Next Event - Please see Calendar section

2005 October

Kids Competition ? BAPG Calendar 2006

Barnsley Building Society ? Pride in Your Community Award

Voluntary Contributions Update

Parents Meeting ? Speaking to Ruth and Andrew

Kids Competition ? BAPG Calendar 2006

Last year we had a very successful competition for kids to design a logo for the group. We had lots of great entries, it was a good chance for kids to participate in the group, and we ended up with a superb logo! This year we'd like to produce a 2006 calendar based on several of our children's artwork.
The competition is open to all children of parents who are in BAPG. To enter the competition you need to:
· Design a picture that you think would look nice. It could be hand-drawn, painted, paint program, etc.;
· Clearly state your name and address on the back of the picture.
· Send your entry to us by one of the following methods: By post to: BAPG c/o James Smith, 17 Black Horse Drive, Silkstone Common, Barnsley S75 4SD; By email to: InfoBAPG@aol.com; Or by hand at the next Parents Meeting 18th October.
· Closing date for entries is the end of October. The winning entries will be announced at the November Parents Meeting. Entries used on the calendar will win a prize, and as will all those taking part.
Please note that we plan to show the child's name next to their picture on the calendar. If you would prefer the picture to be used anonymously, please indicate on the back of the entry. Good luck! Back to top

Barnsley Building Society ? Pride in Your Community Award

Barnsley Building Society has given us some more money! You may remember they gave us some money last year to help fund our Aspergers Library. At the time they invited us to apply again, so we did! We're delighted that they've awarded us £100 to help fund production of our newsletters. Thank you Barnsley Building Society!
(By the way we have applied to some other grants bodies, more news next month hopefully!) Back to top

Google finds BAPG!

We've had the BAPG website for about a year now but until now it hasn't been easy to find unless you knew the URL, www.bapg.ik.com. Well now if you use Google to search for "barnsley aspergers" - we're top of the page, you can't miss us! This is mainly due to us getting registered on the NAS Paris database, but our site is directly listed too (though you may have to go down a couple of pages). Back to top

NAS Make Autism Count

Reproduced from the NAS Website - The National Autistic Society is launching the first ever National Survey on Autism. It may surprise you to know that there has never been a survey or research on autism undertaken on this scale before despite the prevalence of autism.
Autism directly affects over half a million people including 90,000 children in the UK. That's 1 in 110 people. It is estimated that as many as 2 million parents, brothers, sisters and carers are touched by it. Yet despite being so widespread, autism remains an invisible condition often misunderstood by the general population and ignored by the welfare services. That's why your answers to our survey are so important. If we can show there is a groundswell of public support for better services for families affected by autism, then we can really change more lives for the better. We need 100,000 responses. So please take a few moments to complete our survey today and, if you can, please encourage your friends and family to participate. There is a £1,000 prize draw for completed surveys.
To take part in the survey go to www.autismcounts.org.uk or call 0800 10 60 75 to receive a survey by post. Back to top

Voluntary Contributions Update

At the Parents Meetings we ask for voluntary contributions to pay for the refreshments and library book loan. We thought you might like to know that last month (which was fairly typical) £11 was donated for the refreshments which is great as this pays for the coffee and biscuits for the parents, and also for the soft drinks and biscuits for the Kids Computer Club. We received £4 for the book loans (we suggest 50p per book donation) and this money will be used to fund more books for the library. Thankyou! Back to top

Parents Meeting ? Speaking to Ruth and Andrew

Please don't forget that Ruth Coppard and Andrew Charters are very willing for parents to speak to them about any specific issues or problems during Parents Meetings - it's part of the reason that they like to attend. It's a great chance to have a quick chat with them rather than booking and waiting for a slot in their busy clinic diaries. Back to top

NAS help! Programme

We've heard this course may be run in Sheffield for February 2006. The aim of the help! programme is to provide parents and full-time carers, with post diagnostic information and advice, to develop their knowledge and understanding of autistic spectrum disorders, positive management strategies and local support services. The programme is for parents or full-time carers of children aged 5+ or in full-time education, young people or adults who have a recent diagnosis of an autistic spectrum disorder (within the last twelve months). More info: www.nas.co.uk, tel: 0117 974 8411, or email: help.programme@nas.org.uk. Back to top

Library Books

Have you borrowed one of BAPG Library books and not been able to return it for a while? Please could you bring it to the next Parents Meeting so that we can pass it on to other parents. If you can't attend the Meeting, then please give June a call to see how else it can be handed back. Back to top

Barnsley Aspergers Kids Group

Message reproduced from the BAKG Website: - Do you want to take a part in deciding where the kids of BAKG and BAPG go for trips? Do you want to meet other kids with aspergers syndrome? Does your brother or sister have AS and you want to meet other kids in the same position? Then come to the next computer club and we'll try to make sure you have just these things?.
Do any children fancy going to see the new Harry Potter film as soon as possible? If there's interest we could organise a group visit to an advance screening (possibly with a discount). Let us know if you do. Back to top

Steering Committee

Do you have a couple of free hours? Would you like to do something to help other parents? The best way to help BAPG support parents is to come to the next Steering Committee meeting. You'd find out what we doing, it lasts an hour and you'd find out if there's something you could do to help. It could be as you like - all of us have good and bad spells with our kids - we just do what we can, when we can. Why not come along and see? Back to top