Welcome
Downright Excellent provides educational therapies and quality play experiences for children with Downs Syndrome and their siblings, plus education and support for parents/ carers. We currently run weekly speech and language therapy classes, and occupational therapy appointments for children age 0-4. We also introduced services for 5-9s in 2009-2010, and hope to expand all our offerings when funding and resources allow. We follow the teaching programme of the Down Syndrome Educational Trust who visit and evaluate our group.
Members enjoy:
- Age appropriate Speech and Language Therapy groups
- Stay and play for children (when not in their SLT group)
- Informal parents support group during stay and play
- Occupational Therapist specialising in sensory processing issues
- Small lending library of publications and DVDs
- Free sandwiches from Pret a Manger!
We meet on Fridays during term-time from 10-1pm, and we are just about to launch a Saturday group for school age children – see ABOUT US for more information on this exciting development.
Autumn Term 2011: Friday 9 September to Friday 16 December
Half term: 21 October
Families attending Downright Excellent pay a donation of £10 per week towards our running costs. The service is free to all families living on benefits. If people are in financial difficulties we do not wish to add to their stress and they can always talk to the trustees about paying what they can afford, or not paying at all during the period of difficulty.
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Congratulations to Lucy (our former chair) for being nominated for the Divine Women Awards:
Here’s a couple of photos from the awards ceremony – Lucy and Debs and Lucy and Livia Firth (a member of the judging panel).
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Downright Excellent’s Sponsored Walk on HAMPSTEAD HEATH, Sunday 26th June 2011.
Last year’s walk raised an impressive
£10, 365
We hope that this year’s event will raise even more…
We all had great fun and it was a wonderful day out with over 100 walkers. Let’s hope even more families can join us this year!
MEET
From 11.00am to walk for 12.00 noon.
We’ll meet at Hampstead Heath, Nassington Road entrance, on the grass opposite the Children’s Playground and paddling pool (please see attached map, which also details tube, rail, bus routes and nearby streets for parking if you’re driving). Look out for the Gazebo, which will serve as a base for the day and for some shade, if the sun shines for us, and as shelter, if it rains (fingers crossed for glorious sunshine!). Please feel free to bring your own gazebo/shelter for the day.
If we do have sunshine, the splash pool, opposite our base is ideal for children to enjoy – to avoid disappointed children, please remember to bring towel and swim wear. If the sun doesn’t shine on Sunday 26th June, please be prepared and remember to bring your waterproofs and umbrellas….
WALK
Will commence at 12.00 Noon… there will be some flyers to hand out to interested passers-by. However, Heath protocol prohibits us from collecting money from the public. If asked, it would be sensible to say that we are walking to raise awareness of Down’s syndrome and having a charity picnic… We could always direct people to justgiving, or encourage them to send us a cheque!
JUSTGIVING & SPONSORSHIP FORMS
To make collecting your sponsorship monies easy, why not set up a just giving page and make Downright Excellent your chosen charity. Click on the following link to view our page, which you can use as a template:
Justgiving link
If you wish to stick to the traditional method of collecting sponsorship, feel free to use the attached Sponsorship Form and hand monies to one of DRE trustees after the event.
PICNIC
After we have walked, there will be a picnic at our meeting point (as above)
Keeping it simple, please bring your own picnic and drinks.
You will be able to drop your picnic off when we all meet and there will be someone to look after it while you walk.
Remember to bring rugs, to sit on, together with plates, cutlery and something to drink from and PLENTY OF WATER, (or beer!) as it may be a hot day!
ACTIVITIES
Following last year’s format, we hope that there will be fun speech and language activities, such as signing with Nursery Rhymes and sing and sign. There will also be a parachute to play with and there will be certificates for all children who walk on the day. We’ll also have a face painter, games and other fun activities. Please feel free to bring along your own footballs, games etc.
KEEP IN TOUCH
If you’re going to walk, would you please email us with number, at your earliest convenience.
If you’re not sure whether you’re able to walk on the day and suddenly find yourself free, or just wish to picnic, it would be lovely to see you.
All best wishes
Chris, Katy and Matilda.
If you have any questions please contact Katy or Chris: katygoodwin1971@yahoo.co.uk or forchris@btopenworld.com
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Downright Excellent is a limited company, registration number 6249083.
Registered Charity number 1120863.
Cerebra is a charity that offers grants of up to £500 towards Speech and Language Therapy for children who have not accessed SLT in the last six months. New families who have not yet accesed our SLT programme may like to apply here
In the press…
Read the Downright Excellent story here. From the latest edition of the Big Lottery Fund magazine.
Fundraising event at Wiltons Music Hall – 5 July 09
A staged reading of Lou Stein’s version of Dostoevsky’s thriller THE POSSESSED, starring Paul McGann and Susannah York, was held at Wilton’s Music Hall on Sunday, 05 July. Proceeds are to be donated to Downright Excellent. We would like to thank Lou, Deidre, Ethan and everyone at Wiltons for making the night a fantastic success.
Below: our media correspondent Ethan congratulates Susannah York on her outstanding performance.
Generous donation from Golden Lane Nursery trustees
Mark Pudge and Sandra Tucker of City.Comm present a cheque for £4750 to Lucy Newham and Debra Carlin. The money is from the surplus left after the winding up of the old Golden Lane nursery in the Barbican which Downright Excellent is hoping to take over and renovate in the future.
Islington MP visits Downright Excellent
Islington MP Emily Thornberry came to meet us in October 2008.
Emily said: “Downright Excellent is living up to its name in helping children with Downs Syndrome and their parents or carers. It is a great group to have at the Golden Lane Children’s Centre”
Emily Thornbury MP visits Downright Excellent
