OPEN DAY

My name is Charlotte. 

My job in the Open Day was to show people how to play the Health & Safety in the Kitchen game and to prepare the food.

The Deputy Mayor came to our Open Day. I showed her my game. My mum came and enjoyed the raffle.

I am with Cate

Our Open Day       

 Hi my name is Mike & my job was teaching people how to make their own word searches on the computer. I led the quizzes & bingo, it was great. The best thing I enjoyed doing was the bingo & helping out with other people making their word searches. I  really enjoyed the raffle & I made 2 Diabetic cakes & Diabetic biscuits. We made £48 on the raffle & I was so happy & cheerful about that much money being raised. 

     

This is me  doing the bingo calling of the picture of the office equipment 

Our Open Day


My name is Tracey 
My job was to teach people to make loom bands. Loom bands was a popular activity so Mary was helping out. It would have been good to have a couple more people to help with the loom bands, because so many visitors wanted to make one. I really enjoyed the day and l felt very confident and was organised. I liked collecting my sister and Azeemas prize in the raffle. We raised £48 in the Raffle which is very good.

Loom bands

Bus cuts

From August cuts are being made on the 161/184/267 bus routes.
As a group of 4 people with Learning difficulties we rely on using the 161 bus route to get to our work at the OST office at the Black swan Arts centre.
This is going to become impossible after the cuts and will have an impact on the charity as we wont be able to work from the office and continue doing the work we do educating people with our story.

A meeting is being held on August 3rd at 7.30 pm to discuss the bus- all users are welcome to attend.
Martin Abraham From  'Campaigning for better Transport' will be attending. Please come to this meeting and have your say.

Openstorytellers have attended a protest in Frome against the cuts. We made a banner and Simon represented the organisation. 400 people blocked the high street in a successful protest.
Another protest is taking place in Shepton Mallet very soon.
 Please check out http://favbug.blogspot.co.uk/p/campaigns.html for further info.

Bus cuts on the 161 bus by Katie

Today we've been protesting about the cuts to the 161 bus from Shepton to Frome.
We wrote a letter to First Buses to complain about how the bus cuts will affect us getting to work in Frome.

We made a placard for our director Simon to campaign on our behalf at the bus cuts protest on Saturday 11th July at 10.45am outside the George pub in Frome.

We signed a petition in Frome Library to help the bus cuts group FAVBUG to get more support.

Social History of Learning Disability Conference by Robin

On Thursday we set off in the car from Frome to Milton Keynes on the motorway till we got to the Open University at Milton Keynes.

We had a nice dinner and went to our workshop about using story to help people communicate – one about story boxes and another about using computer games to tell stories. I thought the group did well, it was very interesting. After a coffee break we listened to a talk about people with learning disabilities from Thailand and Ethiopia and how they share their personal stories and also how it felt for people with L.D to be listened to!

In the evening we went to a spicy restaurant and the organisers and people who had run workshops and presentations talked about how the conference went.

On the second day, Robin and Nicola ran a workshop about storytelling and communication skills, and we told a story about Knights and Days in the Kitchen.

We also listened to some presentations, one about a man who talked about the history of people with L.D in Britain, one about long stay institutions in Cardiff and another one about a man with L.D who moved from Bath to Ireland to work on drawing pictures.

I really enjoyed being a part of this conference and it helped it me to understand how to work with advocates and researchers on personal disability stories.