Banbury Phab invited us to the Halloween Party. We ate hot dogs and pizza, and tasty treats, some with a Halloween theme.
Some of us got dressed up, as did several of the Banbury members.
Then we finished the evening with a disco.
Robin has been coming to Phab for many years, and we value his contributions in the form of the quizzes he arranges, the cups of tea he makes and his concerns for the smooth running of the club.
We also love a party, and although we can not dedicate a club night to every birthday, or we would never do anything else, Robin had just had a significant birthday, and Kelly’s brother Lee was available to do a disco for us.
We are grateful for the support of Robin’s parents, who joined us for the evening, to Lee for the disco, and to all the members who contributed both food and to the general party atmosphere.
Wow, what a night ! Banbury Phab invited us to their Halloween Disco, which they do in style – we were greeted with a spooky door bell, the hall were they meet was decorated with Halloween table cloths, and there were flying ghosts and witches.
We ate from the plentiful supply of hot dogs, and then Barry, club leader at Banbury Phab for many years had an announcement to make.
He had been to the House of Lords, and been presented with the Paul Hope Award, which is given for outstanding contributions to furthering the aims of PHAB. As he had travelled by coach he did not have the award with him,
but it looks like this.
We know because there were three Paul Hope Award winners in Banbury that night,
Mary was awarded the Paul Hope Award in 2015 and Simon was presented with the Award for 2005.
As if that was not enough excitement for one night, we celebrated a birthday, and then on to the (or another) highlight of the night, the fancy dress competition.
Unfortunately, as I was one of the judges, this does not show the full range of entries, and does not show the winning Pumpkin Patch Kids entry.
Thank you, Banbury Phab, for a memorable evening.
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 !
We had our Christmas Party and Disco in the newly refurbished Hall at Wesley Memorial Church.
We also had some surprise visitors, and a birthday bonus !
We did some serious discoing
After this Phab do not meet again until the the Pantomime on January 6th.
Another event to look forward to in January will be the Moonrakers concert on January 27th – tell your friends and family, who can book tickets via Oxford Playhouse.
We were invited, and very happy to go, to Banbury Phab’s Halloween Disco. As well as a disco they served burgers and hot dogs.
They also had a Halloween themed fancy dress competition and two of our members, entering as a team, came second !
Danny kindly invited Oxford Phab to his 30th Birthday Party at The Gladiator Club
Phab members clubbed together to get him a voucher towards a Fitbit.
We bought him some other goodies as well.
Which he put with his other presents from friends and relatives.
Phab members at the party
There was good food, and a really good disco, which got us up on the floor (but was not good for pictures !)
We are the Hinksey Heights Golf Club Captains Charity for 2016 and they are donating the proceeds of the raffle to us, as well as other ingenious fund raising ideas.
Their members have donated some very generous prizes.
A wide selection of raffle prizes – many, unsurprisingly, with a golfing theme.
Although not everyone could make it to the event, we were very pleased to have the support of those who did manage to get there.
When the initial rush of raffle ticket sales had died down – since most of the golf club members were out playing their round of golf – we went for a walk to explore the course.
The view of Oxford is amazing.
One of their activities is Foot Golf, which is like a combination of Football and Golf, though we invented our own variant – by seeing how many throws were needed to go from the tee box to the hole.
The weather was a little chilly, but sunny, a good day to be out of doors.
Here is the ball heading for the hole !
It is trickier than it looks !
Simon teeing off in our hand thrown variant on FootGolf – note also the amazing view of Oxford in the background.
Simon makes it look easy !
You don’t have to be in a wheelchair to take part in Wheelchair Dancing – as Patrick and Lynn from the Wheelchair Dance Sport Association showed as when they came to teach us the rudiments of Wheelchair Dancing.
We already enjoy Discos, Barn Dances and Zumba, and wheelchair dance can have similarities to all of these, but cleverly adapted to make the dances more accessible.
Here is Patrick giving us some initial instruction – he is starting off simple – it became more complicated as we went along !
Some pictures of us dancing.
Getting more active !
And this one is more like a Barn Dance.
We finished with some winding down exercises.
After breakfast and an introduction session we split into groups. I went for Food !
Paul taught us to cook a range of tasty dishes, using simple ingredients and – for the cooked dishes – a single ring portable gas cooker.
Simple deserts – cheesecake and banoffi pie
Paul also cooked Chicken in mushroom sauce, a Paella, and a Chorizo, New potato and Haddock One Pot – all within 2 hours on a single ring, from scratch.
Unfortunately I had eaten most of the One Pot (and all of the Paella and Chicken), before I remembered to take a picture !
This was followed by a buffet lunch – people who had other sessions were probably hungrier than I was.
The guy from Amazing Animals brought a range of animals for us to see, or – in some cases – touch.
Anyone who wanted to could hold a Hissing Cockroach
This is a giant stick insect
This is a Cane Toad – which we were not allowed to handle, as it secretes a toxic fluid.
And this a giant bullfrog.
Here is a friendly Boa Constrictor
and a very friendly parrot !
There were also hedgehogs, a tortoise and a giant rabbit.
As well as the Cookery demonstration Paul ran a most informative wine tasting session – he took us through six wines from a light fruity white to a full bodied red, and we were all surprised at what good value his choices were.
Our evening meal was accompanied by a raffle, party poppers, gift bags and balloon rockets – most of which were aimed at our good natured entertainer, who encouraged the various tables to take their best shot.
There was also wheelchair dancing and a disco.