August 2023 Update
Picture Description: A photo taken from the upper floor of the 'Pencil Factory' in Keswick during the Convention. It is raining - a lot! The big tent is in the background, and in the foreground is a sail like covering tied to the trees that provides shelter underneath. There are picnic tables scattered around on the grass.
It's been quite a while since we updated! (Something I seem to say with every update!)
Having made the decision to just concentrate on the additional needs and disability work a year ago now, it seems to have really taken off - showing we made the right decision.
The highlights of the year have been:
The Children Worldwide conference in January - at Kings Park, Northampton. Always a good time, but a little nerve wracking for Kay as we have a lot of children there. (She had been advised to keep contact with children to a minimum due to covid risk).
The Hand in Hand conference in Eastbourne. This was a busy conference with Kay speaking about Additional needs and disability within many of the seminars, rather than having dedicated seminars that not many people come to. The was a brave move, but it worked really well and got the message about faith when you have additional needs much higher on the radar.
A brief break in Norfolk before heading into a busy Spring - including Spring Harvest.
Spring Harvest in Minehead was not without its challenges - especially with storm force winds and heavy rain closing parts of the site one night, but on the whole the week went well and was busy!
May was particularly busy for us with Kay agreeing to temporarily serve on the steering group for 'Churches for All' as the team search for a new 'chair'. The highlight for us was delivering training for the Keswick convention's Children and youth leaders - up in Cheshire. This was followed by some time up in Keswick itself with meetings and a visit to the Pencil factory site. We really felt welcomed into the team. (Of course, at the time of writing, we have finished our stint at the convention - more later!)
June came and went with lots of meetings, preparation for events, writing and much more. Kay was also invited to deliver a seminar at the FIEC leaders conference in November, and had a chance to meet the other contributors over a zoom meeting.
July brought a new experience for us - The Keswick Convention! We had never been before because in previous years we had been running camps and doing other holiday related outreach work.
Keswick ministries had approached Kay to be their disability advisor and to do an initial accessibility audit this year.
We absolutely loved being there, we felt valued, honoured, respected and loved. We also had a chance to meet up with friends - some we hadn't seen for over 30 years! We also made new friends and got to know our new colleagues much better.
We also found out that Keswick rain is different from normal rain!! New coats and shoes each sorted us out - but we will remember this for future conventions....
All Kay has to do now is to complete writing up the audit before sending it on.
August is a catch up month: Updating the websites, finishing existing work, reclaiming the office from props and other useful things for our work and them making it more useful for what we do now, some writing and lots more!
We realise we haven't given an update on Steve's health recently: After much swapping around of tablets and doses, they have finally found something that works, and for the last couple of months there has been no sign of the weird heartbeat that was causing the problem. He has a cardiology appointment in the autumn to check progress.
We have decided not to put our diary live online because we don't want to advertise publicly when we're travelling - even with having house sitters for safety. We often do live updates on Kay's personal Facebook page, and occasionally on her work page when safe to do so. So, if you would like to keep updated on that, do make contact and ask for a diary.
Thankyou for your continued interest, care and support.
Kay and Steve
