Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas,
and a wonderful New Year!

2013 has been a great year for me and I have a lot to be thankful for. Opportunities have come my way thanks to Henshaws and the RNIB, two organisations and charities that are very close to my heart. I've met so many wonderful people and taken part in some truly amazing things this year thanks to them!

Here's to an even better 2014!

Tesco Collections for Henshaws

Myself and Glen at Tesco Stretford collecting

for Henshaws Society for Blind People

I volunteered to help with collections at Tesco in Stretford yesterday, which is very close to where Henshaws is situated in Trafford. I wanted to volunteer my services primarily to show my support and appreciation for everything that the charity has done for me since I started going to the centre in late August. It has changed my life drastically, and has given me a social life for the first time in 8 years - as well as providing me with support with daily living skills, mobility and Braille.

I had a lot of fun with the team from Fundraising and Marketing, and wishing Tesco shoppers a very Merry Christmas as they kindly donated to our buckets. We raised £246.05 altogether!

We also received a tweet from the official Tesco twitter account, wishing us the best of luck with our collections!

— Tesco (@Tesco) December 18, 2013

I had a wonderful time and am very eager to volunteer again in the New Year, and help in any way that I can to support a charity that is very close to my heart. A big thank you to Tesco for having us, and to everyone that donated!

RNIB's Young Illustrator 2014 Competition for Insight Magazine

I entered the RNIB's Young Illustrator competition earlier this week, after spending most of the month working on my entry, and checked my e-mails just now to find out that I won! I'll be producing an illustration for every issue of Insight magazine in 2014 as the prize, as well as having my article included in next month's issue regarding the English campaigning network we've set up. alongside the RNIB.

The theme was "next steps", so I wanted to make it personal and show my own next steps for the future; completing my braille course, training for a guide dog, more campaign work (hence the image of Parliament) and mobility training with my long cane. I'm so thrilled, and very grateful to everyone at RNIB's Insight magazine for choosing my entry!