About Us
Our Mission Statement is to :-
Firstly provide opportunities for people with disabilities including those who might not normally participate fully in community life to research information on accessible leisuretime pursuits.
Secondly to compile the resultant data into an easily accessible and visually stimulating format that will encourage other people with similar needs to expand and enhance their life experience thus improving their health and well being.
Members of our team handing out guides and raising funds at an awareness event in Cheshire
The Charity was founded by Frank and Sue Napper when in 2001 they wished to go away for a weekend and looked on the net for suitable destinations, bearing in mind Frank's disability. They could not find anything that provided both places to stay and advice about what to see and do whilst there. In the end they went to York and did their own research, which they felt was worth sharing with other wheelchair users. As Frank was doing a computer course at the local college at the time his tutor helped him to create a small webpage of their findings. Encouraged by the local Tourist Information Centre in Oswestry they then visited several other areas trying out the facilities for accessibility with Frank's own wheelchair. This was such a success that with the help of The Millennium Fund administered by Help the Aged they were able to continue to add further places of interest. This began to involve a considerable amount of time and effort so in order to be able to develop the site further they enlisted the assistance a small group of other wheelchair users and their carers.
They then received a grant from the Bruce Wake Charitable Trust (see Worcester page) with which they were able to complete further research and add more web pages, ensuring all the time that the places of interest we visited, really were accessible.
However realising not everyone had access to the web, in 2005 funding was sourced and received from the Community Champions Fund (administered by the Community Council for Shropshire) to complete research for the whole of the county of Shropshire, so in addition to Oswestry and Ironbridge there were now web pages for Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Whitchurch. This information was put into a free brochure called ' The Wheelchair Users Guide to Accessible Tourist Attractions for Shropshire'. Further funding and design assistance was sourced from Shropshire County Council and various other sources from within the county to update and improve the brochure.
Launching the first edition of the accessible activities guide
In November 2005 it was felt that the group should become more formal with elected officers and a new constitution. Our work has continued and in 2006 we researched two more written guides for the county, one on countryside sites and trails (funded and produced by the County Council Countryside Access Team) and one on accessible activities (funded by Awards for All and produced by ourselves). All three guides can be downloaded in pdf from the Publications page on this site or by mail from our PO Box (details in Contact Us). We are also members of various access groups within the county and have been asked to represent people with disabilties on other committees. In spring 2007 we received a grant from the Community Fund for Shropshire to receive training (from IIS Ltd) on our new software which enabled us to redesign and update this website. In summer 2007 Frank and Sue revisited York and updated the original webpage bearing in mind all they had learnt along the way. We also held Awareness Events in and around the county where we handed out our free guides and other information.
We had several projects planned for later in 2007 (funding permitting). The first was for further web pages and a written guide for the whole of Staffordshire. Sadly we were unable to secure funding for this project.
The second was for a data base of all wheelchair accessible transport available to residents of and visitors to Shropshire. This project has been successfully completed and the findings have been incorporated into our Shropshire webpages under transport. We have also produced a new guide detailing the information that will compliment our existing guides which is available to download from our publications page.
We had funding in place for Alan Thomas (who is a wheelchair user and a member of Ataxia South Wales) who had agreed to research a webpage for the Carmarthen area. The work was due to commence after Easter and to be available for Autumn 2007. ( Many thanks to The Bruce Wake Trust for the funding). Also thanks to Alan who completed some initial research on accommodation but as he was unable to complete the project by the Autumn, other members of our team have now finished the project and the finished page for Carmarthen including Alan's contribution for Syn-y-Gwynt and Cwmiar can now be found under our Wales section.
In June 2007 we received the exciting news that we were now a registered charity (reg.no.1119972). This was a major step forward that would allow us to seek funding to expand our coverage to the rest of the UK whilst making sure that we held true to our original principle and continue to provide information for people with disabilities that is researched by people with disabilities.
Included among planned projects for 2008 was revisiting and updating the webpages for the areas we visited over 2 years ago and to provide a new web page for Dumfries and Galloway. We have received some funding from The Bruce Wake Trust, The SEM Trust, The Company of Actuaries and The Saddlers Company towards this.
The Hedley Foundation kindly gaves us a grant towards a new accommodation search facility. This has now been completed and was launched at the Mobility Roadshow in Coventry from 12th - 14th of June 2008. You can access it at the top of our home page by clicking on accessible accommodation search.
In 2008 we also received grants from O2 through their 'It's Your Community' programme that allowed us to reprint our Shropshire 'Accessible Trails' guide and fromTalk Talk that would assist us to expand our website.
We are extremely grateful for the support these organisations have given to enable us to sustain and extend our work.
2009 has seen the reprint of our Shropshire 'Accessible Activities' guide (funded by Shropshire Masonic Charitable Trust, The Westcroft Trust, Ellesmere and District Round Table and Oswestry Borough Council). We have also experienced an expansion of our work for local authorities and tourism related organisations and we are looking forward to the 4th edition of the Shropshire 'Attractions and Accommodation' Guide and a brand new guide for Cheshire. We have also added two new areas on our regional pages for Redruth in Cornwall and Blackpool in Lancashire.
We have also produced new web pages for the whole of Cheshire. The accompanying 48 page guide which is available to download from our publications page includes information accessible places to stay, attractions to visit, a selection of countryside trails and general information on accessible transport.
Following on from our very successful work with Visit Chester and Cheshire and Shropshire Council Countryside access team, in which our volunteers were able to see positive outcomes based on their advice to improve accessibility at various locations, we have decided to focus on extending this work during 2010. More information will be available about this project shortly.
For a copy of our 2008/2009 Annual report please click here.
As our work continues to grow and more people join our team (each bringing their own unique perspective of accessibility needs) it seems hard to believe it only started eight years ago with just two people. We are looking forward to the next eight years and to expanding our information even further.