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Transport for the sick when requested.
Clerical work and other assistance connected with Blood Donor sessions.
Handcraft Club for the Disabled.
After-care and emergency help (in meeting their needs) to disabled ex-Servicemen.
Club for Disabled Persons:
A Club, for persons suffering from severe disablement, met weekly and was a social
and recreational one for people suffering from any physical handicap. Transport was provided
for those members who were unable to make their own way to the Club premises,
which were at the Southall Community Centre. The approximate number attending
weekly was 22, the total membership being 28. Members make themselves useful to the
Community Centre staff in little ways, and this is of considerable therapeutic value.
The Hard of Hearing Club:
This Club, which was inaugurated in 1955, continued to make extremely good progress.
The membership rose to 130. The Committee is very energetic and the programmes
arranged for the members were varied, interesting and often directly useful in helping them
to come to terms with their disability. There was an average attendance at each meeting
of 70-80. The Club met every Wednesday and there were lip reading sessions for about
20 minutes at each meeting. The Club has a Welfare Committee with individual members
allocated to certain areas of the Borough, and in this way absentee members of the Club can
be visited and perhaps helped if they are in any need.
The programme was arranged so that nearly all the members, many of whom have been
deaf or have had limited hearing since childhood, became able to take an active part in the
Group and in the work of the Middlesex and Surrey League for the Hard of Hearing.
Members who when they first joined the Club were unwilling to come forward in any way
because of their disability gradually came to take an active part in the group activities and as
a result were able also to live a much fuller life outside of the club. The Welfare Committee
continued to do excellent work and they did not only cater for the members, but also for any
person in the Borough suffering from deafness or defective hearing. In the past year many
have been helped and given advice on hearing aids and how to get the maximum benefit
out of the aids. The hospital where Medresco aids are supplied was very co-operative,
the group programmes being displayed in the waiting rooms of that hospital.
Diabetic Club:
The Club for Diabetics, started in 1956, continued to function throughout 1957. This
Club was founded to enable sufferers from diabetes to meet together socially, to have the
opportunity to discuss their individual problems with fellow sufferers and to hear authoritative
talks from speakers particularly interested in diabetes such as doctors, nurses,
nutrition experts. The membership continued high and the monthly attendance at meetings
was 40-45.
Home Advice Group:
This Group, created for the purpose of assisting and advising mothers with problems,
continued to function throughout the year. Meetings were held weekly in a room at The
Grange, The Green, and a programme of interesting discussions, demonstrations and
specialist speakers planned by the Co-ordinating Committee responsible for the Group, was
carried out during the year. The Group is assisted financially by the Housing Committee
of the Borough Council. The membership, though small, reaching during the year about
12, showed an average attendance which was indicative of the interest taken in the activities
at the meetings. The original leader of the Group resigned, and another leader took her
place. Great interest is taken in this group by the London Council of Social Service who
obtained the new leader for the Group and who sent speakers from time to time.
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