By Danielle Taylor | Fundraising and Communications Manager
The October saw us embark on our annual holiday, a staple of the PIP calendar. Our student’s excitement for the trip had been building as early as last November and since summer went into overdrive! Our destination was the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre which is located in Manor Farm Country Park in Hampshire.
The centre offers day services, activity sessions and holidays for people of all ages with additional needs such as learning disability, autism, physical disability and sensory impairment, and was a welcome, beautiful, fun and tremendously well-equipped home away from home for us.
Our trip started at 10am on Monday as we piled into a minibus! We arrived without a hitch and settled in to our cosy log cabins for the evening, preparing for the gruelling activity filled days ahead.
Day 2 had us undertaking various team building exercises under the canopy of our forest home and was a great opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with our wonderful activity leader Phil who we had met during our holiday last year.
After a morning of building go karts and balancing hoops we went out on to the water for canoeing and motorboating down the River Hamble.
On Day 3 we did archery in the morning followed by a monster of an obstacle course where we had to negotiate rope swings, see-saws and a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Daryl was particularly pleased with his efforts on the tyres!
We capped off the day with a go on the zip wire which required great teamwork and support from the students to help each other back up to the launch podium after each swing. Below you can see George and Waiel helping Gemma back after her go.
Onto day 4 where we went a beautiful walk through the Hampshire countryside and up to Manor Farm where the students had the opportunity to feed the animals and milk the cows. The students loved the chance to get up close with the farm animals and gave us a great opportunity to practice our makaton signing.
Which brings us on to Friday and our final day on holiday. After an awards ceremony where the students were celebrated for their hard work, enthusiasm and support for each other, it was time to travel back to PIP and home for some much needed rest!
The holiday is an important opportunity for people with learning disabilities to get a break from the city (and their family) and interact with each other in a different setting. It not only engages them in new and exciting activities but it gives them the opportunity to practice the other skills they learn at PIP, like cooking and socialising. For families, the PIP holiday has a real impact too, giving time to rest or catch up on other activities or even spend time with other members of the family, that may need some quality time.
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