Some quotes from guests:
"Everybody
is normal because nobody is perfect and nobody is nothing" - 10 yr
old boy from Sheffield.
Merissa and Demi-Leigh from Nottingham left us this poem after spending
a week at Kepplewray with their primary school at Kepplewray.
Kepplewray,
Kepplewray
We're having so much fun
Sometimes we were having
Fun in the sun
In day and night we do a lot of stuff
Sometimes at night we have had enough!
Kepplewray, Kepplewray is a great place
We always take a spare set of clothes
Just in case.
Kepplewray, Kepplewray we don't want to go
We wanted the week to go
Slow, slow, slow.
Rick Townson left us recently after six years during which he set up our
training and consultancy business. We wish him well in his new job
and look forward to seeing him around the place as an unpaid volunteer!
He is pictured here with the new toy we gave him at his leaving lunch.
It was great to see Revd. Tim Montgomery our previous Chief Executive at
the lunch. Tim recruited Rick and it seemed fitting that he should
give one of his very humorous speeches.
Kepplewray was white in time for Christmas. A very generous
donation enabled us to have the entire outside of the building painted
together with repairs to all the remaining original windows, gutters and
downpipes. Here's a sort of before and after photo all in one!
The recent Northern Soul evening in Barrow raised £600 for charity.
Half of this was given to Kepplewray and half to Duddon and Furness
Mountain Rescue Team.
Many thanks to all involved and especially Rob McKeever.
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Wolfgang was with us for seven weeks last autumn. He comes
from Düsseldorf in Germany and spent part of a gap year before
university in community service. He was a great asset to
the Kepplewray team and his excellent use of English showed many
of us natives up. He's shown here with his giant
German-English dictionary. |
We are delighted to announce that Mike Ketchell has now joined us as
Cook in Charge. He is continuing our tradition of excellent fresh
food. Mike
replaces Jane who has left us in order to get a part-time job nearer to
her home.
Andy Giles joined Kepplewray in December 2003 as the senior person in
charge of activities. Andy, his wife Jo and their two girls
have moved to the Lake District from South West Scotland where he was
previously working at the Barcaple Outdoor Centre. He sees his
move to K as an exciting step motivated by the challenges created by the
diverse flientele that K caters for. More details are in the
current edition of K News.
Broughton Community Transport was officially launched on 16 September
2003 attended by Councillor Josh Curwen. Those who attended were: Sally
Troughton (representing older members of the community), Daniel
Leighton, Claudia Blaud and Bethany Mullen (children at Broughton
School).
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Kepplewray is very grateful to Mattel,
the makers of Barbie, who kindly donated to us Barbie's friend
Becky who is a wheelchair user. For our display at the
Disability Awareness Day in Warrington we constructed a model of
the Kepplewray climbing tree and a kite harness to demonstrate how
wheelchair users can experience the same thrill of getting to the
top of the tree as non-disabled people. See picture right.
Action Man at the bottom is helping Becky by holding the rope as
we would. The picture below is Rob Bracewell, one of our
supporters, manning the stand. |
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The end of October 2003 half-term weekend saw Kepplewray fill up with
members of the Emmanuel Church, South Croydon Youth Club. The
twist is that they had not attended for the last 30 years! This
was a grand reunion where they all discovered they had not grown up as
much as they thought!
Congratulations to our patron Jonathan Edwards who received a lifetime
achievement award from the president of the IAAF, Lamine Diack at the
end of the World Championships in Paris. We wish Jonathan God's
blessing as he retires from being an athlete and takes up new
challenges. He has just had a golf day where he contributed half
of the money raised to Kepplewray.
Last year, we received a substantial donation from staff at Deutsche
Bank, who came up in a large team to erect our new ropes course.
The individual donations were matched by the Bank. They have also
agreed to return next winter for another project. Many, many
thanks to the whole team.
We welcome Kara Walker and Chris Ella who have joined
the K staff as members of the activity instructor team. Nickie
Shaw also joined the team in early June. 2003 is set to be our
busiest year ever, and we now have a larger team than ever to take our
guests on adventures in the great outdoors. Matthew Johnson also
joined in May to help on the catering and housekeeping side. We've
also had Ruth Baxter and Joanne Sweet as short-term volunteers.
This is Ruth's second time with us, and she is already talking about
coming back next summer! Joanne is a Sports Science graduate and
has been undertaking research on the beneficial nature of activities.
We have recently started providing school dinners to Broughton School
which is next door to the centre. This is a good mutual arrangement as
they get fresh food cooked almost on the premises, and we utilise our
kitchens when they are normally quiet (our guests have packed lunches on
weekdays because they are normally out on activities).
We are very grateful to the Mountain Centre in Broughton for donating a
large number of walking boots. Pictured below are just a few of
them!
Trinity, Carlilse, Sixth form visited us again in April for a work party
weekend. They took advantage of some great weather to do some
hacking and hewing in the grounds, including working on the pond and the
path down to our archery field.
Seven pupils and five staff from Trinity School Carlisle rode from
Carlisle to Kepplewray on their bikes to raise money for Kepplewray.
Trinity have been great supporters of the project and we are grateful to
them for this effort (8 hours cycling) raising another £500 or so.
We said goodbye to Sarah Boughton in January. Sarah has been
working as an outdoor activities volunteer for nearly two years.
We are really grateful to her for all that she has done and for being
such a great colleague. We wish God's blessing for the future.
In early September, we had a group of 51 people from Deutsche Bank
erecting a ropes course in our grounds. They are part of the
bank's worldwide graduate intake. Their work was coordinated by
IMPACT. They worked enormously hard and managed to complete it in
time to hand over the course to our Chairman, Revd John Libby before
they left. We are very grateful to Deutsche Bank, Impact and all
those who took part in providing this excellent new facility for the
centre.
We're having lots of work experience and volunteer placements this
summer. We are very grateful to: Emily Berry, Alison Vere, Becky
Douglas and Ruth Baxter and Sam Gannon for all their hard work. We
also welcome Frances Bradley onto the staff as Residential Services
Assistant.
News of some of our patrons:
Congratulations to Jonathan
Edwards, one of our patrons, for getting Gold in the Commonwealth Games
- fantastic.
Prof Stephen Hawking has won
one of the world's most prestigious prizes for popular science writing -
the Aventis Prize for Science Books. The world-famous physicist's
publication - The Universe In A Nutshell - was honoured with the £10,000
prize at a gala dinner at the London Science Museum on Tuesday.
David Holding, won the
silver medal in the 200m in the HSA National Wheelchair Championships in
Cardiff on 22nd June. He finished just behind David Weir, winner
of the Flora London Marathon.
Taff Bowles, our Programme Manager, made a working visit to an outdoor
activity centre in Lesotho. He writes:
| "I
guess that I was somewhat surprised initially to hear that
Lesotho - one of the poorest countries in the world - was
home to a new Christian project teaching outdoor pursuits
(.outdoor activities were, I thought, traditionally linked
with affluent nations, and those able to afford leisure time). I
was further amazed to hear that this new project was keen to
welcome and include disabled people - a concept that, after
all, is still fairly new in the west!! It was wonderful and
humbling therefore to watch as homeless street children shrieked
with joy and glowed with pride on reaching the top of a climb..
and young people with learning disabilities hugged and clapped
each other on the back with a real sense of joy and satisfaction
as they successfully completed a teambuilding exercise. Clearly
outdoor education can be an effective and exciting medium for
personal growth and development anywhere the world.and I
personally feel privileged and richer for having witnessed its
impact on peoples' lives in Lesotho." |
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The previous week, our
guests included Felstead School and a work party from St John's College,
Cambridge who did some great work in the house and grounds.
Barclays Bank recently sponsored a lunch at Kepplewray. The idea
was to improve links between Kepplewray and the business community in
the Furness peninsula. Our patron, Jonathan Edwards, welcomed the
guests and presented certificates to members of Trinity and James Rennie
schools who were at Kepplewray for a team challenge event that day.
We are extremely grateful to Steve Collis of Barclays for organising
this event and to all the Barclays staff who attended and a significant
grant towards the work of the centre.
Last year, Kepplewray hosted professors,
lecturers and students of geology from Medway University in Kent. The
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences were on 10 day 'field trip'
to The Lakes to study the various rock formations and outcrops, the
purpose of which was to expand the student's knowledge of things
geological. The group covered almost every square inch of The
National Park in their ten days with us. Each day they departed from the
centre bang on 9am having eaten a hearty cooked breakfast and packed
their flasks and rucksacks full of goodies for lunch. Supper was served
by our new cook, Jane, who plied them with mountains of home baked
cakes, pies and a variety of hot tasty dishes. In the evenings
they lounged around Kepplewray's log fires preparing for the next day's
excursion and listen to the "prof's" evening geology lecture.
At 10pm the centre was noticeably quiet as they were all sampling some
of the house "specials" as guests of the Manor Inn.
Our thanks and congratulations to Penny Moreton who raised £1,420 for
Kepplewray in the London Marathon.
In late September we had a group of mainly retired people from Emmanuel
Church South Croydon staying with us. Emmanuel has been a strong
supporter of Kepplewray from the start and we were proud to let some of
the members see the place for the first time. They have since told
us that the visit "was a great success".
We've just heard that we have been given a grant to build a fully
accessible bathroom on the top floor of Kepplewray. This is the
last room in the building which has not yet been put into use - at the
moment it is unplastered and has no floor!
Martin Salter-Smith reports back to us on the recent Greyhound
Challenge:
On Sunday 2nd June, as
part of the Grizebeck Jubilee Weekend, 5 of us cycled from the Greyhound
Inn, Shap, to the Greyhound Inn, Grizebeck, following old drove roads
and bridleways - 35 miles in all, 23 off road.
Three of us breakfasted in fine style at the Greyhound, Shap, and
Derrick the
landlord not only refused payment, but pressed £20 into my hand for the
cause, so we added the cost of the breakfasts to the total, as we had
already
set aside £15 to pay for them.
It was dry when we started, but rained intermittently throughout the
day,
culminating in a terrific lightning storm near Coniston, with pouring
rain
and black skies.
Our support team met us at Longsleddale, Troutbeck, Ambleside and
Hawkshead Hill, supplying hot tea, cake and words of encouragement.
We left Shap at 09.00 and arrived in Grizebeck at 19.00 having ascended
a
total of 4,500 feet and descended over 5,000 feet (Ian and Barry
Postlethwaite got there 40 min. sooner, but they weren't held up by the
cows....)
We were all tired and very muddy, but filled with a warm glow of
satisfaction, especially when we realised that our efforts had raised £400,
which was divided between Kepplewray and the Duddon Branch of Arthritis
Care.
Now that we've proved it can be done, we'll be doing it again next year,
with one or two tweaks to shorten it slightly and make it an even more
logical
route, which can be done sub-9hrs.
The five who rode were: Martin Salter-Smith and Sue Roberts (Grizebeck)
Ian
Curwen and Barry Postlethwaite (Kirkby) and Barry Rabone (Chapels)
The support was by Gill Salter-Smith and Kirstine Curwen (not forgetting
the
kids.
The Wheely Big Bike Bizarre was held in Lancaster on 23rd June.
Kepplewray was there and was interviewed on Bay Radio.
We have a new assistant activity instructor for the next ten weeks.
He is Max, and he comes from an activity centre in Lesotho - see story
below. Max spent the first two days wrapped up in jumpers and a
jacket even though the weather at K was beautiful. Now he's fully
into activities with groups staying at K he is keeping warmer through
exercise.
Millom Fell Rescue Team are planning activities at Kepplewray for
everyone to join in on 20th of July as part of the Cumbrian Mountain
Festival - part of International Year of Mountains.
Edge End School from Manchester and St Giles from Croydon got on really
well together during a few days when they overlapped at Kepplewray.
A number of pupils had social needs, others were wheelchair users, and
many had English as a second language. Seeing them all mix in
together is what Kepplewray is all about.
We welcome Se-Young Park who joined the Kepplewray team on Sunday.
She is a volunteer through the Time for God scheme and is expecting to
stay through to the end of the summer. Se-Young is from Korea and
has a degree in English.
Before Christmas, our Land Rover had an engine fire which resulted in it
being written off. In February, we were able to collect a
four-wheel drive 12-seater Fiat minibus which we have purchased from an
activity centre in Wales. This vehicle was built as a prototype by
Fiat but did not go into production. It suits our needs ideally.
Fortunately it uses parts from other vehicles in the Fiat range.
This gives us two minibuses for the spring/summer season - one fully
accessible. Meanwhile, we are working with the local community in
Broughton to apply for a grant for another another 17-seater with
wheelchair access.
We really enjoyed having the Zion Youth Group from Chesterfield with us.
It was a full house and they now hold the record as the noisiest guests
we have ever had!
Our latest project in the grounds has been to produce a fully accessible
nature area which includes a pond and marshy area with a bridges.
It is a haven for wild life. Pond dipping is already proving very
popular amongst our younger guests.
We are delighted to announce that Rob Bianchi has agreed to become a
Trustee of the Kepplewray Trust. Rob brings enormous experience in
outdoor activities to the Trustees. He is national advisor to
Campaigner Pathfinder Ventures, involved in projects in Romania and
Lesotho, and is an ordained minister.
In September we had a nine day
cross-pennine sponsored canoeing event. There was a core team of
12 canoeists including people with a variety of sensory, learning and
mobility impairments, and we involved canoe clubs and others along the
way. A lady with spina bifida joined us for nine miles. She
told us it was the furthest she had ever propelled herself. An
older gentleman gallantly trying to stop one of our canoes drifting off
fell into the canal - thankfully with no ill effects! Thanks to
everyone who took part and supported us. Find out more
and see the pictures.
Our archery field is now being used. The latest task was to
tarmac the track down to the field and summer house / chapel /
environmental centre to enable wheelchair access.
The activities which we can
provide on site are now greatly increased. They include
orienteering (thank you Fran Stone), abseiling, problem solving and
cycling.
Recent groups at K have included Salterhebble School, Yarlside School,
St Luke's Special Needs Mental Health Group, Westbrook Lane School from
Leeds, and an Oak Hall students' reunion.
Groups are enjoying a great spell of weather and all the new activities
we have set up on site.
A birthday party with a
difference. Daphne Libby writes:
Our son Mark wanted
to do something different and exciting for his 10th birthday;
he wanted a sleepover and he wanted an adventure - not so easy in the
middle of winter. So we invited a few of his friends and booked into
Kepplewray for one night and a day's activities. After a wonderful
dinner of sausages, chips and ice-cream, Johan and Simone (our hosts)
took the boys out on a night hike. Armed with torches, they were set a
number of tasks, such as rescuing a prisoner without being spotted by
the guards' searchlights and ridding a 'mine-field' of hidden
'mines'. Even the zip-wire in the park took on strange and eerie
qualities in the moonlight.
The sleepover
was completely hassle-free for parents. Already tired out by the hike,
the boys were no trouble at all, and enjoyed their independence in their
own large dormitory. After breakfast next morning it was down to the
archery field for some target practice, then off to the abseil tree to
get kitted up with climbing gear. Some lads were not keen on the idea of
going up the tree but in the end they all had a go.
In the
afternoon, Johan took us all off to Cathedral Cavern, an amazing network
of caves and tunnels, where torches were banned and we were all given
tea-lights to light our way through, while again being set some
interesting tasks.
The
whole event was a great success. Tremendous fun for everybody, but above
all, as a mother with 3 children, it was the easiest birthday
celebration I have ever organised - all I did was make the cake!
We have recently said goodbye to Simone Kraal who has been working with
us as a volunteer for almost a year. We wish her well as she
returns to Holland and attends university.
The first of our summer venture camps have arrived! They have been getting on with activities straight away, including a gladiators style competition this morning.