Reg No: A0029907G ABN: 18354338693
Patron and medical advisor: Mr Wilson Heriot, MB, BS, FRACS, FRACO
The Aims of the Society are:
1. To provide information and support to people with a macular condition, their families and other interested persons;
2. To promote community awareness about the condition;
3. To provide assistance through financial and other means towards Australian research into the cause, prevention and cure of macular conditions.
The MVLSSA was formed in 1994 by a group of people with the eye condition known as Macular Degeneration which is an incurable disease affecting the central vision.
It was recognised by the group that professionally available information about the condition, including its physical, psychological and social impact was not reaching sufferers, much less the general public.
The Society is committed therefore, to ensuring that current information reaches members, their families and associates. This promotes a greater awareness in the wider community regarding the problems related to the condition. Some of this information is provided in audio cassette form (soon to be on CD), while updated information is read out at general meetings.
Our Society has no paid officers or staff and most of the Committee is vision impaired with the main exception of the Secretary and Treasurer.
Our activities are member-driven, and include fundraising to expedite research into the cause, prevention and eventual cure of macular degeneration in Australia.
We are a fully democratic, non-profit making, voluntary organisation, in competition with no other groups on issues that are common to disabled people in Australia. To this end, we communicate with other organisations in Australia and overseas.
Our membership is Australia-wide, although the majority of our members live in the Melbourne area. We also have regional groups in Geelong, Ballarat, Mildura and the Mornington Peninsular.
For more information, or to enquire about joining the society, please ring the President.
Yearly subscription is $25.00 which is used firstly to pay administration expenses, and the balance goes, together with all gifts received, towards continuing research, mainly to the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) which conducts research into the treatment and eventual cure of eye diseases, notably macular degeneration.
Correspondence address: PO Box 4082, East Burwood Vic 3151
Officers of the Society are:
Patrick Moore, President 03 9803 3170
Val Sachs, Secretary 03 9529 7675
Stuart Leigh, Treasurer 03 9553 4081