We now have a new wonderful Occupational Therapist working within the group. Known as Popsi to Chipperfield residents, Gillian Stokes has joined the team of paediatric therapists who all come from Chipperfield and work in this Charity-run group for pre-school children with physical disabilities. Popsi is working alongside Debbie Hughes, Speech and Language Therapist from Croft End Road and Andrea Clarke the Physiotherapist and Team Leader who lives in Tower Hill. The Playskill Christmas party was a huge success.
I was stunned to be called by Dorinda Michie Community Liaison Co-ordinator only a week or so ago to say that they wanted to give us a donation of £2424! She said that various teams at John Lewis Watford had raised in total £2424 by having a sale to staff of discontinued lines and returned stock that they can’t sell to customers. They had set up a stall in the staff dining room and sold the items during the lunch breaks over the course of one week. Dorrinda as Charities and Communities Co-ordinator was asked ifshe could find a small charity that John Lewis Watford had not made a donation to before and for whom the money would make a big difference.
The CVS gave a selection of charities to choose from and staff chose Playskill as they all agreed it was a most worthy cause. I was delighted as I had been planning to do a funding bid to help raise money for our new Parent’s Breakfast support group for parents who have children with physical difficulties. Preparing bids can take hours of time and I am now able to plough that time into furthering new projects and know that we have the money for this work! We were further delighted by the kindness of Watford Clarendon Rotary who donated £500 to the group from their wonderful fireworks night at the Fullerians Rugby club on the 5 November. A number of the children attended the fireworks and so enjoyed the event more will be going next year!!
We had a wonderful party and celebrated the success of the children who have all made great progress this term – it was lovely to see children walking round the party who had not been able to walk at all when they first came to us. It was another day when the whole team were such an asset – a huge thanks to all in Chipperfield who are supporting the Charity!
Andrea Clarke
Paediatric Physiotherapist / Playskill Team Leader
www.playskill.co.uk 01442 834438 m.07890 267722