First meeting, second year

04/09/14

This week was our first meeting back after the Summer. We didn't have any new girls starting so it was a pretty straightforward meeting, even if the girls were all a little hyper as some of them hadn't seen each other for 6 weeks!

We started off playing a game to try and wear off some of their energy. We let them choose and they decided to play Wigwams (instructions here). I was surprised they didn't choose Fishes, as they did most of last term, but they all seemed happy to play this one instead. As this only really needs one Leader to run the game, it gave the rest of us a chance to catch up quickly as we also haven't seen each other in quite a while!

After the game finished, we got out the tables and let them get on with planning their stalls for a fundraiser we are doing in a few weeks. Fairly regularly (every 18 months or so) we have a sale to raise money for a different charity: in the past we've done the RSPCA and the Blue Cross. This year we are raising money for the National Star College after our visitors last term. The girls get into small groups and plan a stall together. We then invite the parents and friends along and the girls run their own stall as well as taking it in turns to go and have a go on all the other stalls. We have had a wide variety of stalls in the past; from the traditional cake sales and raffles, to the less traditional obstacle courses and fortune tellers! We let the girls choose their groups as it gives them a little more independence but we do suggest that girls who've never done a sale before have someone in their group who has, to point out things they might have forgotten about. I spent the evening going between groups, writing down their ideas and helping them resolve disputes in their groups. We have a nice mix of stalls this year; nails and spa, lucky dip, hook-a-duck, fortune telling, cakes, loom bands, among others, so hopefully we will raise a fair amount for the National Star College (usually we make £150-£200). 

We ended the meeting by handing out the Agility badges the girls earned at the penultimate meeting last term and then let them loose on their parents, still no less hyper than when we started the meeting!

I didn't end up doing much of my Look Wider Qualification over the Summer, but I am still noting down things to fill up gaps so I'll hopefully make a start on typing stuff up soon! I am also off to University soon so it may get a bit disjointed for a couple of weeks while I settle in and find myself a new unit to help at, although I will still be returning home occasionally and going to meetings, but I'll keep you updated on that as it unfolds too.

Visitor from National Star College

12/06/14

This week we had a visit from a local charity, National Star College. One of the girls suggested it as her mum works there and she came, along with a colleague, to tell the girls about what they do and do a couple of activities. They first sat the girls in a circle and told them all about what the College does. Basically, it is a college for children and adults with disabilities where they can "realise their potential as equal and active citizens in control of their lives". They asked the girls if they knew what a charity was, what it meant to have a disability and then talked about the various kinds of disabilities. I was very surprised at the answer given when they were asked what a disability is: "when someone can't do something because the part of their body that helps them do it doesn't work any more"! When I was 9, as the girl who said this is, I would never have been able to say it so concisely and cover all possibilities in one sentence... 

They then got the girls to get into groups to do some activities revolving around removing the use of a certain part of the body and trying to do basic tasks. They had to:

• Pick up a coin with a sock on their hand
• Put a sock on with one hand in a sling
• Talk to a friend while holding a lollypop stick in their mouth and see how much they could understand
• Tell a friend something by pointing at letters on an alphabet sheet

The girls all seemed to enjoy putting on the sock while wearing a sling, and the vast majority were quite good at it too. Some of them seemed to be getting a bit bored though as we only had 5 slings and 27 girls which meant that some had to wait a long time and all the other activities were quite quick to do so they didn't have anything else to do. 

They then got the girls back into a circle and discussed how they found the activities and how they would feel if they had to live like that all the time. Most of the girls said that it made them feel frustrated and they wouldn't like to live like that. They then said that any money we raise (we've had to postpone our fundraising to September because we ran out of space in the term to do it, sadly) will go towards helping the students feel more independent and less frustrated as they'll be able to buy specialist equipment to help them. 

They finished up by giving the girls some stars to colour in and said they could do it any way they liked as long as they didn't use their normal writing hand! We had some girls colouring with their non-dominant hand, some with their feet, some with their mouths and one girl who held the pen between her elbows! Some of the colouring wasn't too bad either.

The girls seemed to thoroughly enjoy the evening as it was more hands on than previous visitors we've had. Most people seem to forget what age group they're talking to and give the talk they would give to adults which just makes the girls bored and thus restless and disruptive. These two women though kept them interested by asking them questions and giving them an activity to break things up. It also gave me an insight into what the girls know about disabilities - a surprising amount!