Group News
AGM 4th December 2009
On Friday 4th December we held our Annual General Meeting at the Classic Boat Museum
alongside the Quay in Newport on the Isle of Wight. In attendance were over 30 people, mainly amputees and their families and also some staff members from the Island's Prosthetic Centre. Our local MP, Mr Andrew Turner, also attended. Mr Turner has always supported us in our aim to improve the prosthetic service on the Island for all Island amputees.
The usual AGM items were discussed including signing of the accounts and the acceptance of the Committee members for the next year. We also, after much discussion amongst Users and staff, had decided to change the Group's name. In the past we were the IOW Artificial Limb User Group, then it became the IOW Prosthetic Limb User Group and now, with all deciding they did not like this name, we held a discussion at the AGM and the decision was taken to change the name to IOW Amputee Group.
We are also delighted to be able to announce that Andy Cassell has agreed to be our new President, more about Andy later in this article.
Grateful thanks were then extended to Mark Glover, a volunteer from the Mainland, for his help in setting up our website and also the Isle of Wight Community Fund - the IWCF have granted us over £3300 from the Grassroots Funding to run our Website and our Newsletter. The Newsletter has been running for a year and we are beginning to pick up quite a few comments, mainly good comments but the odd criticism which we have taken on board and have rectified. We'd also like to thank Mike Stoneham from the Portsmouth Moving Forward Group and Margaret Tyson from Manchester for their help and advice with our application for funding to get an AMPFIT running on the Island. I am pleased to say that we now have the funding and this project will start running in April next year - we'll be calling it Keep Going!
After the AGM closed we were given a talk by the Team from Fishbourne Sailability on the Island. Along with the funding to run AMPFIT/Keep Going we have also received some money in our Awards for All bid to have 10 sessions on the water with the Fishbourne Sailability Team. We were shown pictures of their new wheelchair friendly boat and introduced to the timetable of sailing events and evening talks which will be running next year.
And then finally but definitely not least our new President Andy Cassell said a few words. We on the Island are all very proud of his sporting achievements, in fact he is an inspiration to all who know him.
Finally we would like to wish all at the Limbless Association and all amputees everywhere a very Happy Christmas and successful and active New Year.
Sue Moody, Hon. Treasurer & Hon. Secretary.