Shining a spotlight on…Vision of Adventure

Each week we are going to be saying “Hello” to another organisation in the VI world to learn more about who they are and what they do.

This week, we are chatting to Jill Corso (Founder and Operations Manager) from Vision of Adventure.

So, Hi Jill, please can you tell us about Vision of Adventure:

We are a small charity based in Kendal in The Lake District whose mission is to enable visually impaired adults to have the same opportunities to take part in adventurous outdoor activities as sighted people.

Obviously over the past 12 months or so we’ve not been able to operate as we usually would however, thanks to support from Disability Rights UK and funding from Sport England, we have recently started to deliver a ‘Fit for Adventure’ project. This is aimed at inspiring and assisting visually impaired adults to get back to being fit and active despite the difficulties posed by the COVID-19 situation.

The project has 4 parts:

Online exercise classes
One to one mentoring with a coach
Micro group day activities
Micro group residential activities

The online exercise classes are free and take place 3 times per week with Spinning on a Tuesday evening, Yoga on a Wednesday evening and then Fitness (Strength and Conditioning) on a Thursday evening. Participants can either join in with a live class via Zoom, and receive advice and feedback from the coach, or they can listen back to an audio recording (which can be found on our YouTube channel) whenever they would like.

And you are planning to resume regular weekend courses soon?

Yes, starting with a triathlon training weekend at the end of June we have courses planned all the way through to October. These include rock climbing, open water swimming, tandem cycling, caving, canoeing and multi-activity.

Our courses are supported by The Barchester Foundation and The Whirlwind Trust. Most of them run from Friday evening until Monday morning (with pickups and drop offs at Oxenholme train station) and are open to beginners – you just need to be willing and able to keep up a reasonable level of physical activity for a couple of days. We provide guides for all of the activities and accommodate guide dogs.

In addition, although we do not organise the actual events, we try and support people to participate in events such as cycle sportives and triathlons. So, for example, this year we hope to once again take part in the Kendal Triathlon.