2024 in review at NAS Stafford
Many thanks to you all!
In 2024 NAS Stafford received so much support to enable us to carry on doing the things we love for our members.
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has come along to an event or activity and given a financial contribution, bought a raffle ticket or offered extra as a donation.
We are always grateful to Freedom Support; their generous donations throughout the year enable us to run our weekly Play Shed which gives autistic children and their siblings the opportunity to enjoy soft play in a supportive, inclusive environment. It gives them a chance to make friends and some of those friendships grow beyond Play Shed which is wonderful. Parents and Carers get a chance to meet and chat too - occasionally they get to finish a hot drink - result!
This year we began a new activity, our 8-12s Bowling Club. This was the idea of Committee Member and Volunteer Nia Wearn who offered her time every month to run it, supported by Volunteer Nicki Scarborough with invaluable help from branch member Zea Raines. We were also very grateful to Stafford Borough Council who gave us a grant to expand the club to 25 members when the club’s popularity meant that demand outstripped supply significantly. We hope to find new funding in the summer to continue that expansion.
There have been some incredible individual fund-raising efforts and donations.
We are so thankful to Matt Howell who ran the Shrewsbury Half Marathon for us, raising over £700 for the branch. This paid for the Panto and the Christmas Brunch for parents and carers this year! What a superb effort!
We would like to thank The Holmcroft Allotment Society for their generous fundraising donation of £220 which helped to pay for the Christmas Party at Littleworth this year.
Ashish Sunuway raised an incredible £750 for the branch through fundraising at his military base in the East Midlands. Incredibly we were his nearest NAS branch so we were fortunate enough to receive this donation. Ashish was pleased to learn that NAS Stafford supports some military families through the Beaconside Base.
Our member Zea Raines has done another incredible job of supporting NAS Stafford this year, along with her husband Steve. Zea has helped to gather raffle prizes at Easter and Christmas, (including the legendary tattoo voucher!) and their support at Bowling and Stay and Play is always immeasurably helpful. We would also like to acknowledge every parent and carer who helps out by packing away at the end of Stay and Play and other activities. When volunteers are short, your help is so valuable. Special mention goes to Committee Member Aimi Lacanivalu for finding space to store all of the bikes and trikes earlier this year during shed renovations at Littleworth - it saved us a fortune on storage. Thanks to Rick Moon and Mike Harrison and Isabel Harrison for stepping in at short notice to support us when we needed extra hands on deck. Thanks to Tracy Moon for the spectacular chocolate bouquets and other donations to the raffle as well as supporting at every holiday swimming session! A special shout out goes to Jon Douglas for being an amazing Santa yet again at the Christmas Party, he always gives a cracking performance!
Also thanks to Martin and Adele Halket for their support throughout the year, like so many people who help us, they have complex caring responsibilities but are generous with their kindness. We would like to say thank you to everyone who who has donated raffle prizes and smaller amounts to our branch. It all adds up and without these contributions we simply could not keep going. We are also grateful to those businesses such as Hurricane Gaming, Stafford Ten Pin, Ninja Warrior and Liquor Tank, who have offered us special rates for our activities.
A huge thank you to the Committee Members and volunteers who have, as always, gone above and beyond this year.
We couldn’t do it without the amazing Nicki Scarborough who was nominated, and received an award for, her volunteering this year. From Play Shed to Parent and Carer support and bowling club, she knows our members and is brilliant with the children and young people; if there is a potential problem on the horizon she usually spots it first and has a solution!
It was lovely to welcome Nia Wearn to our committee this year and to watch her bowling club take off with resounding success. Anyone who has visited our website recently also has Nia to thank for the fresh look and speedy updates. The much improved way we organised our summer programme this year was also thanks to Nia. Fabulous stuff!
We also welcomed Cara Nicholls and Aimi Lacanivalu to our committee and they have both offered their time, invaluable input and support throughout the year.
Liz Minshall, our secretary, has tackled the admin and has also helped us with contacts and events such as Hurricane Gaming; she has supported us at funding seminars and with outreach.
Julie Goodyear has supported us at many activities over the holidays and many of you will have seen her at Stay and Play and at the Panto. Her kindness, understanding and empathy are always appreciated by our members. We are also grateful to Sheanagh Gibbs and her son James who have helped us at Stay and Play.
Sheanagh is now the longest-standing member of the NAS committee and when her health allows we look forward to seeing her join us at future events.
We always miss the incredible Anne George after she stepped down from Committee last Christmas. It’s been lovely to see her as our guest at a few Stay and Plays, she is always welcome.
Behind the scenes is Ian Scott, our treasurer, who is efficient and reliable at sorting out the branch finances and nothing could get done without him!
Finally a thank you to all of our parent and carer members for coming along to this year’s activities: we have loved seeing you and your families, and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2025. And if you are reading this as a non-member and thinking of joining for free, it could be a great way to start the new year! If I have left anyone out I do apologise, please let us know and we will amend the content to include you!
Warm wishes to you all for 2025 Tracey and the NAS Committee.