Trustees & Patrons

Tom McInulty was the Senior Regional Manager for the Macular Society – joined on 6th May 2008 and retired on 30th September 2020.  Tom Managed 50 of the network of 300 Macular Society Support groups, for visually impaired people, in the UK.  He also managed around 360 volunteers, who are Befrienders, Buddies, skills for seeing, speakers, tech talk, in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Channel Islands, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. 

Prior to that he worked with a local association for the Visually Impaired (Open Sight in Hampshire), since 1992, as an Eye Clinic Liaison Officer (ECLO) in the Eye Unit, Southampton General Hospital, an Advocacy & Information Officer helping people get their benefits and attending tribunals, Sight Loss Awareness Training Officer,  Leisure Activities Officer and Branch Network Administrator.  Tom is also a trained counsellor. 

Tom has been a guide dog owner since August 1990 with his first dog Otis, then Lloyd in November 1999, Brunel in January 2008 (who won the “Outstanding Work” 2012 Guide Dog award) and Toby since November 2017, who is his current dog.

Before Tom lost his sight overnight, on his 31^st Birthday,  in November 1983, due to an accident, he worked in the Merchant Navy, from the age of 16 in 1969.  This career, working on the cruise liners and brought him down to Southampton from his hometown of Clydebank, near Glasgow.  Tom travelled all around the world during his career in the Merchant Navy.

Tom has been a volunteer trustee for Southampton Sight (Southampton Society for the Blind) since February 1994. Tom is a volunteer committee member of the Open Sight Eastleigh Visually impaired Active Group, He was also a District Team Representative for the Southampton Team for Guide Dogs for 8 years.  He is currently a volunteer speaker and fundraiser for Guide Dogs, a volunteer Sight Loss Awareness Trainer for Southampton Sight and Group Leader of the Southampton Macular Society Working Age Support Group.

Tom was privileged to carry the Paralympic Torch, with Brunel, for the 2012 Paralympic games.

Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge, running the London Marathon twice, cycling (on a tandem) around the New Forest, walking the West Highland Way in Scotland, Abseiling off Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, climbing the Highest Mountain in Australia (Kosciuszko) and riding the fastest, longest and highest “Zip Wire” in Britain, are just a few of the fundraising projects Tom has taken part in since losing his sight, to raise money and awareness for different charities supporting visually impaired people.

For Leisure, Tom has been scuba diving in Lanzarote And swam with the dolphins in Discovery Cove, Orlando.

Stephen was a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) until his degenerative eye disease forced him to take Ill-health retirement. The eye condition now means that he is Registered Blind and is a white cane user: that doesn’t stop him still enjoying his dinghy sailing. After NOC, he worked for 2.5 years for SPECTRUM Centre for Independent Living as well as becoming a volunteer, and later a Trustee for Southampton Sight. He now also volunteers as one of the Quality and Patient Safety Partners in University Hospitals Southampton Trust, who provide a “Patient Voice” on a wide range of committees and project groups.