pouch with two gems inside, and each gem would allow you to have a free drink - a lovely idea!) and then the room began to fill up with guests.

Canapes were served first, and then it was time for me to give my speech! Jo guided me to the middle of the room, and I was introduced to everyone before then speaking about my sight loss journey, how I discovered Henshaws, how they have helped to dramatically improve my quality of life over the past 7 months since I started using the service, and my aspirations for the future. I was extremely nervous as this was my first ever speech in front of a considerable amount of people, but I think it went rather well and I kindly received a large round of applause when I'd finished!

Champagne and canapes continued to go around the room, and raffle tickets were sold with some amazing prizes which included massage and facial treatments, hair and beauty products, makeovers, reflexology sessions, flower arrangements, champagne and wine gift sets, a hamper, and a chance to have a session with a personal trainer.

It was then time for the Naked Chocolatiers and their workshop! Oliver Dunn introduced his company and gave a bit of background into how it was set up and the sort of events that they do. He then had his chocolatiers introduce themselves - and the room got considerably louder and giddier - so I'm guessing the guests were enjoying the topless men on show!

The chocolatiers began to prepare their ingredients for making the truffles and needed volunteers to help them. I thought I would give it a go when more volunteers were requested, and helped to pipe out the dark chocolate truffles. It was nice to meet the chocolatiers and have a chat with them whilst they helped me with the piping bag, and I joked that I must be the only girl in the room not ogling them!

When the truffles had set, the naked chocolatiers then went around the room handing out the mystery flavours for us to guess. I thought I was going to be quite good at this experiment, as my taste sense is much better than my sight and hearing combined, but I didn't get either correct! Admittedly, I've never had chilli chocolate or Jägermeister before, so I didn't recognise the flavours too well.

It was then time for blindfolded chocolate lolly decorating! The chocolatiers prepared the lollies and icing, and everyone had to put a blindfold on in order to write their name on their assigned lolly to demonstrate how hard it is to do something when you have impaired vision.

Obviously I didn't need to be blindfolded for the task, and achieved the feat of making even more of a mess than anybody that actually was! It was lots of fun though. I've never had the opportunity to decorate with chocolate before, so this was a new and exciting experience!

The chocolatiers' decorating versus mine. I don't think they'll be hiring me any time soon!

When everyone in the room had had a go of blindfolded decorating and the chocolate icing had set, the winner of the best lolly was announced and awarded a YSL makeover. Very well done to Linda!

At the end of the evening, the winning raffle tickets were drawn and the prizes were handed out. Before leaving, some of the guests approached me and congratulated me on my speech - with one lady saying that she absolutely loved my voice (something I've never heard before!) and another lady who said that she had no idea how I coped with daily tasks, especially after she'd had a go of the blindfolded decorating experiment and saw just how difficult it can be.

I had my photo taken with Oliver, and then it was then time to say our goodbyes to everyone before journeying home.

I want to say a massive thank you to Playhouse Events for such a wonderful evening, the Naked Chocolatier team for the yummy truffles, chocolate lollies and entertainment, Barefoot Wines for the bubbly throughout the evening and to Henshaws for inviting me along to the event. Thank you all so much!