#go active

The picture above shows a group of 25 of us who visited Edinburgh for the Go annual day out on Saturday 23rd August. 17 service users, a few hardy volunteers and 2 staff met at Queen Street Station early in morning and enjoyed a carriage to ourselves, everyone chatted and got well acquainted.

The day started with a walk towards Canongate. A guided group tour at the Scottish Parliament building was very informative and highly recommended.  They are free but need to be booked and only when parliament is in recess. Busy days ahead no doubt!

The skies opened as we reached Princes Street Gardens for our picnic so most of the group got pretty wet, fortunately the sun shone kindly and very brightly after the heavy shower which meant the sandwiches stayed dry and  jackets and trousers soon dried out.

Once fed and watered (ha, ha) we all headed to the tram stop and experienced a smooth tram ride to Edinburgh Park - by now everyone well acquainted and a few laughs were shared on the final train journey home.

Go walk – Strathclyde Park Loch walk

Saturday 19th October

Strathclyde Loch is set within Strathclyde Country Park located in Lanarkshire.

The park covers some 4 km², centred around the artificial Loch. It is located next to the River Clyde between Hamilton and Motherwell. Strathclyde Park forms what used to be known as the Low parks of the now demolished Hamilton Palace and still includes buildings associated with the palace. When the loch was created in the early 1970s it involved the flooding of the old mining village of Bothwellhaugh.The park offers many amenities and attractions such as coarse angling, woodland walks and watersports. The circuit around the loch is an excellent choice for a brisk walk, it’s just about right to get the heart rate up a notch or two or instead take a more leisurely stroll around it and enjoy the open air and stillness of the loch.

The Go group enjoyed a fairly energetic, albeit wet 3.75 mile circuit. Although one of our regular walkers revealed she had walked nearly 10,000 steps on her fancy pedometer!

It wasn’t easy to gain much speed due to the slightly awkward aspect of avoiding puddles that were largely unavoidable!! Fortunately no-one seemed too bothered by this and everyone managed to get some fresh air and exercise and also met a few new faces!

Regardless of the rain, true commitment was shown by our brilliant volunteers arriving on time at the city chambers meeting point with smiling faces. It was just as pleasing to see most of the service users who had booked were not put off.

We dried off and warmed up just enough in the Boathouse cafeteria half way through the walk, only to be met by more drizzle for the second stint! Fortunately at the end of the walk we were met promptly by our friendly community bus driver and soon were able to rest our feet, remove wet coats and travel back to Glasgow city centre in relative warmth and comfort.

The next Go walk on 16th November is currently full but if you want to put your name down on a reserve list you still might get a place. The fact that the walk is full reveals we are really getting good turn out for many of the walks. So much so that we are thinking about running a regular weekly walk in the new year along with our monthly weekend walks. Let us know if you have any ideas for short, safe walks in and around the city centre.

  On Monday 23rd September Go Team staff met up with some service users who were keen to take part in our Indoor Bowling Taster day. One or two had tried bowling in the past before their sight deteriorated, the others were first timers!

The event was held at the West of Scotland Bowling Club near Rutherglen. It was organised in partnership with the Scottish Association of Blind Bowlers, Scottish Disability Sport and representatives from Scottish Indoor Bowling Association (SIBA) and Development Officer Bowls Scotland who were all there on the day. We were grateful also to hear the personal stories of two visually impaired elite players. They shared their experience, skills and enthusiasm for the game.

  A great deal of effort and planning went into this event, so although it was a wee bit disappointing that participant numbers were low it was still very encouraging that those who did take part enjoyed themselves immensely and with the support of SABB they plan to take part in the sport more seriously.

  The session was led by Ron McArthur the National Coach who has many years of experience coaching people affected by sight loss.

He is very keen to generate interest and motivate more visually impaired to try it out. He may well be able to organise a repeat day with Visibility again in the new year if there is sufficient interest, as this was the 1st of many similar events he would like to run through out Glasgow and Scotland.

The SABB website states “No matter what the visual limitations, the game of Bowls is for one and all. With 12 clubs over the country from South Lanarkshire to Aberdeen, SABB - The Scottish Association for Blind Bowlers, promotes and encourages participation in the game. In April this year Scotland played host to the UK VI Indoor Championships at the West of Scotland IBC, and came away with the team championship and a range of medals.”

If you have ever wanted to try Indoor Bowling please contact the secretary at SABB, Grace Whitton on Tel: 01698 852970 Email: [email protected]

Ron McArthur said at the end of the Visibility Go event “I am delighted that we succeeded in giving those there a taster of what bowling is about.”

On Sunday 18th August 26 of us meet at George Square for a day out at Blair Drummond Safari Park. Perhaps not an obvious choice for a largely visually impaired group, however many of our service users had fond memories of visiting when they were young and some were long-time lovers of animals and wildlife, others who simply fancied a sociable chat over high tea!

To be fair the event was arranged to suit a visually impaired group as much as possible. We started off with a snuggle up in a Yurt (a posh tent) where the educational officer showed us some amazing animal artefacts, some of which have been found from naturally deceased birds such as a huge falcon wing and some which had been seized at customs and excise points. For example, as seen in the attached pictures, crocodile skin cowboy boots, a baby crocodile head used as a bowl and a crocodile skull. There were also fancy ivory ornaments and a huge turtle shell.

The photo above shows one of our Go Active participants holding the crocodile skull bowl.

the photo above shows two go Active participants examining feathers and crocodile skin boots.

The rain continued whilst we all huddled in the yurt but kindly stayed in the clouds when we emerged and it stayed dry most of the day, the sun straining to peek through the clouds on occasion. Fortunately after a wander around the pets farm we were indoors again enjoyed a sea lion show, the expert trainer had excellent describing skills and the female sea lions really were on top form with their acrobatics and no one could help but laugh at their unique barking vocals at the end of the show! Wow, they can make some noise! 

We managed to drive through the safari twice the best sights being the lionesses and the fallow deer, the elephants were quite far back and the Rhinos clearly hiding.

The monkeys are no longer able to run riot over cars and vans but we took a boat trip to Chimp Island (learning the important distinction that in fact chimps are not monkeys, they are apes as they have no tail).

A group of regular and one new walker met up with a team of our volunteers at George Square on Saturday 20th July. Our reliable community bus service with it's chirpy driver Peter drove to Luss in the morning sunshine. We arrived at Luss and headed along the beach, unfortunately forced to step around and over the debris left by the previous days sun worshippers (e.g. Irn Bru cans, sodden towels, numerous splayed out arms and legs etc...I'll leave the rest to your imagination)!

Once we got across the beach unscathed we headed to the beautiful Parish church for a wee history film about the church's long and interesting past, right back to the 6th century. Our quarry walk followed which took in a few higgledy piggledy paths and wee short but quite steep ascents. It was very hot so hard work for a few but everyone managed just fine! Apart from the exertion, no doubt a few calories were also burnt off by the strong sun rays!

After wee packed lunches and chatting under a shady tree we all headed back to Glasgow in the bus feeling pleasantly snoozy. Sorry, no picture this time as the group leader didn't remember to take any, oops!

Well!  What can I tell you about Margaret and Neil Rodger?  They have both decided to retire after many years of faithful service at 2 Q.C.  Latterly teaching the wonder of those dots that Louis Braille invented and trying to get us as pupils to make sense of the Braille code.

Now as Roy Castle said, “This takes dedication”.  Margaret and Neil have this in abundance and over the years patiently taught week after week conscientiously.

As they both live in Kirkintilloch they make their way to the class loaded with Braille exercises which have been prepared and embossed at home.  They both have been enthusiastic volunteers since joining the society in the year 2000.    Although Braille is their first love, they also very much enjoy sharing what skills they have freely to many people who are have visual impairments.  They have organised days away ‘doon the watter’ as well as Christmas dinners, not to mention the help that is provided over the phone to many of us who are technically challenged.  So we give thanks to Margaret and Neil for the wonderful service they have provided, not only at 2 Q.C. but also at Playback the magazine for the blind.  Margaret is also secretary of the former pupils of the Royal School for the Blind in Edinburgh.

On Saturday 18th May a group of Go Active participants went for a walk at Whitelee Wind Farm, Eaglesham with a team of enthusiastic volunteers providing invaluable support. The photo above shows the group standing next to one of the turbines. 

Whitelee Windfarm is the UK's largest onshore windfarm. It is located on Eaglesham Moor. The windfarm has an incredible 215 turbines which can generate enough electricity to power over 300,000 homes.

The plan was to walk to the Blackwood Hill viewpoint with views of over 80 miles of countryside on a clear day. It is a mere 1.5 miles from the visitor centre, but the group leader’s map got very soggy and she managed to take the group a little off route. “The turbines all look the same”, was her other feeble excuse! The group all promised they had enjoyed the walk in spite of this and the very wet and blustery weather.

We experienced the wind turbines up close and warmed up afterwards with soup and sandwiches in the Visitor Centre. There is also a very interesting and useful interactive exhibition next to the café for those who want to learn more about renewable energies more generally.