Feature - RNZFB 2020: Planting the seed for a sustainable future
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We all tell stories about our lives. Not just one story but many different ones that have aspects of truth and wishful thinking. Stories are the way we recreate the past and think of the future. Sometimes we get stuck in an accepted truth that won't serve us well into the future because things are changing. We need a new story.
As American engineer Alfred Perlman said in 1957, "After you've been doing the same thing for two years, look it over carefully, after five years look at it with suspicion, and after ten years throw it away and start it all over".
The Foundation has been in existence since 1890. Looking into the future, how could the organisation continue to be adaptable, flexible and innovative?
Members - our clients - are at the heart of everything the Foundation does, yet the organisation has such a diverse range of members whose only connection to one another is little or no sight. Reaching a consensus on a new story is a big challenge.
The RNZFB 2020: Sustaining our Future project was born in March this year to take on that challenge.
The first step was to hold a workshop to set the scene, not just here in New Zealand but internationally. The experiences of sister organisations could be really useful to broaden the possibilities and break out of old accepted truths about the way things "have" to be.
That workshop took place in early March in Auckland. As Don McKenzie said in his introduction, "Today is about catching ideas – a venus trap focusing on the survival of the Foundation in the future. Survival of the fittest is one of nature's laws."
Members from around the country, staff, consumer group representatives and directors heard Dr Dianne Sharp talk about medical advances in the field of blindness and low vision. Lesley-Anne Alexander talked about the RNIB's four-year journey to reaching a place where they felt absolutely certain there was enough money to do what they really wanted to do. Gerard Menses from Vision Australia talked about the discovery that, at the heart of their organisation, is a living partnership between members who are agents for social change.
There was time for questions to the panelists and group discussion. Toni Sharp, a long-time Taupo Foundation member, decided to get involved in the RNZFB 2020 project to put across the perspective of smaller
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communities. Toni owns a kitchen business and understands the necessity of keeping customers satisfied.
"I think the most important outcome is ensuring that our members' needs are met in a timely fashion, whether they're new or existing members," she says.
Toni became further involved in the 2020 project as a member of a working party developing two of six possible stories for the future. These stories were presented at the second 2020 workshop in June. "The stories contradict one another in some ways," she says. "Some said we should have fewer members and stricter criteria; others said we should broaden it and not have any criteria at all. One story said we should stop breeding guide dogs; another that guide dogs should be our overall brand. Some stories thought we should charge for services; others were adamant they should remain free. I don't think any one story is perfect but there are bits and pieces in all of them worth keeping," adds Toni.
Despite the differences, there were some common themes. For example, the need for the Foundation to be clearer about what it does, to shed some services and to not try to be all things to all people. "Narrowing the criteria is a real possibility," says Toni. "Those who might otherwise fall through the cracks could be better served by the low vision clinics, which I think are under-used."
Member and guide dog handler Robert Bensemann from Nelson added that the public libraries could take more responsibility for providing books in accessible formats, and that the Foundation could earn more income from user-pays services for non-members. "Talking books for people with disabilities other than blindness is one idea," he says. "I know a woman in a wheelchair who finds holding a printed book too hard. She'd be happy to pay for more audio material."
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Robert believes that making guide dogs a brand name would be a wrong move. "It's not about dogs," he says. "There are around 250 dogs and 11,500 members. More members use white canes than dogs."
Robert decided to have his say for similar reasons to Toni, to speak for those living outside cities. "It's all very well to decide that services should be delivered from centres but so many of our regional members live a long way away from centres," he says. "It's not easy to get people to a rehab house. The distances are too great. And invariably older members need to learn at home because that's where they spend the most time."
Dylan Neale, who lives in a main centre, in Christchurch, came to the workshops for different reasons. As a 16-year-old member who has been blind since birth, Dylan has grown up with technology. His BrailleNote computer already has DAISY software on it but he can't yet get the books. Access to what he needs is frustrating. "There were bits and pieces in each story that sounded good," he says, "but I preferred the second story about technology and libraries. The Foundation is using the technology but there are too many copyright restrictions and often it takes too long for me to get books when I need them. We need a legal online book store in this country."
Dylan can see himself becoming a Foundation volunteer sometime in the future, perhaps in the goalball competitions or the peer camps. "You can't do everything online or there'd be no human interaction."
Since the two workshops, a small group of experts has been considering the stories, looking at their viability and possible alternatives. The group explored each of the options and presented their findings last month. A final workshop was held on 6 September. A formal consultation round with all members and other stakeholders will then be undertaken before the Board considers which direction the Foundation will take.
As Don McKenzie remarked in his welcome speech to open the first 2020 workshop, "Society is the greater when old people plant trees in whose shade they will never rest. I want to get cracking on planting those trees."