CHAIRMAN

John Parker

Tel. 07970 568425

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN

Martin Harris

Tel. 07720 823364

SECRETARY

Allan (Mac) Black

Tel. 07512 022949

TREASURER

Duncan Pickard

Tel. 01334 870203

TALK CONVENOR

Graeme Hogg

Tel. 01334 653043

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Jim Lawrence

David Martin

Maurice Shepherd

David Sinclair

ASSIST. TALK CONVENOR

Bill Bowman

TALK RECORDERS

Jim Lawrence

Tony Miklinski

Brian Murray

Graham Pirie

MEMBERS PAGE

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Next Meeting...

Wednesday

22nd April 2026

10.00am

'The Falklands'

Presenter - Tony Miklinski

Club News

Secretary email: macblack.author@gmail.com

Castlehill Community Hall was the usual venue for our meeting on 8th April and there was a good turnout of members. We were expecting the arrival of a speaker whose reputation preceded him and would he be arriving with his guide dog or not? For today's speaker, Stuart Beveridge, has been blind since birth, but there was no guide dog today - he was accompanied by his driver, Bill. Stuart is head of technology at Seescape, an organisation for support of the Blind.

Before the talk, Chairman, John Parker welcomed a new member, Jim Smyth. Jim lives in Ladybank. During 2025 he was the last Chairman of Perth St John's Probus but unfortunately the club closed at the end of the year. Professionally he was a Marine Engineer with 40 year's service in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

Would you like to join us?

New members will be very welcome, so, if you are someone who has retired and you are looking for something to do on Wednesday mornings, please contact our Secretary or, better still, pop-in to one of our meetings. If you know of someone, encourage them to attend.

Our next meeting will be on 22nd April. The speaker will be Tony Miklinski and his talk is entitled 'The Falklands'. Hope you will be there!

SEESCAPE - Hi-tech aids for the Blind.

Our speaker today was Stuart Beveridge from ‘Seescape’ an organisation supporting the Blind. Stuart who is totally blind himself has been Head of Accessible Technology at Seescape for some 13 years. His role is to assist the development of everyday technology that can help the Blind and to train individuals how to use it.
Stuart gave a fascinating demonstration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted App’s using his I-Phone. All Apple phones have a facility called ‘Voiceover’ which the blind user can activate by running his figure across the screen which initiates voice interactions to enable the user to access emails and other Apps. Next was the ‘Be My Eyes’ App which uses the phone camera to enable the user to hear a voice description of whatever the phone is pointed at. Similarly the ‘Reading App’ gives voice cues to enable the user to take a picture of a document, which the phone system voice then reads aloud. ‘Describe Me’ is an App with pictures of close family or individuals, that then enables the Blind person to scan the room with his/her phone and receive voice directions to that individuals location. But most amazing of all were Stuart’s ‘Meta Ray Bans’, dark glasses with built in I-Phone connectivity, with a ‘WhatsApp’ facility plus an integral camera. Stuart demonstrated these glasses by ringing his Mother via WhatsApp so she could see a live picture of todays Probus audience and relay back to Stuart the scene in front of him. In addition these hi-tech glasses are
automatically recharged by their own glasses case. Stuart advised that cost and the skill level needed to make best use of all this technology remain a challenge for many blind people but as he demonstrated today the advances in technology are rapidly bringing such systems into the reach of more and more of the visually impaired. Altogether this morning’s talk was a superb demonstration of the benefits of AI and its practical applications. Stuart’s running commentary and explanations of the technology were an absolute delight and we thank him for such an uplifting presentation.

Jim Lawrence