Latest news from the Play and Leisure team

New Saturday Youthscheme!

Challengers Bookham Youthscheme every Saturday

Based at our fantastic Bookham Youthcentre, our Saturday scheme is up and running! As well as the Saturday youthscheme, we are running our Easter and Summer schemes from the centre. The youthscheme runs 10am – 4pm every Saturday all year, please call the booking line if you would like to come along.

Links: Bookham youth programme for Summer Term 2009

Bus runs from Ridgeway School to Challengers Farnham After School Club

We are very pleased to now offer bus runs from The Ridgway School in Farnham to our After School Club at Farnham playcentre on a Monday and Friday. We also offer bus runs from Henry Tyndale School on a Tuesday and Wednesday to our Farnham playcentre. We hope that this will mean even more children will be able to get to the playcentre and enjoy lots of fun, after school at Challengers.

For more detail call Paul Wilson 01483 230 930 or email paulwilson@disability-challengers.org

Aiming High for Disabled Children and Disability Challengers

Aiming High for Disabled Children is a government programme to fund and deliver more ‘flexible breaks’ for families caring for disabled children. The programme is being delivered through the local authorities across UK (Surrey County Council and Hampshire County Council) and Disability Challengers have made proposals to Surrey and Hampshire Aiming High programmes to expand the service we offer. We will keep families in touch with news about the success of our applications.

We think that the programme is a remarkable opportunity – it is money (quite a lot of it) specifically for disabled children to access just the sort of projects we know families have been asking for; play and youth schemes that are good for children but also provide a break for the family. If we are successful in our applications we will use the funding to increase the number of 1:1 spaces at Challengers, increase the length of the Summer holiday schemes and run more overnight trips. The funding is up to March 2011, which is not long to start up projects, recruit and deliver. But we feel Disability Challengers is ready to deliver – we have a lot of schemes up and running that simply need ‘adding’ to rather than starting from scratch.

We hope (and expect) that the funding will continue beyond 2011. The services that the money is targeting are essential - families, local authorities and Challengers all agree on this. And it will be difficult for the local authority (and government) to take away those services away. So things are looking up for a service that is so important but that we know often gets forgotten about – play and leisure for disabled children.

Aiming High for Disabled Children links:

Surrey AHDC site and pam.quilter@surreycc.gov.uk
Hampshire AHDC and mark.rowley@hants.gov.uk
Government AHDC site

More Sunday Family Days Farnham and Guildford

We are now running 2 Family Sundays at Guildford (first and last Sunday every month) and every Sunday at Farnham Playcentre. Just drop in and play with your friends and family 10.30am – 3pm!

Spaces at Challengers Guildford After School Club

We have spaces at the Guildford and Farnham After School Clubs. We pickup from Pond Meadow, Ridgeway and Henry Tyndale Schools. The clubs run 3.30pm – 6pm every night in the term time – call 01483 230 939 to book.

More to do for young adults at Challengers

We are increasing the number of sessions at the Guildford Young Adult Scheme, in every holiday we will run Monday to Saturday, 10am – 4pm. As well as every Saturday all through the year. The scheme is for young people age 18 – 25 and every day we’ll be going out on great trips like visiting the London Eye, Imax Cinema, going for pub lunches, to the seaside, bowling and much more. There are spaces every day for young people who need one-to-one support. To book call 01483 230 930.

Recruiting playstaff now for Summer holidays

If you are interested in working with children call us for an application pack.

We are recruiting for Saturdays, half terms and the Summer (August) Challengers schemes in Guildford, Farnham, Dorking, Epsom, Leatherhead, Caterham and Oxted. Go to the Vacancies Page to download application packs and apply.

Tell your friends and family too! For more information call Kate Duke 01483 579 390 or email kateduke@disability-challengers.org

16,343 – visits to Challengers in 2008

….or 77,949 hours (if we’re going to be picky!) to 966 children. In 2008 we increased the delivery at Challengers play and youth schemes by 17% on 2007. The increase was mainly at the Farnham playcentre but other projects grew too, including Guildford youthscheme, Sunday Family Days, Leatherhead and Oxted. We love being able to tell people about the how much we deliver, but sometimes the numbers are hard to understand without a context – the big numbers mean that hundreds of disabled children came to play at Challengers play and youth schemes. This is important because many of the children (and their families) rely on Disability Challengers for fun things to do at the weekend and in the holidays.

Couldn't do it without...

Disability Challengers work with Surrey County Council and Guildford Borough Council all year round to plan and co-ordinate the work we do. Surrey and Guildford also contribute funding to Disability Challengers.