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”
Donnington Community Centre
As usual we had a warm welcome at Donnington Community Centre, where they were having a fundraising evening for Macmillan Cancer Support. They had many tasty cakes, a raffle, guess how many sweets were in a jar and plenty of people were there to support this.
Normal Club with Hama Beads and Connect 4
We met again in the refurbished hall at Wesley Memorial Church, and as well as sitting and chatting, played Connect 4, and made things with Hama Beads. The new hatch to the kitchen behind the hall allowed the Hama Beads to be ironed on a stainless steel surface 
The hatch is visible behind the Hama Bead makers to the left, and the new podium area to the right.
First club night in the redeveloped Hall at Wesley Memorial
We were all very excited to have our first Club Night after the summer break in the revamped Hall. The overall effect is brighter, and everyone commented on how nice the new floor and paintwork looked.
We admired the new and refurbished rooms, and particularly the new kitchen, which has a large hatch connecting to the hall to allow tea and coffee made in the kitchen to be passed through easily.
Here is view looking out from the new kitchen into the Hall.
Here we can see the new hatch into the kitchen, with a podium space to the right.
We are very grateful to Wesley Memorial Church, and everyone who has contributed to the Open Doors project for the exciting possibilities.
As it was our first time together after the summer we heard about what people had been doing, and discussed what we would like to do in the Autumn programme.
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.
Cowley Road Carnival 2016
Once again we are at Cowley Road Carnival, as last years day was successful despite the blustery weather.
We arrived early to start setting up, in a slight drizzle.
Here we are ready for the public.
We have a monkey whose name is known only to a select few, and the public are invited to try to guess his (or her) name to win it for a very reasonable entry fee of 20p. Once again we are next to our friends from Oxford Spires Rotary.
The Mayor of Oxford came past, and later stopped by for a chat.
Many people dropped by to purchase home made sweets, guess the name of the monkey, or chat and find out more about what we do.Luckily the drizzle has stopped and we had better weather for most of the afternoon, until the Carnival closed at 5pm.
Shortly after we started to pack up the rain came on again, but we managed to get most things into shelter until we were able to fetch the minibus and load it to go home.
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
The view from the course is amazing, as you can see below:
We make up our own bonus activities !
Here we are out on the course !
and here is our PeerTube playlist for the event