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Stepping Stones
News Archive |
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Goodbye Michael and Sheila
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We recently had a buffet to say goodbye to Michael and Shelia
Dent. Michael has been one of our trustees for many years and we
wanted to say thank you for all they have done for us over the years.
We gave them presents. We designed an ostrich egg for
them with different pictures. We each chose something to engrave on the egg
that was a memory from the good times we have had together.
We also made a memory book
with writing and photos. Michael talked about some of the
holidays we have been on together and we laughed about some of the things we
got up to.
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Pleasurewood Hills
On the 16th August a group of us went
to Pleasurewood Hills. We went in the minibus that we borrowed from some
friends of Angie and Bob who run a home for older people. We went on a train
ride and also a boat ride and a ghost train. We also saw the sea lions
performing. The sea lions jumped through hoops and ate some fish and they
all did big jumps in to the water. We went the Pirate Ship. |
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she was a bit scared. Then we queued for Enigma, a mini roller coaster. We
had to queue for an hour. It was very fast and Dawn clung to Tania for dear
life. It was a good day out Thank you Bob and Angie. |
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The Green
Fingers Allotment Summer 2007
After deciding on the name for our
allotment project we needed to design a logo. We hope you like it. We are
still harvesting tomatoes, runner beans, spinach, courgettes and
raspberries. We also have a picnic bench which makes tea breaks much more
comfortable. It’s nice to be able to sit and chat round a table out in the
sunshine. We still have a lot of work to do such as digging and organising
the little shed, but we are amazed with what we have achieved so far this
year. Thanks to Angie’s Dad for the Brassica seedlings.
In the meantime we have plenty of preserves
for sale.
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Bressingham Steam Museum & Gardens
In August we had a day out at Bressingham
Steam Museum.
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When we got in we queued up for the first
train ride. After the lovely ride
we went on the carousel.
We had a look indoors and saw some old
machinery, The Dads Army Collection and the three wheeler van called from
Only Fools and Horses. There was an old fashioned sweet shop which was still
open and some of us bought some sweets.
After another train
ride through some beautiful woodland we stopped for our lunch sitting under
a big tree. After lunch we had a walk in the gardens and we saw some lovely
flowers and they were beautiful.
We all met up again then we went over to the 1960’s dodgems and some of us
went on them. After that we had to get back into the mini bus
and head back to Norwich. It was a lovely day out. |
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Our Visit to Auntie Beeb
In June we went for a tour of the BBC. Wendy showed us
around. It was the BBC at the Norwich Forum. Wendy took us to show us how
to do the weather. The studios do not look as big as they do on TV. Sue had a go
doing the weather. We did not disturb the staff while they were working. It was
very interesting and the rest of the students will be going next month.
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Cantley Sugar Factory
In November 2006 we visited The British Sugar
Factory at Cantley. We had to wear helmets and overalls. |
We saw the beet being washed and piled
up in a big heap. Then the beet was shredded into thin strips. We tasted some sugar beet, it
tasted sweet. We saw the sugar being mixed up in a big tube and we saw real
sugar. It felt hard and crunchy. After lunch we watched a film of how the
factory looked in the year 1912. The factory was brought from Europe and rebuilt
at Cantley. Thanks to Danny and to British Sugar for a great day out.
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2007 Royal Norfolk Show
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When we first got to the show we saw some Tortoises. Next we
went in the bird tent. We saw the cows and their baby calves. Then we
saw some pigs and alpacas. We went to see a pony called Charm. She was a
nice brown welsh pony. I stroked her nose and I had my picture taken with
her. After our picnic lunch we saw a Shetland pony called Barney. Some
of us had doughnuts. We went in the craft fair tent there was some pictures
of the country side and different types of jewellery. Angie took us to the
garden tent there were all sorts of different plants. We saw some huge
cabbages and pumpkins. I enjoyed the Royal Norfolk Show.
Nicky |
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One Account Adopts Stepping Stones!
The One Account
is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. We'd very much like to build a
better team while helping a local charity, and decided that Stepping Stones
would be an ideal partner - fortunately they agreed! We are just
around the corner from Stepping Stones, so it's easy for us to pop over
during the week. We have enough people and hope we'll be able to work with
Stepping Stones to make a difference to some of their activities. We
aim to help with fundraising (and have already raised over £220, which RBSG will generously double as a Community Cashback award) as well as
some practical activities like redecorating parts of the Stepping Stones
building, and volunteering our time to work with the students.
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Allotment Update
On 4th October the Service
Delivery Team, from the Group Technology section at the Royal Bank of
Scotland, abandoned the office and headed for the Stepping Stones Allotment,
for an Away Day designed for team building and problem solving.
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20 people were split in to
4 teams tasked with: clearing, levelling and preparing the base of a new
shed, re-roofing and painting an old shed, preparing the ground and erecting
the poly tunnel and clearing and digging as much of the remaining allotment
as possible.
First things first though, everyone mucked in to clear
away the debris that had accumulated after years of neglect. The arrival of
the singing skip man from A&G Skip Hire proved to be the highlight of the
day. It’s amazing how quickly a truck can be filled!
After lunch most jobs were well on their way to
completion. The poly tunnel construction was a bit more complicated than
first envisaged, so teams were rearranged and reassigned so as to complete
as much as possible. Unfortunately the final stages of the poly tunnel
construction had to be left for another day.
Cheese straws and lemon cake were provided by the
students at Stepping Stones for an afternoon snack and were completely
devoured with in minutes of their arrival. All in all the day was a great
success.
Jon Rouse (Royal Bank of Scotland)
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Fishing with Robbie Williams! Back in June we went fishing at Barford Lakes just
outside Norwich.
It was organised by Stuart and John from The Royal Bank
of Scotland and Robbie Williams, the East Anglian Fishing coach. Robbie gave
us an introduction. He said not to touch food because rats live near lakes
and spread disease. He taught us how to do tie the knots. The fishing
rod we used was called a whip. We used a Training Lake with little
fish. Verity got two fish and Katy got two fish. Stuart unfortunately caught
a duck as well. We had lunch by the lake.
It was a great day out and we all enjoyed ourselves. Thank you Stuart,
John and Robbie!
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Thanks for Our New Room
As you all know from reading above some staff from the
Royal Bank of Scotland
have adopted us. Well, we can report that
the first project is finished. They raised money and have decorated our old
upstairs kitchen and converted it into a student lunch time room.
A team spent a very long hot day working in the kitchen.
They took out old units and used carpentry skills to box in pipes. The
students chose the
lilac colour and we have new carpet
down. We have a TV, DVD Player and our Play Station in there too. We
are putting posters up and the old cooker and tumble drier have gone.
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We enjoy using the room to relax in at lunchtime. Thank
you to everyone who was involved in decorating this room it has made a huge
difference.
Danny
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Our Trip to Gressenhall
When Dave & Lindsey were down we went to Gressenhall rural
Life Museum. I listened to an audio tape going round the museum.
After lunch we went to the farm and we went on a tractor ride. It was
brilliant. I had a go at pumping the water into a bucket on the floor. We saw
pigs, goats, cats, swans. |
I looked
in the shed and saw butterfly pictures on the wall. I enjoyed the day
out. Heidi
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BBC Voices Project Update
We have finished the media project we were doing
with Sue and Karen from the BBC Voices Dept. We are thrilled with the
results. Daniel, Sang, Tina and Viv worked on the project one afternoon a week.
We decided to make our own DVD about the
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Vegetable project from last
year. Sue got us to record our voices on the minidisk and Tina, Sang and Daniel
chose patterns for the transitions.
We also chose our own photos and selected the music. Sue, Viv,
Tina, Daniel and Sang did the DVD cover. We chose to put pictures of our
vegetables on the front.
We have passed on the skills we picked up to the rest of the
students, and have already completed a second DVD project.
Daniel and Tina
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Lantern Exhibition
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At the end May the
Lantern Floating took place. They all looked very pretty floating down the
river. However, our
Lanterns didn’t get floated on the river that night. They were so
special that they were exhibited in a place near Dragon Hall and were
floated at the end of the Waterways Arts Trail Event.
Nicky |
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The Lion King
In March we had a trip to London to see the Lion King.
The trip was in memory of John, our friend and tutor who died a couple of
years ago.
Dolphin
Coaches took us to London. On the journey I managed to spill pop and
coffee all down my nice white shirt! We got in to London at 11.45am
and walked on to Covent Garden for some Food.
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We looked in some shops and then walked to the Lyceum Theatre for 3pm. The show was excellent. The costumes, lighting,
dancing and singing were all brilliant. Daniel
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BBC
Voices &
Stepping Stones
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Earlier this year we worked
on a project with the BBC Voices
Department, run by Gary Standley. He even got us on to Radio Norfolk live
when he was presenting for the day. A small group of us did a project based on
some of our artwork. Sue and Karen from the Voices Project helped us.
We chose to make the project about the vegetable Project we did
last year. We used photos of when we did the vegetable project
and recorded our
voices on to minidisc recorder. It plays like a short film. It was great fun.
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London Marathon
Our friend Dave ran and completed the
2005 London Marathon and
raised money for The Stepping Stones Project.
Dave had been in
training for 3 months and we all joined in as his training partners. We took
part in all different activities from using the dance mat to city walks, using
the exercise bike and gardening. Well done to everyone and thanks to all of you who helped to raise
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Time and Tide Museum
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We went to Great Yarmouth to the Time and Tide
museum. It was about the olden times in Gt. Yarmouth. They
had a copy of a Row which was a narrow alley with houses either side. The houses
were small. There were different rooms, each one a different room in a house. We
saw a living room, a Kitchen and sail makers workroom. It was Pretty dark as
they had no electric light in those days.
After that we went to the smoke house. Years ago Great Yarmouth was famous
for catching herring. We saw how they preserved the fish - they salted it then
hung it up by the tail in smoke rooms. We saw a video of how it was done. It
showed thousands of fish put on sticks then hung up. I could smell the fish and
smoke as soon as I walked in.
Dawn
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Recently we visited the Inspire Hands-on Science Centre.
We had a food show and saw how custard can be
mixed into a stiff paste and when you hit it hard it stays quite hard, but
when you touch it slowly it feels all gooey. We saw how to peel a
banana like a monkey. They open them from the other end. Sang
volunteered to try and squeeze an egg but it would not break.
Afterwards we had a look round at same games and activities to try out. I
liked the water wheel best of all.
Joe
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Inspire Hands-on Science Centre
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