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I dont know if many people are aware of the following, either way there’s no harm in reminding you all. There are ways charities can make extra money by using special web links to sites such as Amazon. I came across an article on the money saving expert web site. I have provided an extract of the article;

Earn charity funds or Nectar points

It’s possible to give charities a boost at no extra cost to you. Simply click through to Amazon from a charity’s special link, log-in and click on the product you want.

When you grab something, it’s recorded and the charity is paid cash. The charity gets around 5% of your purchase – no small beer, especially as it costs you nothing.

Click through to Amazon from there BEFORE you put anything in your basket, otherwise the charities won’t get the money. Charities that do this include: Voluntary Service Overseas, Royal National Institute of Blind People and Epilepsy Action.

If you work for a legit registered UK charity, add it to the Amazon Charity Clicks thread, so MoneySavers can help their favourite causes.

So if you are purchasing anything from Amazon please remember to visit this the RNIB using this link.

I’m going to look and see if the Nystagmus Network have set themselves up with Amazon or other companies that offer similar rewards as I would like to add a link on my site to make it a little easier.

We have now had all the sponsor money in for the Snowdon4Nystagmus 2011 fundraising event. We smashed our target of £500, we never thought we would be able to generate such a large sum of money for charity. A big thanks once again to everyone that supported us

The closing balance of our Just Giving Page is £2,017.04

Taken from our local paper, the Suffolk Free Press.

After reading a Free Press story about little Joshua Bacon, who suffers problems with his eyesight, Sudbury police officers have bought the three-year-old some much-needed equipment.

And this week his mum, Jen, said she wanted to thank the police for their kindness from the bottom of her heart.

Joshua has a condition called congenital nystagmus, which affects one in 2,000 people, causing problems with their sight. He was diagnosed with the condition as a baby.

Now, thanks to the police, Joshua is the proud owner of a tilted desk, some extra large-print story books and a special desktop magnifier for reading, which was donated from the Shona Gill Fund at Sudbury Police Station.

Jen said: “They got in touch after seeing us in theFree Press and kindly bought Joshua some much-needed equipment.

“We would like to say thank you to them for the generous donations as it wouldn’t have been possible without the story.”

For the full story, see this week’s Free Press.

Published on Thu 16th December 2010 11:09 AM

Target: £500.00

Raised so far:  (Updated Jan 2011)
Via Justgiving.com: £1,385.04

£1,435.04£1,717.04£1,817.04

Everyone successfully completed the hike UP and DOWN (The train wasn’t used, although very tempting). A BIG BIG thank you to everyone who took part and helped exceed our target for Nystagmus Network. It was good to see so many people who are not necessarily directly related to us giving their support.

I have taken the time to write a short blog on our experience

Our Story
Our son Joshua was born with Idiopathic congenital Nystagmus. This is a condition that affects his eye sight and therefore means he is registered partially sighted. We are very keen to raise money for research into this condition as there are still many unknowns. We have fantastic friends who all agreed to spend their August bank holiday weekend travelling to Wales to take part in climbing Snowdon to help raise as much for Nystagmus Network. We are very grateful to them and everybody that helps sponsor them.

Day 1 (Pre Snowdon Climb)
We arrived at the camp site to be greeted by the great welsh weather. There was no good pitch to setup camp as everywhere was WET and MARSHY. The ground was so wet a mallet wasn’t required to bang the pegs in, you could simply push them in, only for the wind to catch the tent and pull the peg straight out. We soon realised trainers weren’t going to be any good as we all had wet feet so popped to the local shop to get some wellies and buy some ridged pegs to try and secure the tent as the normal pegs were no good in the ground. The first night was extremely windy and the tent suffered 2 snapped poles during the night.

Day 2 (The climb)
The wind was still blowing with mist type rain everywhere. Assessment of the tent show some pegs had been pulled from the ground so had to check the tent was still well pegged down as we didn’t want to get back from a climb up Snowdon to find the tent was gone.
We made our was to Llanberis and parked up. The staff there informed us the conditions were severer with high wind and extremely cold. Staff warned us to use extra layers, Immediately everyone rushed to the car to get another jumper or any other clothing they could find. It looks so sunny at the base but as we all learnt the weather changes so quickly when climbing mount Snowdon. After a quick coffee and snack we started our climb. I’m glad to say that everyone made it to the top.

The team split into two groups, the faster and slower, I stayed with the slower group.
When talking to the faster group it was clear we experienced different weather conditions, its strange how things can change so fast when on the same mountain. While we both had strong winds we received heavy rain at halfway house, combined with the wind this was very challenging. The faster group had heavy rain and low visibility (2-3m) at the peak. I’m glad that when I reached the summit the visibility was very good as the last time I climbed Snowdon the visibility was very poor. The temperature at the top was very cold, a member of staff was heard quoting minus 2, this combined with the pounding wind brought the conditions even lower but we all made it.. After a few photos (the one attached is taken from the top) we left for our decent back to the cars. The journey down was fairly straight forward although the pressure on the knees was felt by everyone. we set off at 10am and finished at 5:30 and promptly went to the nearest pub for a hot meal and drink (s).

Day 3 (home sweet home)
After a cold achy night sleep and deflated airbed (which everyone seemed to suffer from) everyone woke with aches and pains ready to start a long journey home. With the high winds we ended up with 3 snapped poles. This tent has done me good, I have never had any poles snap on any other camping trip – this highlights just how windy it was.
Our Just giving page is still available using the following link;

http://www.justgiving.com/snowdon4nystagmus

A very quick update….I need a little time to upload and photo shop the rest of the photos and blog the Snowdon experience

Target: £500.00

Raised so far: £1,385.04

Everyone successfully completed the hike UP and DOWN

(The train wasn’t used, although very tempting)

A BIG BIG thank you to everyone who took part & all our sponsors for giving so generously

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

http://www.justgiving.com/snowdon4nystagmus

Snowdon4Nystagmus Photo gallery 2010 taken during the charity climb.

A huge BIG thanks you for all you support and donations we have now reached and exceeded our target which is absolutely fantastic. There’s still time before we take to the mountain so please continue to support us.

Ash & Jen

Ash my fantastic friends and I are climbing Snowdon on August the 29th to raise as much money as we can for Nystagmus research.

Here is the just giving sponsor page. xx
http://www.justgiving.com/snowdon4nystagmus

James, owner of Nystagmus.co.uk is running the Bath half Marathon for Nystagmus. Please take a look at his Just giving page and support

http://www.justgiving.com/nystagmus

There is also a section on his Forum

http://www.nystagmus.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2433

Very young childrenBlind and partially sighted children lack the visual stimulation necessary for learning about the world around them and for developing communication and social skills. They will therefore require more active stimulation and attention than a fully sighted child.

Communication and social skills
Blind and partially sighted children require much more physical and verbal contact to compensate for sight loss. For example, simple forms of communication like smiling may not be possible, and this in turn will affect social skills and bonding. Therefore a blind or partially sighted child will need far more touching, cuddling and verbal reassurance than a fully sighted child. According to the RNIB survey ‘Blind and partially sighted children in Britain: the RNIB survey 1992’, it is stated that 26% of blind and partially sighted children have speech difficulties and there has been no significant change to this figure. Therefore a blind or partially sighted child may also need extra help to develop speech and language skills. This extra attention could consist of formal speech therapy as well as more intensive verbal communication by parents.

Development of daily living skills
Although children do not all develop physical skills in exactly the same way, it is possible to identify ages by which most children develop particular skills. Since visual impairment affects mobility, spatial orientation, depth perception, balance, co-ordination and manipulation; a child may well take longer to develop life skills. For example, the RNIB survey ‘Blind and partially sighted children in Britain: the RNIB survey 2004’, showed that whereas most non-disabled children could walk by 18 months, 13% of the blind and partially sighted children were still not walking by two years of age. The following guide gives an idea of the average ages by which most children have acquired specific skills. Any help required with a particular task beyond the relevant age band should be counted as attention for DLA purposes.  6-10 months: sits up without support, crawls, pulls him/herself up to stand,
passes objects from hand to hand  8-12 months: picks up and eats food  10-16 months: walks unaided, drinks from a cup 14-24 months: uses a spoon to pick up and eat food, plays with building bricks, removes easy clothing, throws a ball  18-24 months: scribbles with a pencil or crayon, kicks a ball  2-3 years: pedals a tricycle, draws straight lines 4
3-5 years: uses a knife and fork  4-5 years: hops on one leg.

Development through play
Blind and partially sighted children will require much more active attention to assist and encourage them to play. Specially adapted or tactile toys alone do not solve the problem. A blind or partially sighted child may need help locating toys and picking them up after dropping them. Difficulties with locating or manipulating toys will inevitably frustrate a child. They may need assistance and coaxing so that they persevere with particular activities like drawing or painting. In CSDLA/655/2002 the Commissioner said: “I consider that carrying a child around to introduce her to the world by tactile means, and what was involved to enable the claimant to sit up unsupported, could properly be regarded as ‘attention’ in connection with the bodily function of sight.”

Supervision
Most young children are continually supervised. However, a ‘safe’ play area for a sighted child can be a hazardous obstacle course for a blind or partially sighted child. There will be an increased risk of tripping over toys or bumping into furniture. This may require a much more direct form of supervision. The ‘Disability Handbook’ recognises potential problems that blind and partially sighted children have. In paragraph 3.1 of chapter 39, it advises that: “If the child is to overcome the disability by being trained to develop effective means of communication, considerable attention must be given by others to this task. In addition, a child who is severely blind or severely deaf initially requires substantially more attention and supervision throughout the day than that required by a child of the same age to protect the child from danger.” School age children Children above the age of five will encounter new problems when they start to attend school. Poor visual acuity will inevitably hamper educational progress. Poor mobility and orientation will make a school environment much more dangerous. A blind or partially sighted child may therefore require a sighted person to provide help with the following in relation to schooling:

• Reading books and text where enlargement is not practical, reading for long periods of time, reading from boards, reading notice boards and identifying coins and notes.
• Describing pictures, maps, diagrams, charts, scientific experiments, computer graphics – it may be impossible to represent these in tactile or non-picture forms. Blind and partially sighted children may require verbal assistance to recognise other people at a distance.
• Guiding to and from school should count as ‘attention’. Blind and partially sighted children will also need more assistance to enable them to find their
  way around their school, operate in the playground, and avoid bumping into obstacles or other children and take part in physical education. School age children with a visual impairment may still have poor mobility skills. According to the RNIB survey ‘Blind and partially sighted children in Britain: the RNIB survey 2004’, only 16% of blind and partially sighted children under 12, and 36% of those over 12, have had mobility training. The need for guiding on unfamiliar routes will count towards the mobility component. Older children who undertake journeys on their own may still require guidance to enable them to follow directions along the route.
• Additional help maybe required by blind and partially sighted school children in locating and cutting up food at mealtimes, ensuring they are clean after eating, ensuring they are clean after using paints and ensuring they are dressed and groomed properly after physical education. Blind and partially sighted children may take longer to master certain dressing skills such as tying shoelaces or ties. Any assistance with homework, in the form of reading or describing texts or diagrams, should also count as attention.

source: www.actionforblindpeople.org.uk