2021 – the Year in Review!

The year began with another lockdown – not the best news. Yet again our activities and events were on hold and our families were unable to attend face-to-face to face sessions where they could make positive memories and build support within our community. However, we continued to support our members through online events and community outreach, and eventually the summer saw us able to open and provide Stay and Play and other activities. In the autumn we began weekly term-time soft play sessions and planned a parent and carer meet up for December. However, as winter drew in, so did more worrying news of a variant that affected our Christmas planning and yet again we had to make difficult decisions about our December sessions, whilst not abandoning our plans entirely. 

At the heart of all we do is the physical and emotional well-being of our community, and we hope that we have managed to strike a balance between the two during what has been another very challenging year. 

We hope you enjoy looking back at what we have achieved this year. 

PARENT AND CARER SUPPORT

Online activities had to replace physical ones and our year opened with the Parent and Carer support group welcoming Harry Thompson as its first guest speaker of 2021. Harry gave us an amazing insight into what it means to grow up autistic with a PDA profile. 

The Support group has grown into a popular safe space for parents and carers, and we have been privileged to have some excellent guest speakers this year including Libby Hill, Ken Upton, Councillor Jonathon Price, and Rachel Winder, and autistic woman who has a popular blog and Tiktok account. We are determined to have more autistic voices on our platform and our 2022 programme reflects this. 

Our parents and carers were also able to meet up physically, and enjoyed a wonderful High Tea, subsidised by NAs Stafford, in December.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH, FUNDRAISING AND ONLINE ACTIVITIES

We also did some Easter community outreach with an Easter Egg Hunt activity pack which was much enjoyed by 50 families across Stafford and District.

We held a Chocolate Bingo session for our older members with chocolate donated by Hearts and Hands Stafford.

The NAS Committee took part in a fundraiser for our group and did the NAS ‘Super Seven Challenge’ in April for Autism Awareness week. Tracey walked the length of Hadrian’s wall, Julia played A LOT of Chess, Liz and Julie dressed up to dance, Lindsey did acts of kindness

and Tracey donated seven chocolate bouquets for our tombola. It was a lot of exhausting fun and raised over £300 for our cause.

The Pandemic meant that we had to be creative again about how we supported our families and so we held several online events. In addition to chocolate Bingo we enjoyed an amazing Animal Encounters’ session, and two magic shows with David Oakley’s Box of Tricks. One of these replaced our Christmas party which we hope to reinvent as an Easter Party once all things Covid have settled more substantially. 

OPENING UP!

In the Summer we felt that, with vaccinations being such a huge success (thank you NHS!) we could begin to reopen things and so we began to prepare. This meant a lot of cleaning, and adjusting how we did things to make them safe. We were fortunate to have recruited a new voluntary activities co-ordinator, Charlotte, who got stuck right in, and to get a grant from Tesco Bags of Help to replace some of our equipment. The grant was applied for by the former chair, Laura Owen, many thanks to her! 

We reopened in July – but by August Tracey had caught Covid but the committee pitched in to help and we were still able to run an August Stay and Play. This was well-attended, and much fun was had by all! We continued to offer sessions throughout the autumn.

In September we began our Soft Play Sessions and we continue to thank Freedom Support for supporting these sessions and enabling them to go ahead. 

ADDITIONAL FACE TO FACE ACTIVITIES

 We were able to book SNAP (Special Needs Adventure Playground) in Cannock for a summer session which was enjoyed by all, and to organise and autumn half term exclusive Swimming session for NAS Stafford families. Both events were extremely popular and we will look at offering more like this in 2022

HERE WE GO AGAIN….

 As December drew on, we couldn’t ignore the increase in cases of the new Covid variant and had to abandon plans for a big Christmas party, after taking advice and opinions from our members. We also cancelled our final Play Shed session of the year but took our celebration online. We enjoyed a great Christmas magic show, attended by Spiderman no less, held a Christmas prize draw for another fabulous chocolate bouquet, and did more community outreach with our Christmas Gonk Giveaway. 

We have achieved so much this year, and it is a real joy to look back and remember the fun and the laughs - we hope that 2022 brings more of them and that we can continue to support our amazing families. Stay safe and well everyone. Happy New Year!