A SMASHING SUMMER WITH NAS STAFFORD!
We have enjoyed a packed Summer, providing a range of activities for our members of all different ages and interests!
We started off with a visit to Our Space, the wonderful Special Needs Adventure Playground in Newcastle. This is a great area to enjoy climbing, biking, soft play and lots of outdoor fun! It’s also really secure so that our members with complex needs can enjoy themselves safely whilst parents and carers can relax a little. We were very lucky that the weather perked up in the afternoon and everyone was able to get outside and play!
We went into the second weekend of the summer break with our Summer Stay and Play at Littleworth Community Centre. This was a wonderful few hours, and thankfully again the weather decided to behave after a dubious start. We couldn’t have rain for a seaside-themed event! Members and volunteers enjoyed had a visit from the ice cream van as well as lots of outdoor games, sand and water play.
Our next summer session was our regular non-contact boxing club, and Coach George put club members through their paces, building on their previously learned skills and introducing new ones. We had a minor spillage when one of the guys sent the punch-bag flying and the plug from the water-filled base popped out. Everyone helped to mop up though!
Our next event was the Parent and Carer Support Group with MP for Stafford, Eccelshall and the Villages Leigh Ingham attending. She talked to us about recent developments in SEND and took lots of questions. It was an interesting and informative evening.
Back to Summer fun with the NAS Monkey Forest visit! 60 members enjoyed the monkeys, and the volunteers also loved watching the baby macaques play and annoy their parents! More fun was had in the two playgrounds available to visitors, and younger members practised their monkeying around on the climbing frames and slides.
Swimming at Stone Leisure Centre is always a lot of fun and we were almost at capacity on the day. Swimmers enjoyed the floats and some had a very peaceful section of the deep end to themselves! We love watching families get together and splash around in a supportive and exclusive session where the lifeguards are so understanding and the facilities are super-clean and accessible. Watch out for another session coming soon!
It seemed like a great idea when Bowling Club volunteers Nia and Nicky suggested a summer Ten Pin Takeover session for our members – and although we had nearly 100 people join us for both Bowling and Soft Play it was a huge success! So much fun was had and friends found each other. We witnessed an incredible act of empathy and kindness from the Manager of Ten Pin and can’t thank him enough for helping to rescue one family’s day.
Next up our Youth Group got golfing at Jurassic Creek Adventure Golf. They managed to avoid getting snapped at by the dinosaurs but a few balls may have ended up in the creek! The weather was really lovely for this event and everyone had a great time. We are always made to feel very welcome there.
August’s Parent and Carer Support Group was another useful evening, with Staffordshire Together for Carers joining us to talk about the support our members might access from them, as unpaid carers. We also discussed helpful ways of navigating airports with neurodivergent loved ones and tips for holidays.
Our next visit was simply brilliant – the Wolseley Wildlife Centre’s ‘Be Wild’ programme which saw our younger members try out pond dipping, tree-climbing, birdfeeder and den-making. Some tried their hand at painting and threading whilst others relaxed in the hammocks! It was another beautiful day which really made the time we spent there enjoyable.
The next summer instalment came courtesy of Lower Drayton Farm. We love it here, the staff are brilliant and we can access a party room for quiet times and lunch. There is so much to do! The weather forecast wasn’t great but luckily, we only had one sharp shower and then the sun came out, enough for some of our members to enjoy the foam party! Nothing sums up the NAS summer than the picture of Oliver enjoying the bubbles!
Our final event of the summer was our August non-contact boxing club. A lot of understandable pre-school stress meant that numbers were down so we melded the two groups into one, which worked really well! There was so much fun, lots of laughs, and I don’t think Jamie has quite been forgiven for his suggestion of ‘ten laps around the hall’ as the final exercise! His sister did come up with a novel revenge though!
So, we had a packed and varied summer programme which went off without too much difficulty! Apologies for the few administrative errors that some people encountered, we were able to accommodate everyone in the end. Tracey needs to delegate more next summer!
We know that some people worry about cancelling or not being able to do the full allocated time at our events. Please don’t! We always try to be flexible at NAS Stafford; we know that life throws up incredible challenges for our members and their families and if you can’t make an event that’s okay. Usually, with a little notice, we can swap you out with others on the wait list, or adjust things as with Boxing Club, so that we make it work. If you only manage half an hour, or even ten minutes, that’s okay too, we want you to have a good time, even if that means it’s not a long time!
Thank you to all of the volunteers who supported us this summer:
Nicky Scarborough
Zea Raines
Steve Raines
Nia Wearn
Pete Wearn
Lucy McKeown
Tracy Moon
Rick Moon
H Moon
Mike Harrison
Tracey Harrison
We couldn’t do it without you!
Enjoy the pictures, reproduced with kind permission of parents and carers, and we hope to see some of you again soon!