Somerset Sight asked the parish council to assist us in promoting this service to help us recruit more volunteers, so we can carry on providing this valuable service along with the others ones we offer.

Somerset Sight is a local charity that has been supporting sight impaired people across Somerset for over a hundred years and in 2019 we proudly won the Queens Award for Voluntary Service.

One of the various services we offer is the Volunteer Visiting Service, whereby volunteers are matched locally with a sight impaired person for regular visits for company and support and to alleviate their loneliness and isolation.

Volunteer visitors/befrienders help with a variety of tasks such as reading, correspondence, making appointments, going out for a drive or just a cup of tea and a chat. Many volunteers get great satisfaction and enjoyment from their voluntary work, many friendships are formed and the people they support very much look forward to their visits, some telling us that it is the highlight of their week. Full training is provided and we cover all reasonable expenses.

We have over 3000 service users and just not quite 300 Volunteers.

However, we currently have a number of visually impaired people in all areas who would welcome a volunteer visitor, but they are on a waiting list as we do not have enough volunteers to match them with. Not all our volunteers or service users come from Somerset, some live just over the county borders of Devon and Dorset but our services are more local to them, and are all very welcome. We are especially looking for volunteer visitors in the Yeovil area.

I have attached a poster and other information if you would be interested in helping us to promote our recruitment drive. It is greatly appreciated.

I have also attached more information about us and the other services that we offer as information. Being a local rather than national charity, we do not have the same resources for promotion/campaigning as others so we hope that you are able to help us in some way.

Many thanks for your assistance.

Kind Regards

Joanne Thorogood

Office Manager
Somerset Sight
Tel: 01823 333818
Direct Dial: 01823 366143
Email; joanne@somersetsight.org.uk

My working hours are Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm