Activities – Page 18

Zumba for Children in Need

We joined an energetic crowd at The Christian Life Centre on Cowley road for an evening of Zuma, with Phab performing a routine we first learnt with George Martini at Phab a few weeks ago.

We had a great time, as well as raising money for Children in Need.

Banbury Phab Halloween Disco

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 !

Hot dogs, Hot chocolate and games

As the weather becomes colder, and the evenings darker, it is time for some warming and tasty food.

We ate hot dogs, and cake, and drank – amongst other options – hot chocolate with marshmallows.
Afterwards as well as our normal chatting some of us played the card game Sevens.

Zumba in the refurbished Hall.

This was the first time was had Zumba in the Hall at Wesley Memorial Church since it was refurbished, and we appreciated the extra space to move around.
Once again George Martini came to lead us – we look forward to his sessions.

Zumba can be very fast,

Sometimes it is a little slower.

But it is always fun !

Sports Training Night

Adam, from the English Federation of Disability Sport came to give us an evening of sports training, kindly sponsored by Sainsburys.
We started by writing down what we hoped to get out of the evening.

After that Adam talked a little about the different ways that Disability Sport can be organised

with a test, involving matching captions to descriptions to see if we had been paying attention. Then it was time to get more active !
We played a game where we moved around the hall, going through, or touching, as many rings as we could.

We did several variants of this – here is one.
We also played a game where we divided into two teams. One was trying to get all the bean bags to match the colours of the hoops they were in, and the other team was trying to make sure the colours did not match. Some of the hoops were on chairs to be reachable from a wheelchair.
We played some variations on games of hockey, where the room was divided into areas, and players from each team were assigned an area they played in.

Above is one of the games in action. Green sticks are playing towards one goal, and yellow sticks towards the other.
One useful thing we learnt was to think about flexible ways the space and rules can be used. Here is a diagram of an alternative way of dividing up a playing area, with channels down the sides with players in them.
By the end of the evening we were feeling “Happy and tired”

Barbecue at Simon and Sarah's house

Simon and Sarah made us very welcome at their barbecue, with tasty burgers, sausages, chicken, vegetarian sausages etc, as well as snacks, salads and drinks. Simon had put up two gazebos, and had an array of chairs, and some folding tables, as well as stringing lights round the garden to illuminate the scene as darkness fell.
As we are now into the holiday season quite a few people were away, but the 16 who were there enjoyed getting together to eat and chat.
This is towards the end when the remains of the food, and the grill have been packed away, but before the flurry of activity which sees gazebos, folding chairs and all the other essentials of an outdoor event packed neatly and stored, TARDIS-like in Simon’s shed.
Oxford Phab is now on a summer break, but we look forward to getting together again in September.

The Graeae Theatre Company gave us lots of Reasons to be Cheerful

We went – in our lovely minibus – to the Milton Keynes International Festival to see the Graeae Theatre Company performance of Reasons to be Cheerful.
This is a selection of hits by Ian Dury, arranged and performed by Graeae, with British Sign Language interpretation, and captioning and images related to the lyrics, all woven into a rocking performance.
Here we are arriving at the festival.

And seated in the Spiegeltent before the performance
All good things come to an end and finally we had to leave, getting the minibus home about 1am.

Wesley Memorial Church Garden Party in aid of Phab

After some rather mixed weather over the past month the sun shone on the Wesley Memorial Church annual garden party, with proceeds donated to Oxford Phab.
Members of the church, and of Oxford Phab swum and played games, and ate delicious cakes and scones, and drank many cups of tea and coffee. A beautiful summer day, and we are very grateful to our hosts, and to those who baked cakes, and helped with serving.

Tom's Quiz

As well as a normal club night Tom had prepared a quiz. There was a Wordsearch, for everyone to do individually.
Then we divided up into teams, one on the south side of the room and two on the north.

There was a picture themed section on identifying television programmes,
The programmes were from a range of eras, and covered a range of interests.
There was also a general knowledge quiz, and a musical section where we were asked to identify films or television programmes from their theme tunes.
We enjoyed the evening, and many thanks to Tom for the work he put in to prepare the quiz.

Evening Activities at Hinksey Heights Golf Club

We had an exciting evening of Footgolf at Hinksey Heights Golf Club, enjoying the fantastic view over Oxford and having a tasty meal. We are very grateful to the staff for looking after us so well.
Heading for the Footgolf