Outlook on Radio Western

Chippy or chipper and what, exactly, is a Belfast bap? Fries, chips, crisps - from England to the north of Ireland to Canada, differences are everywhere when travel calls.

This week on Outlook, sister/co-host Kerry is alone in the radio studio once again (only a handful of times has she been in there on her own), without brother/co-host and board operator who’s still away in the UK. Kerry is speaking with him and friend and Irish friend who’s hosting him, Barry.

We discuss cultural variations, the food and drink tour they went on, and a particular accessibility barrier when Barry tried to show Brian the sites of Belfast.

(More with Barry, travel soundscapes, and Brian’s adventures on October shows.)

In September of 2018, Outlook was born and first aired and here we are, five years on, with more than 200 shows full of discussions from a wide variety of perspectives.

This week we spend time and have fun reminiscing on these last five years, with us two siblings as the core of what Outlook has grown into, while, all the while, enhancing things by speaking with an array of fascinating guests with all sorts of lived experience with disability and blindness. Along with allies and friends who’ve supported us along the way, we reflect back and look ahead with two of our favourite past guests: local London, Ontario friend Katie Morgan (sighted ally) and Joanne Beckford, living one Canadian province over and newer to the blindness community — both joining us on this one for a bit of camaraderie and kinship.

We both can’t think of a better way to ring in five years doing this show and so glad these two could be with us to mark this milestone.

Listen to Joanne’s prior appearance on the show here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-08-16-new-chapter-open-book-with-joanne/id1527876739?i=1000532188125

Find Katie guesting on our 4th year anniversary show:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-09-12-celebrating-4-years-on-air-with/id1527876739?i=1000579476340

And travel back in time to where things all began with the first episode of Outlook from September of 2018:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2018-09-10-debut/id1527876739?i=1000488226695

This week on Outlook we speak with Kelly Evans, an audio description script writer, but this time the script has been reversed.

Last time, on her first appearance as our guest, we asked her about how she got into the field, learning about the impact she hopes to have in the world of audio description, to make the visuals of media more accessible to blind viewers.

This time, Kelly interviews Kerry (big AD user) and sibling co-host Brian about what makes decent audio description and on some of their best and worst experiences with it, whether guidelines on the art and technique of audio description are in everyone’s best interest, with the ultimate aim of improving audio description from start to finish.

To learn more about Kelly, check out her appearance on the show from 2022 where she was the interviewee:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-11-28-the-art-of-audio-description/id1527876739?i=1000588173721

Once co-host Kerry, as a baby, climbed all over his shiny oxygen tank. They first met in the mid 80s, he born premature, and have known each other all their lives, including all sorts of camp experiences throughout the 90s. Steven Potter is back, his third time with us on the show, and he brings his ear for audio and impeccable memory to this lighthearted summer subject.

It’s a summertime children’s pastime, camp of all kinds, both day and overnight and this week on Outlook we’re talking camp, camp, and more camp.

We share about our early childhood adventures going to the day camp for blind kids in our area and then the overnight camp, the CNIB Lake Joe Centre, we all three went to together, including old cassette audio tape sound clips from those days. Also, we end off with talk of one for patients with kidney disease and their families.

So join in with us as we, three old chums, reminisce on summer camp in these final summer days.

Find Steve's first appearance on the show from 2018 here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2018-11-26-discussion-with-steve-potter/id1527876739?i=1000488226639

And the second time he joined us back in 2019:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2019-12-30-2019-wrap-up/id1527876739?i=1000488226652

Cow themed festivals and giant sand hills.

It’s a late August Mixed Bag and we’re returning with a slew of topics and we have our return guest, from last week, to join in on the conversation.

Laura Bain is back on Outlook this week as we discuss finding data plans for travel, our family beach day and using our white canes to climb the giant sand hill at Sand Hill Park on Lake Erie, and about some camp experiences to highlight next week’s theme for the podcast.

How can a white cane also be used as a hiking pole? What does camp provide for children with disabilities and from all backgrounds?

Co-host Brian shares about some recent interactions he’s had with Ukrainians who’ve recently come to Canada as we have a dialogue about how to have a dialogue with others around the help they offer for which isn’t always so helpful, with Laura sharing a specific interaction with a sighted so-called helper on the street.

And speaking of having a dialogue (or not as the case may be), in the second half of the show we let listeners know about a situation between the Triple Vision podcast (exploring the past, present, and future of blindness in Canada), Accessible Media Inc. (AMI), and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and how necessary dialogue was shut down.

While we were climbing a big hill of sand, visiting third co-host Laura Bain attended the Art of Disability Festival put on by Independent Living Nova Scotia. Life’s a day at the beach, at least can be for the day in summer. It’s August for a few more weeks and we’re talking summer activities and so much more as we look ahead to fall.

And for more on the Triple Vision situation with AMI and the CNIB, along with so many other history of blindness in Canada topics, check out the new independent home for Triple Vision’s podcast here:

http://triplevision.team

Note: The episodes we refer to involving CNIB/AMI include TV 32 - CNIB Governance with Kate Bahne from Charity Intelligence and TV 35 - Entrepreneurship by the Triple Vision Team.

Triple Vision is also available wherever you get your podcasts.

Find the Charity Intelligence page on CNIB here:

https://charityintelligence.ca/charity-details/70-canadian-national-institute-for-the-blind

Back in 2021, we had guest Laura Bain on Outlook, a reunion between Bain and co-host Brian after meeting twenty years earlier training for guide dogs in Quebec.

This week, we welcome Laura Bain back to the show after two years of a program she’s been studying in, a Masters of Socialwork and we’re checking in on how school, for her once more, is going.

We discuss school, but we spend a lot of time hearing about Laura’s recent travels in France, as a person with low vision, and her sighted partner. She shares with us an audio clip of the church bells in Avignon recorded from the window of their Airbnb. While photos can still be important to have for those who are low vision or blind, audio recordings are more accessible. We hear about levels of accessibility in that country and Laura’s issues traveling in new destinations as her level of vision slowly changes, as she shares about her 2018 solo trip to New York City which taught her important lessons, as Kerry relates with her recent Ireland travel experience and Brian looks forward to his UK trip coming up.

Laura also shares about her choice to leave AMI to start her Masters program and her drive and pressure throughout life, being low vision, to obtain and hold onto paid work, with the high unemployment rate for blind and low vision people. Plus we hear about her feelings on dating, specifically online dating as a low vision user.

So check this one out for an update on school, to find out if she had success trying online dating, along with lots of travel talk and tips and we’ll be back/Laura will be back, next week, to join in for a Mixed Bag show.

Also you can hear, for more background on Laura, the show where she first appeared:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-07-19-20-years-later-with-laura-bain/id1527876739?i=1000529853429

Since our last mixed bag, back in May the proposed federal disability benefit (Bill C22) finally passed Royal Assent on June 20th, 2023. It’s a mid summer Mixed Bag episode of Outlook this week as we cover topics from social and entertainment to politics.

With this one we share about the recent Radio Western station social gathering we attended and Brian’s time lately with the station’s Systems/Web Developer Navaneeth Mohan (who designed our logo), collaborating to solve a problem with an accessible online music library for the radio station.

Kerry shares the one big way she related to Sarah Polley whose book of essays in memoir she’s been reading and Brian about his recent concerts and out with friends locally.

We talk things all the way from Kerry’s latest brush with reminders of inaccessible touch screens when she needed to give out her bank number when she shouldn’t have had to and Brian tells us what he discovered about those who attended London’s Rock the Park earlier this summer, those whom found little thought put into accessible seating for people with disabilities by planners.

And we will be back with another mixed bag show in August but we end this week’s episode with a teaser mention of what we’ll spend a lot of the next one tackling, what happened with the Triple Vision podcast, AMI, and the CNIB because we, as blind Canadians, have thoughts.

First, you can check out Kerry’s latest appearance elsewhere, on another podcast, this one called Stories of Vision Loss with Charlotte Simpson which released this past Friday, August 11th:

https://www.storiesofvisionloss.com/podcast/episode/78cf379d/kerry-outlook-from-ontario

Find more info on Bill C-22, the Federal Disability Benefit on the Disability Without Poverty website:

https://www.disabilitywithoutpoverty.ca/bill-c-22/

Check out the CBC article referenced on this episode regarding accessible seating at Rock The Park:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-ontario-rock-the-park-disability-seating-1.6908964

And find the new home of the Triple Vision podcast which we will be discussing in greater detail on our next mixed bag here:

http://triplevision.team

“I’ve never felt so free,” says Kerry about her time in Ireland recently, which is what we’re talking about for one more episode in a series, Kerry’s travel series, before we move along to Brian’s upcoming vacation.

This week on Outlook we’re wrapping up co-host Kerry’s Ireland stories with a show full of audio clips she collected on her travels. From the waves at Spanish Point to kick off the show, to water lapping by the seaside to end it - with sounds of the ocean, a sheep farm, and the train (please mind the gap) and rain, a common enough Irish sound. Plus, she’s included a blurb of her mapping out one of the hotel rooms and hotel layout when finding breakfast with the tour group.

Kerry loves her soundscapes (where photos do no good to capture memories for you when traveling blind) and so this one’s sprinkled with them throughout, along with a discussion on mental mapping and maps and accessibility when traveling, both independently and interdependently.

So before Brian’s off on his own UK adventure in September, join Outlook and take an audio tour of the trip right along with Kerry.

Anita, travel agent with The Travel Agent Next Door, met co-host Kerry, back in 2017, when Kerry walked into the travel agency where Anita was working to book travel to a writing workshop in Mexico. They’ve been friends and traveling, together sometimes too, ever since.

This week on Outlook we speak with Anita Paton about her years of experience as a travel agent, the challenges she came up against when she lost her driver’s licence because she was diagnosed with a genetic eye disease, and about her adventures together with Kerry in New York City and now, having just returned from touring Ireland with an all female tour group put together by Paton herself.

There was something meant to be in how they met. So from a stick-it-to-the-man mission (a possible story idea for Kerry’s budding short story collection) stopping by Trump Tower or walking up the steps into a castle, Anita and Kerry have gone on many interesting adventures, but this week we’re hearing specifically about the all female Ireland tour they recently returned from, and the seaweed and forest bathing for example. So, check it out for more stories like those, and for a bit of a discussion on Kerry being alone but with the group, traveling, as a blind person, and for Anita’s reflections looking back on last month’s trip.

Check out Anita’s website:

https://www.anitapaton.thetravelagentnextdoor.com

Find her on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/anitapatontravelagent/

And on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/anita_travelagentnextdoor/

We cant have a Disability Pride Month go by without the subject of sensitivity reading coming up.

This week on Outlook we speak with debut author Rachel Kelley Stones about her book: “Love Unseen”.

It was the Summer of No TV - Rachel grew up, her and her twin sister on a farm in Kentucky, when one television-free summer books became her entertainment and an immersive reading experience.

“It’s right there in the beginning of the book,” she says, “but I wanted readers to connect a little bit with the character, sighted readers, before they realize what sets her apart from themselves..”

She did the research, read their blogs, and wrote the book “Love Unseen” and we talk about what she learned throughout her research process writing a main character who is blind, how she decided to have a sensitivity reader for the book, and what it was like working with Kerry.

Find “Love Unseen” as an ebook/audiobook/paperback here:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Unseen-Rachel-Kelley-Stones/dp/1524422991

Follow Rachel Kelley Stones on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Rachel-Kelley-Stones-Author-100076948935534/