After all the excitement of our club holiday at Avon Tyrrell, we had a quiet evening at Wesley Memorial Church, chatting and telling those who were unable to participate in the holiday all about it.
Unfortunately we came out from the club night to find that our minibus had been boxed in, with cars (without Blue Badges) very close, both front and rear. They obviously did not read the sign on the back of the minibus, which asks for a 3 metres behind the bus so we can get the lift out and load the bus. It took some skilful manoeuvring to extract the minibus before we could load.
Category: Wesley Memorial
Events which take place at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford
Club night with games
As well as our normal club night chatting, with quite a bit of administration this week as the money for our meal out at Oxy next week, and for Mama Mia in November needed to be paid.
We have several games in the Phab cupboard, and it is great to have so much space to be able to play them in the Hall at Wesley Memorial Church. We had the indoor tennis out for these pictures.
Zumba – with Tango !
We always enjoy Zumba, and George Martini had us try some dances in a different style, rather like a cross between the Zumba we had been doing and the Wheelchair Dance we did in February.
Here we are in action !
As well as dances in lines there were dances in a circle – this one was taken while dancing, so the room as well as the dancers seems to be moving !
We even did a tango – but participating and filming a circle dance is possible, but a tango would be too tricky !
We all really enjoyed the session and look forward to more Zumba in future.
To fund out activities we will be taking part on the Oxford Fun Run on May 6th, so please consider sponsoring us.
Easter Disco
We were happy to have Banbury Phab come to our Easter Disco.
Before anyone else arrived a small team were busy in the kitchen making sandwiches.
The bread and eggs for the sandwiches and the cakes were donated by Tescos via the Fareshare Foodcloud scheme, while crisps etc were donated by Oxford Phab members.
We ended up with quite a spread !
When Banbury arrived our disco got started.
After a bit of disco to work up an appetite we broke to eat, and play some games, such as “Heads or Tails”. As usual at Phab the prizes were largely chocolate based !, small Easter eggs, or chocolate bunnies.
We also had some drawings of Easter Bunnies, which also won prizes.
Then we went back to the disco.
Although very dark, if you know there are to wheelchairs circling each other you get a flavour of a Phab disco.
Throwing ourselves into the Hokey Cokey with lots of energy !
Noodle Night
Here we are tucking into noodles and other dishes from Noodle Nation. Members had made their choices on our Quiz Night on March 17th, and we had let Noodle Nation know who had ordered what.
We collected the order and when we unpacked it the box was full of little individual orders labelled with who they were for. It made dishing up much easier.
Refreshments and lunches for Open Doors
Members of Oxford Phab helped to serve refreshments in the John Wesley Room at Wesley Memorial Church while a CD and Record Fair was held in the Hall, so we were able to sell refreshments to music enthusiasts, and also church members who had been to a meeting at another central office church and then came to purchase the home made soup, jacket potatoes, cakes and other delicacies prepared for the occasion.
We raised £121.20 for Open Doors.
Quiz Night
Once again Robin had gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare a quiz for us.
We divided into four teams and tackled the various parts of the quiz.
The team I was in were particularly fortunate, as we had “The Queen of the Wordsearch” in it. Despite our advantage in this section all teams were equally triumphant, and everyone shared the prize – a tub of chocolates.
Wheelchair Dancing – and Pancakes !
When we went to the Crafts Day at Hounslow Phab we brought back a quantity of surplus lemons, as well as all the items we made that day. These went well with the pancakes we cooked in the new John Wesley room kitchen at Wesley Memorial Church. We also had a sugar, bananas, squirty cream and a selection of chocolate and other sauces.
To work off all these calories we went through to the Hall for a spot of Wheelchair Dancing, arranged though the Wheelchair Dance Sports Association, sponsored by National Phab, and provided by West Oxfordshire Wheelchair Dance.
Once we had warmed up we really got into it !
As you can see in this video !
Amazing Love
Some Oxford Phab members performed in the Musical “Amazing Love“, while others came to watch. All those who took part, and hopefully those who watched, found it inspiring and uplifting.
It was written by Jack Godfrey, a member of Wesley Memorial Church, and who came to Phab from time to time – and tells the story of John and Charles Wesley. This might not sound like the most promising material for a musical, but the Wesleys had an exciting life and Amazing Love features a fire and a storm at sea, both accompanied by appropriate special effects, as well as scenes at Oxford University and the Colony of Georgia. We also learnt the less widely know “Tale of Jeremiah‘s Wife”.
Here we see, in the background, Oxford Phab members Penny, John, Sarah, Mary and Karen. Note the simple, but effective 18th century costumes.
In the background are Mary, Sarah, Karen and John from Oxford Phab looking on as John Wesley talks to Sophie Hopkey.
Here John (on the upper level), Mary and Sarah are joining in the finale.
Up in the gallery Simon was running a Followspot to illuminate principle characters, and helped with the setting up and taking down of the lighting rig.
This video was shot during the setting up of part of the Fire! scene. The production version of the scene used more fire effect lighting systems and a smoke machine.
Rehearsing for the musical and thinking about some related issues led to the article Amazing Love, Demographics and Mass migrations on my blog.
Normal Club with Boccia
As well as a little celebrating …
we played Boccia in the Hall.
This is the first time we used our new Boccia ramp (a piece of guttering).
