Jackie Ballard: Thank you for looking at RNID's Impact Report for the year 2008-2009. It's very important for us to report each year not just on our activities, but on the impact we have made through our work.
This website is divided into several areas and themes so please feel free to explore those which interest you most. We've tried to make it as easy as possible to navigate through. You'll see details of our impact in the last year, not just from us, but from some of the people who we have supported. They tell their personal stories in a short series of video clips. These are all subtitled and there is a British Sign Language interpretation.
2008-2009 was a particularly busy year for us and there are many achievements of which I am very proud - some of which you will see in this report. But there are three particular areas that I want to highlight.
First, the work we do in enabling people with hearing loss to lead full lives – either independently in their own homes with support or in RNID residential care homes like Dean at Ransdale House.
Second, the work we do to encourage people to value their hearing particularly through our Don't Lose the Music campaign and our visits to festivals, nightclubs and concerts.
And thirdly the huge achievements we have had in getting improved access to audiology services – particularly in reducing the waiting times for audiology.
In the past year two key themes across the whole of RNID have been partnership and volunteering. We have worked in partnership with many organisations: charities for deaf people like the BDA and NDCS, charities for blind people like RNIB, and charities for people who are ageing. Together we can be so much more effective.
In January of this year we were delighted to launch our partnership with The Co-operative as their Charity of the Year. We are optimistic that this partnership will not only raise awareness of hearing loss and our hearing check campaign but will also raise a lot of funds for RNID's work. I'm confident that by the end of the year we will be saying a huge 'thank you' to The Co-operative staff for their efforts on our behalf.
The other key theme has been volunteering where individuals give up their time to support others as they do in our very successful Hear to Help project. Over the coming year we intend to recruit many more volunteers. They are the core of charity and much of the work that you will see in this report couldn't be done without them.
I'm very grateful to all the individuals and organisations who have supported RNID in the past year – we couldn't have made an impact without you.
Thank you.