NEWS RELEASE

Mobility Roadshow Announces Ready Willing and Mobile 2010

The Mobility Roadshow, the UK’s premier mobility and lifestyle event, is delighted to announce the sixth year of Ready Willing and Mobile, its national competition that encourages young people to help their less-able peers.

Supporting National Young Disabled Persons’ Day on 3rd July, it offers young people aged between 7 and 16 years the opportunity to win £1,000 for their school or club, as well as great prizes for themselves.

The competition seeks bright ideas to help children with disabilities on the move – at home, at school, at play. Mobility is not an issue exclusive to wheelchair users … sensory, learning or memory impairments can also affect a young person’s mobility in different and challenging ways.

“For over 25 years, The Mobility Roadshow has promoted inclusivity through showcasing products and services to aid anyone who needs help to get around,” said Jacqui Jones, Executive Director of Mobility Choice, the charity that organises the Roadshow. “Through this competition we are encouraging young people to think about others from an early age.”

To enter, all that’s needed is an illustration of the idea with a short description – what it is, how it works and how it could help. Previous entries have included accessible sports and play equipment, accessories and tools, communication and shopping aids and funky lifestyle wheelchairs. There are two age categories, 7 to 11 and 12 to 16, with a winner and runner-up in each age group. An outright winner is then chosen from the two age group winners.

Great Prizes

Each of the two age category winners receives a digital camera, £50 worth of Penguin Books and a VIP visit to the Mobility Roadshow on Saturday, 3rd July 2010 at the East of England Showground, Peterborough. The outright winner goes on to receive extra prizes for their school or club – £1,000 towards equipment or projects, STAEDTLER art and crafts materials worth £250 and £100 worth of Penguin Books. For themselves they bag an overnight stay for four at a Holiday Inn in London with a trip on the London Eye.

Visit www.mobilityroadshow.co.uk for full terms and conditions, entries close on 31st March 2010.

Ready Willing and Mobile is supported by Aspire, Go Kids Go!, Holiday Inn, Penguin Books, Phab Kids!, Royal College of Art and STAEDTLER.

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7th November – Bonfire Night at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire

Enjoy a Bonfire beside the Lake and spectacular fireworks display set to music with refreshment stands and children’s entertainment.

Gates open at 4pm with fireworks from 8.30pm.

Admission £5 with Age 4 and Under FREE. Please note payment on the night will be by cash only.

Please visit Ragley Hall’s Disability Access page for information for disabled people.

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Halloween is upon us again and so it’s time to start looking at what’s on over this fun filled period around the UK. First off is the Peak District and Derbyshire’s Spookyshire events. Various different celebrations will be undertaken throughout the region and here’s a look at a few of them.

Halloween Spooktacular at Gulliver’s

Celebrate Halloween in style at Gullivers. All the usual rides and attractions, plus a fantastic firework display. Pop into Halloween shows throughout the day to see special characters. The perfect evening for the whole family. Booking is advisable as space is limited. Children in fancy dress receive £1 off admission before 2pm.

For information for disabled people please download the Gulliver’s  Word Document or find it in their site under “What is Gulliver’s”

Alton Tower’s Scarefest

You can also find more theme park Halloween fun at Alton Tower’s Scarefest from the 17th October – 1st November. For information for disabled people please visit their Disabled Access page where you can also download a leaflet.

Halloween at Chatsworth House

For a truly haunting half term come and enjoy a week of tricks and treats at Chatsworth’s Farmyard Halloween Hoot. For the brave there’s all kinds of evil excitement to keep the little horrors happy including making monstrous masks and cards or taking one of the daily ‘Fright Flights’ through the haunted Warlock Wood. Just watch out for the sinister Spellweaver that lurks amongst the trees. Most activities free upon normal farmyard admission fees. Fright Flights can be booked on the day for an additional charge.

Halloween Spooktacular at Tropical Butterfly House

Come face to face with animated ghosts and ghouls in the Haunted House. Take a Haunted Hayride round the Freaky Forest and play Trick or Treat on the Witch in the Wood.

The Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry website states:

• Most of the centre is accessible to wheelchairs and push-chairs. Disabled toilets and baby changing facilities are also available.
• Sorry – dogs are not permitted, except for guide dogs. Please do not bring your dog and leave him in the car.

For more events in the Peak District and Derbyshire please visit the Spookyshire page where you can also find symbols to indicate facilities for disabled people.

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This Friday (9th October)  is the spectacular annual Leeds Light Night arts event that takes place in the city centre. Residents and visitors of all ages are invited to come and take part in this completely free celebration of the city’s diverse and exciting arts scene.

Millennium Square will host a number of events, including awe-inspiring moving projections on the Civic Hall and a chance to draw with light and see your creations up on the BBC Big Screen. Discover the ‘lost art of conversation’ using yogurt pots and string, see moving artwork around the city at a travelling gallery, create your own planet and become part of the Light Night solar system or see angels ascend from heaven in the university chaplaincy. Just a snippet of the 80 events across 50 venues that are sure to keep you busy all night!

Motion Disabled

We don’t often have the time to sit and study physical movement. It passes us by as we go about our lives: all kinds of physical shapes and sizes constantly moving past us at various speeds – we see people run, walk, struggle and push as they stride through life. But, there is no one there who is ‘really normal’: there is only difference.

Motion Disabled aims to show movement using clear and unambiguous imagery: the kick boxer who is also thalidomide; the cyclist with Cerebral Palsy; the footballer with Spina Bifida; and others. These are movements that will not exist for much longer; society seems to want to be ‘normal’, to be squarer, flatter, more reduced and banal.

In the work you will see virtual movements based on the day to day reality of the disabled actors involved. Questions are raised: how do shower with short arms? How do you answer the phone if you have no arms?

The work enables the viewer to engage and explore ideas of normality and difference on a pathological and metaphysical level as a challenging art work that reveals who we all are to ourselves and others. A process that is particularly relevant at a time when bioscience is encouraging society to make complex genetic choices that will affect the future course of humanity. Is the future of difference going to only be virtual?

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Bradford Music Week runs from the 21st – 27th September 2009 and the  event will include a diverse range of music. There is also the World Mile Festival which is running as part of Bradford Music Week. This event will run over the weekend of 26th – 27th September in venues along the route of Ivegate to White Abbey Road.

Bradford Music Week will also cover activities in Keighley and other surrounding areas.

For information regarding access at Bradford Music Week Venues please see their web site.

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The Swansea Festival of Music and Arts runs from the 28th Spetember – 17th October at various venues across the city. “The success of last year’s 60th birthday Festival has enabled us, in difficult economic circumstances, to build a programme of quality and diversity: concerts, opera, oratorio, chamber music, jazz and gospel, together with classical and contemporary dance, musical comedy, visual arts and lectures. We hope that people of all ages and backgrounds will share the colour and imagination which the arts bring to our lives.”

There is information for people with disabilities regarding three of the main venues; Brangwyn Hall, The Grand Theatre and the Taliesin Arts Centre.

You can also read the Swansea Festival of Music and Arts in Welsh.

“Gwŷl Gerdd a Chelfyddydau Abertawe

Mae llwyddiant Gwyl y llynedd, yn dathlu ei phenblwydd yn 60, wedi’n galluogi, mewn hinsawdd economaidd anodd, i adeiladu rhaglen o ansawdd ac amrywiaeth: cyngherddau, opera,oratorio,miwsig siambr, jas a gospel, ynghyd â dawns glasurol a chyfoes, comedi gerdd, celf weledol a darlithoedd.

Gobeithiwn y bydd pobl o bob oedran a chefndir yn rhannu’r lliw a’r dychymyg y mae’r celfyddydau’n cynnig i’n bywydau.”

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Doors Open Days is coordinated by the Scottish Civic Trust and is part of European Herritage Days along side the Scottish Archaeology Month which is organised by Archaeology Scotland. Doors Open days is the largest free annual architechtural annual event in Scotland and runs throughout September.

On the Doors Open Days website you can search for free access to hundreds of fascinating buildings throughout Scotland. Every weekend throughout the month many buildings that are normally closed to the public open up for a glimpse into their private interiors.

You can search either through the site’s interactive map, area or date. Within the interactive map page you can also search by area, date and theme.

Unfortunately, you currently cannot search by facilities for people with disabilities this year, but maybe it’s something that they will add for 2010. However, once you have found a building that you would like to visit they do include symbols to indicate accessible WCs and if there is access to the building.

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