A Year of Partnership and Collaboration

The year is rapidly coming to an end, and what a year it's been! We're already 10 months into our Change Programme which, among many other things, envisaged more collaboration with other organisations. This time last year, I was hopeful that we could build more partnerships in 2012, and I'm delighted now to be able to talk about how much progress Guide Dogs has made.

Whilst we will continue to grow the guide dog service in the years ahead, we know we also need to offer other mobility services if we are going to reach a significant proportion of the 180,000 blind and partially sighted people who rarely, if ever, leave home alone. Guide dogs will always be at the heart of what we do, but we know a dog is not for everyone. So I'm genuinely thrilled that we're now working with 41 local blind societies across the UK to provide sighted guides as part of our My Guide pilot. One way or another this year, we will have reached some 2,000 people with sighted guiding, and I am optimistic that we will see further growth next year.

In September, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Blind Children's Society, which means that we can combine our experience, knowledge and skills to make more of an impact with children and young people with a visual impairment. Our two organisations share very similar aims and values, and I'm really excited about the possibilities here.

Other amazing work we've done this year includes a short film on future technologies we produced with Microsoft, which is a concept of how things might look soon, if we all pull together to make our vision a reality. And by now, I'm sure you've seen Andrex's television adverts, celebrating the Andrex Puppy's 40th birthday and their campaign to raise enough money to train 40 puppies to become guide dogs. Two great partnerships in action.

We are also an active contributor to Vision2020UK, a pan-VI sector organisation that emerged from a World Health Organisation initiative many years ago. On a macro scale, this organisation is so very important – if we are serious about supporting blind and partially sighted people in a joined up way. I look forward to developments here, as Vision 2020UK looks to work more closely with UK Vision Strategy team, in 2013.

There are many more collaborations and partnerships which I know our Mobility Teams are forging around the country; too many to mention here. I'm exceptionally proud of what we've achieved so far and look forward to more joint initiatives in 2013.