CEO Chat #31
Another week of grey skies, rain and gales – one day soon it will feel like summer, just in time for the schools to go back and for the Christmas items to appear in the shops. We are planning ahead for next spring but we at least wait until December to put our Christmas trees up!
Anyway, back to more recent events, and the news that two of our CDA team have been shortlisted for the prestigious Cumbrian Women of the Year Award. Karen and I were both delighted to receive invitations to a celebratory lunch on Wednesday 11th October at the Belsfield Hotel, Bowness-on-Windermere. Unfortunately, the invitations do not say what you have been nominated for, unless your nominators let it slip. How mysterious! What the awards do say is:
“this invitation comes to you in recognition of your personal commitment to communities across Cumbria, which has been brought to our attention by a member of the general public.”
Both Karen and I do all that we do because it is the right thing. There are many times when we have to thank our supportive and understanding families, who have the patience to deal with detours, phone calls at odd hours and accept that a trip out is usually linked in to quickly ‘popping in’ on a CDA errand on the way.
I was able to spend some more time at the Barrow centre, again as the junior jigsaw wrangler and tea maker. My signing skills are developing very slowly but, I can work out tea and coffee orders, and know the difference between cake and biscuit. There was also time to carry out a couple more interviews for support workers to work out in the community with some of our deaf clients who value being able to continue to communicate in BSL, rather than spend their days with no interaction in their own language.
As winter approaches we are looking at ways of providing additional hours and specialist support, provide more hours as warm spaces, offer money management assistance and other services as people face another winter dealing with worries over how they cope day to day.
If you would like to make a donation to help us set aside a winter fund to provide the necessary assistance, please follow this link on our website for various ways to donate: https://www.cumbriadeaf.org.uk/get-involved/donate/