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THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT
CIRCLE OF LIGHT
NEWSLETTER
Of the
Lighthouse Association for the Blind
Tel.: (021) 591 1544/554 / P.O Box2051Fax: (021) 591 1599 / CAPE TOWN
E-mail: / 8000
Newsletter No.649for June and July2014
Editor:Philip Theron
E-mail:
EDITORIAL
And so the evenings are getting quite a bit colder, especially for those upcountry. I trust that you have not fallenprey to the sniffles and coughss, so far health hassmiledon me and I can only say Praise the Lord.
We have decided that the editor of the newsletter is going to rotate, that means that Andre Neethling is going to do the next one, and then we will decide who is next. I thought thatit isbetter that way so that it won’t become stale.
AGM.
As you know on the 19th of this month it is the AGM, and I would urge every one to be there, especially the paid up members. The members have thinned out considerably and it is winter time as well. For those that are interested in statistics the financial report will be read, the chairman’s report, and obviously the election of new committeemembers. The only voting that is going to take place will be between EugeneRoberts and myselffor theposition of chairman. The others are Unopposed. It was decided on acommittee meeting in the beginning of the year that the nominations need to be in a month before the time, for people to get to know who they are voting for. At the last board meeting however, the board members decided that theywere not happy with that and simply ruled that proposals can be made at the AGM as well. Personally I do not see the purpose of the committee if any ruling can be overturned at will. No wonder we lost a lot of members, and a lot of people that arestill there are unhappy. So let us please the board and except proposals up until the AGM and keep them happy.
The members proposed are: For chairman, EugeneRoberts, Philip Theron. For vice chairman Ferdi Venter.Committeemembers Andre Neethling, Jenny Smit, Stevin Colman, Joann Van niekerk, and Madeline Van Der Burg.
Just a reminder againthat you cannotvote if you did not pay your subscription. And that goes for any person that wants to nominate someone or stand for a position.
Enough of politics, there are nicer things in the club.
Camp fier
On the 15th of last month we had (as was advertised) the imaginarycamp fire, I think that it was a huge success, in fact others also told me that theythoroughlyenjoyed it. Ferdi and myself broughtguitars with and the people were singing, we even had some of the members of the Blouberg rotary joining in.We had such a lot of fun and much laughter. I think we ended later than usual but I do not think that any one minded. Maybe the drivers because we should remember that they get to bed very late.
The birthdays for this month are as follows:
Nettie Coetzee 30 June
Cheryl Kruger 24 June
Andre Vosloo 23 June
If there is anyone I did not mentioned please let Pulcherie know so that she can add it to the list
Hereis a notice that I got from Joann.
Ctsb turned 85!
Cape Town Society for the Blind turned 85 and held an Interfaith Service on the 14 May in Salt River. It was well attended and 7 candles were lit by 7 blind women to honour the 7 women who started The Society. Happy Birthday Ctsb and may many a blind person enter and exit its doors equipped with skills and knowledge. .
Tragedy!
I got the following bad news from Joann.
Lighthouse Member loses her home. Jeannette Rodgers also known as Jenny, who resides in Strandfontein, house burnt down on 21 May.Ffortunately there was nobody home and thus nobody injured. The saddest was that the family lost everything. The house has to be rebuilt from scratch. The neighbours in her Community gave her and her family accommodation, meals and clothes. Even Lucy the family dog is being taken care of by the neighbours. A Take-away cafe around the corner from her home also provided the family with meals in the first week. A Pastor and his family has given Jenny and her children 2 rooms to live in . Wow…. what a wonderful person with a beautiful smile Jenny is and I experienced that when taking Jenny some donations from home and so did Sandra and Marisa from CTSB. So many people came to offer help and assistance when we were there. She is a mom of three. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family as they have a roof over their heads on this cold wet winter that is upon us.
I have a report from Andre Neetlingconcerning the camp at Wortelgat, This was advertised in one of the previousnewsletters.
Wortelgat
On 7 May a handful of Lighthouse members took to the road with trusted Lofty all the way to the annual High ground camp at Wortelgat near Hermanus. If you are thinking; “Oh, Hermanus. … … Nice big house on the cliffs overlooking the whole of walker bay, and loads of tourists and shops to please every shopping spree.”
Well, not totally.
Wortelgat is situated at the end of a 10km dirt road. That leads from a side street out of a small town called Stanford.
With mounting anticipation the noise levels got higher and higher the closer the members got to Wortelgat. It looked like an erupting volcano the moment the bus came to a stop.
It was remarked that there was a few people that got out of the bus even before one of the dogs had a thought of getting out.
Old friends and previous campers embraced, and in no time all the luggage was offloaded, and Lofty made his way back to civilisation.
Leaving the blind to play in the bush.
Camp director Emma and her well groomed team insured that ropes were put up for the blindies to walk round freely from one house (promptly dubbed the Vineyard) to the Lake house or down to the ladies house where the fires burned big and high.
The dogs were first to point out just how near to the water’s edge the camp is by jumping in every now and then and then running out the water and up to the nearest
group of people giving them a good shower.
There was no doubt in anybody’s mind on how much fun this weekend was going to be, and in no time new campers felt at home in this new environment as if they came there every weekend.
It was with difficulty that Emma managed to get silence in the main dining room to start welcoming people and explaining the where, what and how for the weekend.
The very first night all the campers and volunteers gathered round a bonfire and expressed themselves in singing a song that best described them.
Songs like Lonely, Hot stuff and all the way to a stunning rendition of Love changes everything by Cairie, that got her a standing ovation.
The weekend was not just to pack off in the bush and to lay in the sun and chat.
Oh no. A lot of the weekend is to do with challenging your own abilities and facing your fears. Trusting that your fellow campers will be there when you need them, to try and better your aim for the archery, or for moral support when climbing up a rock wall that towers over the trees only held in place by your own hands and feet.
To ensure the safety of the campers a trained safety officer is on standby if a cramp gets the better of a climber, or if the fear of heights gets just too much and the camper tumbles down the wall. The safety officer would block their fall and regulate the speed in which they return to mother earth.
Whether it was with spider like agility that you went up the wall, all the way to the top, or if you took 20 minutes to climb 2 meters, everybody got shouts of encouragement and hugs and words of comfort to those that faced a deep and strong fear, that was faced head on and triumphed over.
In other parts of the camp a group of treasure hunters were preparing for a long hike through the bush all the way to the beach following a compass and clues looking for the hidden Jeanie in the bottle.
After certain treasure hunters showed just how near the human race is to their primate ape cousins ,they started climbing up and down the rocks and discovered an old man made cave, but no jeanie in a bottle. With the sun setting over the Atlantic and the endless beach stretching out, the four hunters and their German companion called it a day. They headed back to camp with a quick and light tread as they knew that treasure in the form of “braaivleis” was waiting.
In what for so many felt like a blink of an eye the campers were called together for the annual group photo, and for this year the front veranda of the Lake house was selected.
With the majestic and towering Overberg mountain range in the background, the more than 2km broad lagoon behind, the campers, on a lush and green lawn surrounded by singing birds and the rich and lush growth of nature surrounding them, one and all stood together capturing this last fellowship with one another for the last time.
With mixed emotions campers started to say good bye to one another, contact numbers were exchanged and promises for continued contact was made as the campers started to pack the combies as they slowly piled in.
All the war cries, the competitions won and lost, the diving from the ferry, the kayaking, the sing along and praise and worship now only part of the memories of yet another very successful camp at Wortelgat.
The Lighthouse members stood strong in living out the vision of Lighthouse by interacting with other blind and normal sighted people. Showing that no matter the age or physical abilities, we can all stand together and learn from one another.
Worcester Rally results 17 May2014
1st Cheryl Kruger 2nd Dries Burger 3rd Vincent van Blerk
Partially sighted rally results
1st Yolanda Pretorius 2nd Anton van Tonder
The next rally in Ceres will be on 13 September 2014
The next article I received was from Nadia and it is all about assistive devices, enjoy and be jealous.
All of us blindies at some or other stage during our lives need some or other kind of assistive device to ensure that we can access the same information about our surroundings as our sighted friends and/or family members. I am a gadget fanatic and would like to share details of some of the assistive devices I am using.
THE COLORINO COLOR READER
Because this is one of the first things I use when starting my day every morning I have decided to discuss it first. The colour reader is a small rectangular device with a camera lens at the front end and 2 round buttons on top of the device. When pressing the camera lens against an object you press the first of the 2 buttons. A female voice will read you the colour of the item the lens is focusing on. The 2nd button is used to determine if a light is on in the room where you are when pressing the button. The colorino identifies up to 150 different colour shades. I am mainly using it for identifying the colour of different items of clothing, but you can also use it to determine ripeness of fruits and veggies and also when you are walking in your garden and want to know the colour of the different flowers. The colorino costs around R1700.
TALKING BLOOD PRESSURE MONITOR
Blood pressure is not something to play around with, so when I got diagnosed with high blood pressure problems I immediately got myself a talking blood pressure monitor. The device is very compact which makes it easy to take along on holiday or just a weekend away from home. The buttons are raised and the device is very easy to use. There are 3 smaller buttons for accessing the memory settings and then there are the 2 larger buttons used to switch the machine on/off and for measuring your blood pressure. After fitting the arm cuff it is as easy as pressing the most right of the 2 large buttons near the front of the machine and wait for the female voice to announce that it is ready. Then you press the left button to start the process of measuring your blood pressure. The female voice will announce your systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as your heart rate. I paid R1200 for this device a few years ago.
Having described these 2 very valuable devices I have to admit that I already installed apps on my iPhone 4S which I successfully used to perform some of the functions discussed above. The light detector app is working extremely well for detecting the brightness of the light in rooms. Tap-tap-see is doing a great job at identifying objects and their colours. Another app I recently downloaded which I find very useful is "Heart Rate". This app is using the phone's camera to detect your pulse rate. What makes it even more user friendly for us is that you hear beeps for every heart beat while measuring your heart rate. Further to this I installed apps to scan and read printed documents, and a few others just to tell me more about my environment like "Where am I at" and "Find my Way". For those battling to sleep, try the "Sleep Maker" apps.
DYMO TAPE HOLDER
Something a bit less electronic I am finding very useful is the Dymo Tape Holder. It is designed to fit on a Perkins brailler so you can write on the dymo using your Perkins brailler. I'm using dymo for marking food products, the buttons on the microwave as well as for labelling CD's.
MONEY STICK
This is the last thing on my list to discuss in this article. A money stick is a flat metal piece with grooves in the side which allows a blind person to determine the size of a banknote. You can identify anything from a R10 to a R200 note. I carry mine around in my purse everyday.
I can go on forever about the note taking devices such as the Seika Braille display and the Plextalk I mostly use at work, but I thought you will find much more interest in the stuff making every day life easier.
The next article you should read to the end because there is a link to the Blind café, onto witch I went and linked onto, I found a wealth of things there, that can keep a person entertained for a long time. I have onlylistened to a couple of narrated movies but I enjoyed it. I first enquired if I may boost the link and I receivedpermission. The person that I contacted told me that either her grandfather or great grandfather was the mayor of Cape Town.
The Interesting Origin of the Word "Handicap"
Today I Found Out the origin of the word "handicap."
You might have heard that the word originated from disabled veterans in England during King Henry VII's reign (15th-16th century). Unable to make a living for themselves after war, they were forced to take to the streets with their "cap in hand," begging for coins.
King Henry VII made it legal for disabled people to beg because he didn't think they could hold down jobs.
Disabled individuals, therefore, became known as "handicapped."
It turns out, though, that this is not true-in fact, "handicapped" didn't take on the "disabled" meaning until the early 20th century.
Long before the word meant "disability," there was a game called "hand in cap." It was a barter/betting game that involved two people exchanging items and one acting as something of an arbitrator.
While there are variations of the game, the gist of it is that one person would claim another person's possession then offer something they thought was of equal value in exchange. The third would inspect the items, assign them value, and the one who presented the lesser-valued item also had to present additional coins to "equalize" the transaction. Next, both traders and the arbitrator would put forfeit money into the hat.
The two traders would then put their hands into the hat. If one or both of them thought the arbitrator's valuation was fair, they'd pull out their hand
(s) with palm open. If one or both thought it was unfair, they'd pull out their hand(s) in a fist. If both individuals are in agreement, either in accepting the trade or rejecting it, then the arbitrator gets to keep the forfeit money. If the two are in disagreement, the one who agreed to the transaction gets the forfeit money and the arbitrator and other individual gets nothing.
The game was known to be around in 1653, though it was likely developed before then. Slowly but surely the name was shortened- from "hand in cap,"