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Meet Ann Cains

President’s Address – Councillor Ann Cains

I was delighted to preside over my second Annual General Meeting in November 2005 to share with Trustees, Members and Staff - a most interesting series of reports detailing the progress of the Group. At that meeting I asked those present if the Group would be willing to offer a community placement to medical students in their first year of study at the Queens Campus of Durham University, here in Stockton. Happily it was agreed and so this year two students, Claire Tully and Donald Servant, have begun to understand the
problems and the achievements of the blind and partially sighted. Both speak highly of the welcome and support they have received - valuable training for tomorrow's doctors. This has been a new role for BlindVoice UK.

The Yarm Road premises were the venue for a very successful Open Day that I was able to attend bringing in visitors and new clients to sample the services on offer.
I was pleased that the Group was a major player in the Annual Showcase for the Blind event in the Library. I was delighted, on behalf of the Chairman George Glass, to announce the winner of the Ann Kallagher award for services to blind people in Stockton-on-Tees and invite the Mayor to make the presentation to Pam Wilson for staff in the library service. A well deserved award.

A major success was winning the Heritage Lottery grant to develop the oral history of life for blind people in the Tees Valley. I was pleased to support the application and of course thrilled with the result. Grant applications take a great deal of time and effort - all worthwhile when they are successful. You can read elsewhere in this report about some of the many indoor and outdoor activities that are going on throughout the year some of which are involving visually impaired young people in the area. These make a valuable contribution towards enhancing the quality of all their lives.

The Chairman, Secretary, Trustees and Members together with the Manager and Staff can continue to feel justifiably proud of the achievements of BlindVoice UK in the year 2005 /06 and as President I am delighted to record my thanks and congratulations to them all.
I have great pleasure in commending this latest Annual Report of BlindVoice UK to all readers.

Ann,
Councillor Ann Cains,

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President Councillor Ann Cains

Ann has represented the Glebe Ward on Stockton-on-Tees Borough since 1995 living in the same house in the ward in Norton for 45 years with her husband Dick who has been her fellow councillor since 1999. Ann has three grown up sons and a grandson.

She has always taken a keen interest and an active role in community and education issues. She has been a school governor since 1978 in a number of Norton schools and Stockton Sixth Form College. As well as chairing some governing bodies and training governors Ann has also been a lay inspector for the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).

She was appointed for a few years as a non-Executive Director of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust, only stepping down from this post after becoming Chairman of the Health and Social Care Select Committee on the Council. Ann also serves on the Education Select Committee and the Child Placement Panel. Even during her mayoral year in 2003 -04, when she attended around 300 functions, Ann managed to maintain her interest in social care issues, particularly around the needs of children in public care and adults with disabilities like the blind and partially sighted.

Ann has been interested and supportive of BlindVoice UK for a number of years and she was there at the very fist meeting in a pub in Stockton in 1997.

We are delighted that even though Ann has such a busy life she has agreed to become our first President and has been duly elected for a three-year period, a time when she will support our events, provide advice and guidance.

President

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