Spotlight on a dedicated groups

To celebrate summer 2007, the Shropshire Star is looking for Glorious Groups. They may not be glamorous or high profile but are inspirational. Today we are launching the series with the Market Drayton Visually Impaired Group. Shirley Tart reports.

In the pouring rain, I dashed off to Market Drayton to keep a date talking to the town's Visually Impaired Group - VIPs to you and me.

And what an absolutely fantastic afternoon we had. From being met by guide dogs Tuppence and Beckett, who is now in retirement but comes along anyway, and chatting to one of the most interested audiences I've come across in ages, right through to the tea and cream scones and their amazing generosity, it was brilliant.

Not only did they give me £124 from the group for my Golden Years appeal for Hope House and the Severn Hospice but Keith Fielding and former guide dog Beckett - retired but still Keith's dog - came up with another £50, and Mary Houseman whose lovely book, In Green Pastures, has been reprinted by popular demand, presented me with a commemorative copy of the book and yet another £25. Barbara Shingler and a small but dedicated team help keep the club up and running. They take them all off on trips - a day on the canal was one recent outing. And Barbara herself is a bit of a star as well.

She chuckles: "It was my husband's idea to start the group when he retired, so he got it up and running - and then the week before it first met he got another job. So he said: 'Oh, you can do it, then'."

And so she has. But Barbara says she wouldn't have missed a minute getting to know and helping this crowd of truly lovely people.

Many of them can't see anything. All, as the group's name suggests, have sight problems, and every single one is a gem. And as Barbara points out, they sometimes come up with ideas for visits which even for this feisty crowd might be a bit too ambitious.

I don't know about that, though. Edith Farmer had just come back from Paris as part of her 100th birthday treat from her granddaughter and had a wonderful time.

Mary Houseman, who has little sight, is into writing - her descriptive book of her life through years gone by is fascinating.

Others, thanks to clever software programmes, "hear" Shropshire Star news on the internet, while somebody wanted to know why we report programmes like Big Brother at all and someone else wondered why international news might be found alongside a small local story.

It could have been a challenging afternoon - for me, not for them. But was actually one which lifted the spirits and was great fun with a wonderful group of interested, interesting and generous people. A real inspiration.