Supporting disabled people to have an ordinary life

Winter Newsletter 2019

Featuring our Club Highlights of the Year!

The biggest highlight of our year would be our name change from

Disability Shetland to Ability Shetland following the AGM. Team leader

Stephanie Bain said that they had felt that their previous name had

focused on what people could

not do, rather than what they

could, and that they wanted

to now “focus on the abilities

of people in our community.

We wanted to take our time

with this to get it right which is

why we amended our logo

last year to have a cross

through the ‘Dis’”.

Written and edited by Andy Anderson

THE NORTH ISLES

Unst Saturday Club really made the most of the good weather this year and spent

many clubs out and about. Our highlight this year was a trip to Skaw beach in Unst

for a picnic, splash around and making

sand castles.

Unst Sports Club had a busy year at the

Wednesday sports club. We have been

involved in an exciting participatory budget

event that the Unst Partnership charity

shop held to invite community groups to bid for a share of £3000.00. The club

received the cheque for £500.00 we had

requested which will go towards a block of

fencing lessons for the club.

We are planning the block of lessons now

and should hopefully have them all set to

go in the New Year.

The highlight of the year for the Yell

Sunday Club was welcoming the local

community to come and help them plant 420 saplings

around Sellafirth Hall.

Here is Oscar with his tree.

THE NORTH MAINLAND

North Roe’s height of the year would have to be our summer disco.

Where we had music and disco lights, played lots of party games and

had dance battles. We all had lots of fun,

and it was a fantastic way to begin the

summer holidays.

One of the highlights for the Urafirth

bairns this year was our summer trip to

Voxter. This included a treasure

hunt, making memory sticks and

we also helped the bairns light a

fire on the beach where they

roasted marshmallows which

was great fun! Everyone enjoyed

the day and hopefully we can all go again next summer!

The Mossbank Social Club has had a brilliant year! From music nights

to meals out at LJ's at Da Mish for an end of term dinner and finishing off

2019 with our own Christmas

Party in the Mossbank Hall.

Bring on the funs of 2020!

NORTH MAINLAND cont’

Ability Shetland’s Peerie Stars had a busy year. One of the highlights of

the year has to be our October Holiday

session, we had lots of families join us and a

visit from the Playvan, it was great fun!

The highlight of the year for

the Brae Adult Club was a

tour of Hillswick in early

September. This tour included

the Weaving Shed, Hillswick

Wildlife Sanctuary and St

Magnus Bay Hotel. All the

group members that attended had an outstanding memorable daytrip

out.

It has been an action packed year this year

for the Monday Recreation Club. We have

had our Annual bowls competition with Ellis

Birnie winning the Robert Arthur memorial

trophy, Ritchie Pitt scooping 2nd place, Gina

Leslie coming 3rd and Margaret Hunter in 4th.

Another highlight would be the visits from

Phil who came into do fencing with the club

which was thoroughly enjoyed.

We finished off the Summer sessions with a

swimming gala and medal presentation at

Sandveien

Neighbourhood

centre.

Yoga for the Less Able classes have continued at Clickimin and

Cunningsburgh, both classes feel

they are benefitting from Yoga

practice. The Cunningsburgh class

was happy to be photographed

doing the Complete Breath.

This year we have done lots of different activities at our Arts and Craft

club including, Up Helly Aa pictures, plant pots and stain glass windows.

We have also had visits from love from Shetland to make bath bombs

and got our beat on when Joy visited with her drums.

The Lerwick Adult Club has had a fantastic year! We’ve had artistic

workshop visits fae Gaada, educational trips out to the Museum and a

VIP tour of Mareel. Along with our regular trips out to the cafes

throughout Shetland.

The Young Adult Drop in Group have enjoyed socialising in cafes

around Lerwick, trips to the cinema and also fencing lessons from Phil

Hibbert. On nice days we try to get out and about to enjoy the fresh air!

On the last Secondary Youth Club

night before the summer holidays we

were surprised by a visit from Mr

Stripey. Club members and

volunteers got to choose whatever

they wanted from the ice cream van.

A big thankyou again to Gary for this

special treat.

The Lerwick Saturday Club have had a brilliant year. From playing on

the bikes to baking, the play park in the sun or a trip to the cinema, art

and craft or our Saturday Club fundraiser where we had table-top games

and teas, with live music in the hall.

One major highlight was the visit from

the Scalloway Fire Festival Jarl Squad.

The Squad was so generous with its

time and the children were delighted to

be able to meet with them, try on their

helmets and hold the axes.

What better way to round up the year than to see

everybody come together for Ability Shetland’s Winter

Ball? It was so good to see so many folk and everyone

had a smile on their face. Peter Wood and his band were

playing as well as disco party music later in the evening.

There was also lots of prizes won during the raffle. The

grand total for the Winter Ball fundraiser was £1695,

which will go directly towards our Lerwick and Brae Adult

Recreation Projects!

SUCCESSES!

Ability Shetland won the

Shetland Choice Award at the

Shetland Baby and Children

Awards earlier this year.

In November, Keir, Ashleigh

and Nathan attended

Shetland Youth Volunteering

Awards, Keir won the Individual Volunteer of the

Year Award and Ashleigh, Nathan and Ailis won the

One Team Award for Adult Recreation Club. We are

very proud of them all.

We'd like to extend our thanks to all of our

volunteers who selflessly give up their time so that

our members can take part in activities at our

clubs. We could not do it without them.