West Somerset
Disability Association

Hello everyone. Here is the October newsletter.

The next newsletter will be published at the end of November. See you all at the next meeting at 1.50pm on Monday 28th November at the Seahorse Centre, Minehead.
At the meeting everybody must sign in, in the attendance book provided and if you come to the Seahorse Centre at other times sign in at Reception and remember to wear a visitor badge at all times. There is no smoking allowed inside or at the front of the building. You can go round to the back of the building for a quick smoke.
The address of the Seahorse Centre is: Stephenson Road, Minehead, TA24 5EB

Transport
If you booked to come by taxi to the monthly WSDA meeting and you can’t make it, can you PLEASE RING DAVE WILLETT, who organises this transport, to cancel it. PLEASE HELP US TO HELP YOU!!! Transport queries about outings should be addressed to the Events Committee.

Computers
If you have just joined our group or just gone onto the Internet can you please give us your e-mail address, as it costs us nothing to send you your newsletter by E-mail but we have to pay to post them? Please help us to help you!
If you would like to do some computer training please let one of the committee members know or talk to Chris our IT instructor. You must be a member of our association before you can have lessons. If anyone has a problem with their computer at home and would like help from Chris he will then advise the committee as to the problem and the committee will then decide what to do.

Disability Advocate
The Disability Advocate for West Somerset will help if you need assistance with care arrangements, equipment, housing etc. Specific help with accessing benefits is available through the Taunton office, Richard Pitman, 01823 327453.

President’s Report
My goodness me what a year, do hope you all enjoyed it, as we have done a lot. Will let the other officers tell you about all the activities. Beginning part of November we had a lottery party at the Seahorse Centre, with balloons, streamers, a big cake and many gifts, at the end of November we had an afternoon with grant officers and officials with a lovely spread of goodies to eat, supplied by the events committee. Then in May this year we were given the honour of receiving the Queen’s Award for Voluntary services, which in July Lady Gass formerly presented this magnificent cut glass memento to the group and made a special afternoon for us, bringing with her four deputy Lord Lieutenants, and a host of distinguished guests, all of which made a very enjoyable afternoon. The cake, which again was organised by the events committee was a real success and looked great with the crown on in purple. Then because of getting this award we were sent four invitations to go to Buckingham Palace on July 14th. This had to be arranged in 24hrs. of receiving the invitations and a reply sent immediately. Oh bliss never a dull moment!! Never mind, we all enjoyed the retail therapy in going out and buying all our new clothes, and yes we all looked smart!! But oh boy was it a hot day, 36°C. We are still very much fingers crossed for our next grant which is with Comic Relief and a couple more in case!! During all this I am a member of the WSVS Forum (West Somerset Voluntary Sector), which when they first started was one page of news, now it’s about ten, that’s how they have grown and we have grown with them. I am a trustee of CVS (Community Voluntary Service) and a director of ATWS (Accessible Transport West Somerset) the new bus company. Still doing Talking Newspaper, which is an early start!! All these groups are connected in different ways to us and we need to be part of them. Only one member from each group from senior management allowed, as they are so big now. The amount of information we get is enormous and quite mind blowing at times.
Thank you everybody who has worked extremely hard in this past year and I know that this next year will be as good!!

Please will you phone Chris Brinkman our I.T. Tutor if you are not attending computer classes, the phone number is at the beginning of the newsletter, this will enable him to arrange further students to come in and replace you where possible.

When members phone for transport I can’t always oblige, as at the moment we have members who are poorly and others who have cars off the road. Please remember I take a lot of telephone calls, the other morning it was 14. Then I get someone saying to me, “I want a car to come to the meeting.” When I was little, and even when my own children were, “I want didn’t get.” So, please be a little more considerate when asking for transport, I will always do what I can but please be a little more polite. Thank you.

Chairman’s Report
October’s meeting went very well and we had 30 members attending, this included four new faces, who have now joined our group. I was hoping to see a bigger turn out of established members, as this was the AGM, which gives members the chance to air their views and learn what is going on.

We had over fifty voting papers returned so this was very pleasing and many of you took the trouble to post them, so thank you all that did this.

The main committee remains the same as it was and the two ordinary members who were chosen to join this group are Marlene Saunders and Rita Sandiford.

The new events team are Margaret Bruford, Jude O’Brien and Sylvia Griffiths.

Shirley and Sandra who are the present event team will continue to carry on with their arrangements until the Christmas dinner has taken place.

On Monday at the meeting bookings were being taken for the Christmas Shopping Trip to Weston Super Mare on the 21st November and for the Christmas Lunch on the 8th December at the Promenade Hotel, I must state now that it is very urgent that if those of you who did not come on Monday and want to join the group to go to either or both of these events you must phone either one of the team to book as they have to give the hotel plenty of warning regarding numbers. The bus may already be full but you can ask about this.

Many thanks go to the retiring committee members for all the hard work and dedication that they have shown to our members, to ensure that they have had some very good times on the outings etc that they organised. The top accolade must be the London Eye and River Trip that we did last year. Spectacular results in spite of the weather.

As Chairman I would like to welcome all the new committee members and hope you will be happy serving the association and its members.

We also say welcome to all our new members that have recently joined the WSDA and hope that you will continue to come to our meetings and enjoy all the various things we get up to. We offer friendship and advice whenever you may need someone to talk to. My phone number is at the beginning of the newsletter.

The committee at their last meeting discussed some changes that will take effect from the 1st January 2006, and they were put to a general vote at the AGM and were supported by all members that were present.

The membership fee will go up at the next “Subs Day” in February to £6.00 this is due to a rise in postage etc.

It has also become necessary to now make a small charge to users of the computers. This is to help cover the cost of inks and paper that are used by our trainees in their lessons. These items are very expensive and we do not get any grants to buy them. We have therefore decided to make a charge of two pounds (£2.00) an hour. This is very cheap compared with all other outlets that provide these sorts of services. Adult Learning and Leisure and Bridgwater College charge for nearly all their courses with only small concessions for pensioners etc. This was put to members at the AGM and everybody agreed that this was fair. These charges will also start from January 1st 2006.

It was nice to welcome Carol Stone at the meeting; she is our new support worker who will be helping and advising Jean to fill in the very complicated forms etc to apply for grants, she is replacing Martin Greenwood who is moving to Ireland.

I am now serving my 5th year as Chairman of the WSDA and as one of the founder members of the association it has been a privilege to serve in this position and to watch our members increase in numbers over the 6 years since it was formed in Williton in 1999.We have been very lucky that we have acquired a strong committee to lead the group and our president Jean Gilbert wearing her other hat as fund raiser has been very successful in this capacity. She of course has had help in the form of Martin Greenwood who has been a staunch supporter of our group. We shall all miss him very much as he and his Mum Vera are moving to Ireland at the end of November. Good luck to you both and do keep in touch with your news. We will continue to send you a newsletter.

I have had a very supportive vice chairman in Mary Court. She does such a lot of undercover work for the group and in her activities has raised quite a lot of money to put into our funds. Long may she continue! Thank you on behalf of all.

Our Secretary Molly Newstead is another active person who works alongside Jean and Martin in filling in complicated forms and writing many letters etc. She has also been a strong supporter of the events team, driving them to various places and helping them to organise when needed. She also keeps all our accounts in good order. Once again our thanks to Molly for her unseen work.

The events team for the last two years has been Shirley Williams & Sandra Kendall, these two members have worked tirelessly to organise many outings and two annual fetes, they have given many of us a new lease of life with things to look forward to which have brightened up our lives. Pat Graddon joined the committee earlier this year and made her contribution in whatever way she was asked. I do hope Pat’s health will improve soon also that of her husband Gerald.

David Kendall is the only man on our committee and what a treasure he has proved to be, he calls himself a general dogsbody but that is understating his value to us. As well as looking after the cash as treasurer, he has taken the trouble to take the various tests to gain his licence to drive the buses, which we use to go on outings. This is an enormous advantage to us; So David is a treasurer in more ways than one. He does all this with good heart and puts up with all us “bossy women”.
I must just mention before I finish this letter to say how nice it was to see some young people joining us on Monday, Leanne who is about 13 is the daughter of new member Glen Clark and does many things to help her Dad to cope with his disability. As a young carer Leanne we admire you and are welcome to come and see us whenever you are able to.

Don’t forget to phone me if you know of any members who are unwell so that I can send them a card and offer any help they may need.

“Happy Birthday” to all that have a birthday in November.

Dorothy Lloyd.

Vice Chairman’s Report
MY YEAR AS VICE CHAIRMAN

I can’t believe the year has gone so quickly, another A.G.M. is now here once again. It has been a very interesting year in lots of ways. We have had a lot of publicity in a variety of things that we have done. We had the wonderful Award from the Queen, where some of us had the Honour to represent the group at Buckingham Palace and what a day it was. The weather was superb and there was a special kind of feeling about the whole day. It was a day that I will never forget. The meeting with the Royal Family will stay in my mind for ever as it was so unexpected but a great honour.

We have had some new members and we have lost some due to bereavement, but this is a part of life and always will be. I hope that we can still lead the way in new ideas and projects.

The W.S.D.A has come a long way in the past few years and this is due to a lot of very hard work that goes on behind the scenes so to speak. The group doesn’t run itself; it takes a lot of organising and this takes a lot of time and patience. The A.G.M is the start of, hopefully new ideas as we do not know who is doing what until the votes have been counted and the elected Committee has been voted on. I have had the pleasure of being Vice Chairman for a couple of years now and it has been enjoyable. This New Year I hope will carry on and hopefully go into new territory.
If I am not re-elected I hope my successor will have as much pleasure as I have had working with the committee and other people.

Good Luck to all in the coming year.

Mary Court

Treasurer’s Report
The raffle raised £33.00 on Monday 31st October.

Events Committee Report
Christmas Shopping Trip to Weston Super Mare November 21st 2005
Christmas Lunch Promenade Hotel, Minehead December 8th 2005

Poets’ Corner

Autumn
Gone have the long days of summer sun,
Longer nights and shorter days, compensations, yet to come.
Multi colours, shining on the trees;
Leaves dancing, as they fall, in the gentle breeze.
Green, red, brown and golden yellow;
Carpeting our lawns, with Joseph’s coat of many colours.
Soon, the trees, standing bare, like skeletons, against the sky;
That they may, for one season rest, they will not die;
Then will awaken, for springs new dawn
And, with buds and blossom, be reborn!

Contributed and written by Leonard Cross

To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Contributed by Dorothy Lloyd and Stephen Brinkman.

Written by John Keats 1795 – 1821

Articles, letters and e-mails

Visit to North Yorkshire
I have just spent a long weekend – well, five days in North Yorkshire. I stayed with my son and his wife and three children at their house about four miles from York City in a little village called Nether Poppleton. It sounds like a Somerset name. It rained a lot but that did not stop us getting out.

York is a lovely old historical city on the river Ouse and has been occupied by the Romans, Anglo Saxons, Danes, and Normans. In Roman times it was the provincial capital of Lower Britain, second only in importance to London. The city was known as Eboracum to the Romans, and Jorvik to the Vikings and is surrounded by a three-mile long medieval wall, and the city centre still has a medieval street layout, overhung by half-timbered houses. York Minster is England’s largest medieval cathedral. The city has a university and has been the home of the National Railway Museum since 1975.

I visited the National Railway Museum, which covers 150 years of British Railway history, and it was very interesting and includes the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard among its exhibits.

I also visited the Shambles, which is a medieval street in York. The River Ouse runs through York and regularly floods some areas. I visited a pub called the King’s Arms, which is by the river walk. The water always floods here and once rose to a height of 15ft as marked on the wall in the bar. It happens so often that the landlord now moves all fittings etc to an upstairs room as soon as the water starts rising. He said it takes him 2 hours to move all the bar fittings upstairs, and because he does this he is able to claim insurance money.

We also had a day visit to Dalby Forest, which is in the North York Moors National Park, and is a beautiful area. I would like to have spent more time exploring this vast area, and my dogs loved it.

I stopped at Strensham Motorway Station on the return from York, and experienced the latest in ‘scam’ stories. A young well dressed man tapped on the car window and had a story about breaking down on the opposite motorway station, and because it was not actually on the motorway the police would not help him and he hadn’t enough money to buy petrol. He held a car key up and said he would leave it with me to prove that he was honest if I could give him money for petrol. I said no and my Jack Russell dog was standing in the back of the car getting very angry with him. I remembered later that as I arrived he had been talking to another car driver and I assumed he was with them. As I drove off he was talking to another car driver.

Yvonne Moore

Letter from Patricia Graddon:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who had the confidence to vote me onto the Events Committee with Shirley and Sandra. However I must say that I feel very guilty, as I did not do anything like the work I would like to have done and all credit must go to Sandra, Shirley and also David. Unfortunately, I know I have to face facts and realise that my health is just not letting me do all the things I want to do, so in all fairness I have had to withdraw my name this year from the voting papers.

I would also like to say thank you all very much for having placed your trust in me and I am sorry that I was unable to carry out my duties to the full. I would like to take this opportunity to wish the new committee all the best for another year. I have enjoyed a ‘new life’ since joining the WSDA; I look forward to meeting people and I look forward to going on as many outings as possible. I have always been looked after so well and have been out more in the last two years than I have been for years. Thank you to everyone.

Patricia Graddon

For Sale

Disability Scooter
Make: Leader, silver colour, road runner, new batteries, recently serviced, £600.00 o.n.o. Further details from Mary Court 01643 702129

Computer
The WSDA has a computer for sale, which we no longer use. It is neither modern nor fast but it works. For further details contact Chris Brinkman our IT tutor.

Videos
3 years ago my housebound severely disabled friend left me 400 home recorded videos. They take up a lot of room. I would like to get rid of as many as possible. I can not possibly watch them all to them but they could be recorded over, they include “On the Buses,” “Carry on,” “The Flintstones,” “Steptoe,” “My Fair Lady,” “Tommy Cooper,” “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Nature films etc. List available. Donations of £0.50 each to W.S.D.A. funds. Phone Stephen Brinkman at 01643 708228

Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be on Monday November 28th at 2.00pm at the Seahorse Centre. See you there.