Paul Goddard: volunteer and join us
Paul Goddard, East Sussex Sight Loss Council, highlights what volunteering means to him and why you should join our Sight Loss Councils.
Passionate about making a difference? What to create and influence positive change? Our Sight Loss Councils, led by blind and partially sighted volunteers, are recruiting new members.
Sight Loss Councils are led by blind and partially sighted members who used their lived experience to create positive change. Together, we tackle local issues and work with businesses and service providers to improve the accessibility of their services.
Join us to help ensure visually impaired people in your area can live the lives they want to lead.
Video description
In the video, Sight Loss Council member Paul is sat on a black chair facing the camera. He is wearing a cream t-shirt with a band of multi-coloured stripes. There is a Sight Loss Council banner to his right. The banner says: ‘Led by blind and partially sighted volunteers, we tackle local and national issues, and improve the accessibility of services.’ It also shows the website address: www.sightlosscouncils.org.uk
A slide with blue text is shown when Paul is asked a question by the interviewer, Nicola, who is not shown on camera.
Transcript
Paul: I’m Paul Goddard and I belong to the East Sussex Sight Loss Council.
Nicola: What does being a Sight Loss Council volunteer mean to you?
Paul: It makes me feel good and able to give something back because obviously over the years I’ve used various services, so it’s actually just nice to be able to have the time to do something in a good organisation, but actually helps other people. So, what I get is, is make new friends and find out a lot of what’s going on in the local area and local community, but also with local and national government as well and be able to sort of feed into that, and help shape future projects or campaigns really.
Nicola: Tell us about a Sight Loss Council project that you’ve been involved with.
Paul: One of the projects that we’ve been working on this year, and we’re actually a new Sight Loss Council, we only began in May, is making GP surgeries accessible. So whether that’s information in your preferred format, or whether it’s accessing an appointment or accessing the GP building itself.
My surgery that we actually were going to work with were very, very reluctant and didn’t engage very much. So we had to kind of find a different contact within the local PCT or whatever they’re called these days, and they’re going to try and get us into that surgery. If not, they’re gonna find another surgery for us to work with.
Nicola: Why should other blind and partially cited people join us?
Paul: It’s worthwhile. That you are valued as a volunteer because I think sometimes volunteers are tickbox exercises where, oh, let’s just get a few volunteers and that’ll get us some more funding. Or we’ll say that we’ve got volunteers, but, you know, you have a voice. The Sight Loss Council is a safe platform to raise issues in and to be able to discuss and, and disagree. So it’s really, really good. And I would say, if you can only spare a few hours, then the Sight Loss Council is the thing to volunteer for.
You’ll get so much from it, but you’ll be able to give so much back as well.
Nicola: Join us and become a Sight Loss Council volunteer. To find out more, visit sightlosscouncils.org.uk/join-us
Sight Loss Councils and Thomas Pocklington Trust logos.
End of transcript.