GUIDELINES AT THE RETREAT
1. Members may book for weekly regular times-spaces in the morning or afternoon provided there is no clubs or other activities at that time Every two months this will be reviewed.
2. Members do not need to come for the full three and a half hours designated for the morning or afternoon slot. However they must come between these times, and not earlier or later.
3. When they leave they must ensure that everything they used is put away in the correct place. They must take away with them anything they have brought unless it is something that is intended for use in the garden by all members.
4. They can contribute to the space by making sculptures out of the bricks and wood found in the garden and can bring other material to the garden that they find along the way ( wooden furniture, bricks, plastic tubing, leaves, feathers etc ..) to be used in these sculptures. Members must use their judgement to ensure that what they bring to the garden is safe.
5. They can alter any sculptures or works that they find throughout the garden provided they respond and add to what is there already.
6. Members may also do Gardening: pruning, planting, clearing leaves etc.. according to what they feel needs doing. Care must be taken not to dig up what someone else has planted. If you are planting seeds, plastic labels are helpful as reminders to people. These are found in the “Old Laundry room”. (Where the tools are kept).
7. Of course, members may feel that the garden is best appreciated by doing nothing and this is totally acceptable. There are various places throughout the garden to sit as well as a shed with windows for weather protection. There is bird seed in the “Old Laundry Room”, and feeding the birds can also be a good way of walking around the garden and noticing things.
8.There are some musical instruments which anyone is welcome to play. Art materials are only for use by the Bridges club and youth club. However if you want to use pencils, crayon, pen and paper that is fine. You are also welcome to bring your own art materials to use but remember to take them away when you leave unless they are intended for use by everyyone.
9. A donation of 50p is appreciated on each visit to cover the costs of drinks, birdseed and gas. There is a safe tin for donations in the fridge which is blue.The kettle is in the “Old Laundry room” on the table and teas and coffees are on top of the fridge.
10. There is a “Comments” book in the shed on the glass table. It is green. Please feel free to write or draw anything in here.
Thanks.
With best wishes,
Ruth
Saturday, 21 August 2010
To David Morris, Disability Advisor to Mayor of London
29.9.07
Dear David Morris,
I attended the “Politics Of Autism” Conference on Wed 12th Sept. I came up to the front desk where you were sitting at the beginning of the meeting and asked you about where to put leaflets- I don`t know if you remember this.
I finally decided to put the leaflets about our Self-Help Autistic and Dyslexic Garden Sculpture project next to the food at the other end of the hall.
I meant to give you a leaflet personaly but somehow didn`t.
_____
I worry about this project and the Community of people who have gathered over the last seven years through a Duty of Care, because the project will soon be closing.
It is a project that works in cycles; of laying down traces, revisiting and remembering. The involvement is active, practical and creative and in this way positive. It is a real space that we occupy, move around and have an impact on.
The theory and practice come together in this way, of how we involve ourselves, take responsibility and grow. There are problems sometimes- misunderstandings and tight spots- as well as moments, caught in glances, laughter and simple acts of hospitality, of real expansion. All these episodes are part of what it means to work things out in a community. This is part of the adaptaive shape of any group as it informs itself through time.
In this way, slowly, through our spatial projects where we make dwellings, shelters, pathways and through our Gardening projects, we come together out of our many diverse experiences.
After seven years of occupancy we face eviction. That eviction is now set for March 31st 2008. The land is owned by NCH and is a small annex to the side of their Highbury Site. I found it as a disused space and proposed the project which it has now grown to become. However neither me nor the other members could have known then quite what that would entail.
I have experienced a way of being through this project that I could not have imagined possible though perhaps it was lodged somewhere in my deepest memories where connections flow and are not interupted by an onslaught of images and words. Any place that sustains itself also sustains the lives that are a part of it. The meaning deepens over time.
I know from this project that people need to be “embedded” in a context where they have valued roles that are interdependant in order to live from their own life experiences. This is a crucial requirement for human Well-Being and tackles through engaged solutions rather than the naming of problems, what it means to have quality of life.
Many people with disabilites suffer the consequences of social isolation.
The consequent mental health problems which they may develop in later life then become the real issue and the disability an inadvertant trigger to these problems rather than simply another way of sensing the world that points to the true nature of human diversity and adaptation.
I think that people with a Spectrum Disorder- Autism, Dyslexia, ADHD- need places that they can make their own in order to draw on a sense of Community and to springboard themselves into other realms of action, thought and emotional Well-Being. Such places can act as “Holding Spaces” that build up positivity like a battery charger and through a series of deeply rooted valued associations, can infact address and prevent the day to day over-loading which is an imprisonement for so many people on the Spectrum. A support system of positive endorsements is crucial in re-diverting these everyday triggers to stress that otherwise isolate and negate people and allows unstead a different pattern to emerge; that of integration.
You are the Disability Advisor to the Mayor of London.
I would like you to ask the Mayor to take notice of the points I have raised in this letter and to make available- As a Matter of Urgency- spaces for disabled people and specifically for people with Spectrum Disorders, in which they can create their own initiatives and in this way address the real capacities that they hold within. I believe society will learn and gain back from such an endorsement and that this could have far-reaching affects.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Founder and Co-ordinator of “Memory Gardens” Autistic Sculpture Project
Dear David Morris,
I attended the “Politics Of Autism” Conference on Wed 12th Sept. I came up to the front desk where you were sitting at the beginning of the meeting and asked you about where to put leaflets- I don`t know if you remember this.
I finally decided to put the leaflets about our Self-Help Autistic and Dyslexic Garden Sculpture project next to the food at the other end of the hall.
I meant to give you a leaflet personaly but somehow didn`t.
_____
I worry about this project and the Community of people who have gathered over the last seven years through a Duty of Care, because the project will soon be closing.
It is a project that works in cycles; of laying down traces, revisiting and remembering. The involvement is active, practical and creative and in this way positive. It is a real space that we occupy, move around and have an impact on.
The theory and practice come together in this way, of how we involve ourselves, take responsibility and grow. There are problems sometimes- misunderstandings and tight spots- as well as moments, caught in glances, laughter and simple acts of hospitality, of real expansion. All these episodes are part of what it means to work things out in a community. This is part of the adaptaive shape of any group as it informs itself through time.
In this way, slowly, through our spatial projects where we make dwellings, shelters, pathways and through our Gardening projects, we come together out of our many diverse experiences.
After seven years of occupancy we face eviction. That eviction is now set for March 31st 2008. The land is owned by NCH and is a small annex to the side of their Highbury Site. I found it as a disused space and proposed the project which it has now grown to become. However neither me nor the other members could have known then quite what that would entail.
I have experienced a way of being through this project that I could not have imagined possible though perhaps it was lodged somewhere in my deepest memories where connections flow and are not interupted by an onslaught of images and words. Any place that sustains itself also sustains the lives that are a part of it. The meaning deepens over time.
I know from this project that people need to be “embedded” in a context where they have valued roles that are interdependant in order to live from their own life experiences. This is a crucial requirement for human Well-Being and tackles through engaged solutions rather than the naming of problems, what it means to have quality of life.
Many people with disabilites suffer the consequences of social isolation.
The consequent mental health problems which they may develop in later life then become the real issue and the disability an inadvertant trigger to these problems rather than simply another way of sensing the world that points to the true nature of human diversity and adaptation.
I think that people with a Spectrum Disorder- Autism, Dyslexia, ADHD- need places that they can make their own in order to draw on a sense of Community and to springboard themselves into other realms of action, thought and emotional Well-Being. Such places can act as “Holding Spaces” that build up positivity like a battery charger and through a series of deeply rooted valued associations, can infact address and prevent the day to day over-loading which is an imprisonement for so many people on the Spectrum. A support system of positive endorsements is crucial in re-diverting these everyday triggers to stress that otherwise isolate and negate people and allows unstead a different pattern to emerge; that of integration.
You are the Disability Advisor to the Mayor of London.
I would like you to ask the Mayor to take notice of the points I have raised in this letter and to make available- As a Matter of Urgency- spaces for disabled people and specifically for people with Spectrum Disorders, in which they can create their own initiatives and in this way address the real capacities that they hold within. I believe society will learn and gain back from such an endorsement and that this could have far-reaching affects.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Founder and Co-ordinator of “Memory Gardens” Autistic Sculpture Project
CHANGES TO THE GARDEN
9.1.2006
Dear Members/workers/volunteers,
The shape of the Garden is changing.
1. It will work more as a co-op with everyone having shared input and with equal benefits.
2. Everyone is entitled to a time-space in the Garden. This is a time to be at the Garden on your own. (See time-table in the shed for spaces still available.) This time-table changes every two months.
3. There is a volunteer gardening drop-in club every Tuesday. Anyone can come along to help with gardening, maintenance etc. And to drink tea.
4. Payment for services- youth club play-work, adult art club tutoring- will no longer be in money but in tokens.( Equivalent in value to the former rate of pay) These can be exchanged in a local health shop for food items and/or for health treatments- there is a clinic upstairs. In time, other shops and local services may come on board. This system will take affect, subject to the success of a grant application, in May.
5. Work tokens can also be used to hire time in the garden in order to run your own workshops, classes etc which you are qualified or have experience in teaching. (Yoga, Art, excercise, Qigong, etc.) You will advertise these for the local community. These must also be publicised in Autistic publications and at the adjoining Peter Bedford cafe.There must be a concessionary rate offered. All earnings for this will go to yourself. However if you need assistance, you are entitled to ask another member/worker and to agree a sum according to earnings.
6. Other artists/practitioners will be recruited to hire out space provided their Intended use is acceptable and of interest to members. Money raised in this way will go towards general necessities at the garden.
7. Gradualy our reliance on grants will be phased out and other aproaches to funding will be sought.
This will involve:
a) A schools programme.
b) A doner scheme where businesses can fund the involvement of either a child or adult with high support needs for a given length of time to attend a club or course or to have one to one tuition/mentoring.
8. Every three months there will be a meeting/bonfire at the garden where ideas about how the garden is going to be used will be discussed .
REASONS FOR THE CHANGES
1. The need to continuously make out grant applications is draining energy away from the fundamental purpose of the garden project. That is to provide a shared place for mutual support.
2. The last four grants have been unsuccessful. A sign that I am growing weary and so slack in this role; not really fully believing in it anymore.
3. Money is becoming the judge of worth and this is affecting relationships between those who get money and those who don`t at the garden.
4. A system of tokens enables many people to be recognised for effort in many different ways. The tokens can cut across difference where money highlights it.
5. Money is problematic in this project because not everyone can be self-employed and this puts payment on the wrong side of the present law.
6. Money seems to make people think in a narrow frame about the space. I.e it is a place to go for a certain amount of hours. It is hard for other ideas or connections to come about in this framework.
7. If on the other hand it is seen more as a shared space, then people who have an involvement with the garden as an Autistic learning space can still earn money by self-initiating projects from a wider basis of their own skills and drawing on a local paying community.
8. This type of inovation will naturally build links between the Autistic/educational aims of the space and a wider inclusive community. This will inevitably broaden perceptions.
9. I feel that it is no longer necessary or healthy for me to be the only person driving decisions and making things happen in this space.
10. After five years of intense involvement in founding this project, I am getting tired and need to open up the space and its possibilities as a place of dialogue between many types of people. Without this opening I feel that the Garden can not maintain momentum.
11. The Garden is the sum total of everyone`s ideas. I would like to see a more fluid and casual set-up where we support one anothers’ development by perhaps exchanging skills once a month- each month somebody different teaching others something that they enjoy doing. This need not be too formal. A swapping system of skills and interests that we are perhaps learning at the moment ourselves.
Exceptions to the token system:
1. A general co-ordinator responsible for the day-to-day running of the project, for
approaching businesses, for recruiting artists and practioners and making links with
organisations concerned with Autism will have a fixed monthly part-time wage and
must have a self-employed status. I will fill this post for an initial six months starting in May.
Before that I will continue to do it on a voluntary basis. After six months, anyone is able to apply for the post.
There will be a vote of all members to decide. This post will always depend on regular election.
2. People employed for specialist services- carpentry, plumbing, gardening- which
involve a specific job or for one-off training/artisitc development workshops for
members, have the option to be paid with a cheque if they are self-employed.
So these are the ideas for a few changes!
There is no compulsion in this new set-up to do more or less than is comfortable. Lifestyles change and are changeable and involvements reflect this.
There may be people who feel that the conditions of their involvement have dramatically shifted. – Especially those paid with money before who suddenly are not paid this way. Those who withdraw may need to earn money right now and that might be the priority. That is fair enough.
Whatever peoples’ situation, the space is there. Basically a free space to experiment with ways of living and to question certain beliefs about oneself and others.
Happy New Year!
Ruth
Dear Members/workers/volunteers,
The shape of the Garden is changing.
1. It will work more as a co-op with everyone having shared input and with equal benefits.
2. Everyone is entitled to a time-space in the Garden. This is a time to be at the Garden on your own. (See time-table in the shed for spaces still available.) This time-table changes every two months.
3. There is a volunteer gardening drop-in club every Tuesday. Anyone can come along to help with gardening, maintenance etc. And to drink tea.
4. Payment for services- youth club play-work, adult art club tutoring- will no longer be in money but in tokens.( Equivalent in value to the former rate of pay) These can be exchanged in a local health shop for food items and/or for health treatments- there is a clinic upstairs. In time, other shops and local services may come on board. This system will take affect, subject to the success of a grant application, in May.
5. Work tokens can also be used to hire time in the garden in order to run your own workshops, classes etc which you are qualified or have experience in teaching. (Yoga, Art, excercise, Qigong, etc.) You will advertise these for the local community. These must also be publicised in Autistic publications and at the adjoining Peter Bedford cafe.There must be a concessionary rate offered. All earnings for this will go to yourself. However if you need assistance, you are entitled to ask another member/worker and to agree a sum according to earnings.
6. Other artists/practitioners will be recruited to hire out space provided their Intended use is acceptable and of interest to members. Money raised in this way will go towards general necessities at the garden.
7. Gradualy our reliance on grants will be phased out and other aproaches to funding will be sought.
This will involve:
a) A schools programme.
b) A doner scheme where businesses can fund the involvement of either a child or adult with high support needs for a given length of time to attend a club or course or to have one to one tuition/mentoring.
8. Every three months there will be a meeting/bonfire at the garden where ideas about how the garden is going to be used will be discussed .
REASONS FOR THE CHANGES
1. The need to continuously make out grant applications is draining energy away from the fundamental purpose of the garden project. That is to provide a shared place for mutual support.
2. The last four grants have been unsuccessful. A sign that I am growing weary and so slack in this role; not really fully believing in it anymore.
3. Money is becoming the judge of worth and this is affecting relationships between those who get money and those who don`t at the garden.
4. A system of tokens enables many people to be recognised for effort in many different ways. The tokens can cut across difference where money highlights it.
5. Money is problematic in this project because not everyone can be self-employed and this puts payment on the wrong side of the present law.
6. Money seems to make people think in a narrow frame about the space. I.e it is a place to go for a certain amount of hours. It is hard for other ideas or connections to come about in this framework.
7. If on the other hand it is seen more as a shared space, then people who have an involvement with the garden as an Autistic learning space can still earn money by self-initiating projects from a wider basis of their own skills and drawing on a local paying community.
8. This type of inovation will naturally build links between the Autistic/educational aims of the space and a wider inclusive community. This will inevitably broaden perceptions.
9. I feel that it is no longer necessary or healthy for me to be the only person driving decisions and making things happen in this space.
10. After five years of intense involvement in founding this project, I am getting tired and need to open up the space and its possibilities as a place of dialogue between many types of people. Without this opening I feel that the Garden can not maintain momentum.
11. The Garden is the sum total of everyone`s ideas. I would like to see a more fluid and casual set-up where we support one anothers’ development by perhaps exchanging skills once a month- each month somebody different teaching others something that they enjoy doing. This need not be too formal. A swapping system of skills and interests that we are perhaps learning at the moment ourselves.
Exceptions to the token system:
1. A general co-ordinator responsible for the day-to-day running of the project, for
approaching businesses, for recruiting artists and practioners and making links with
organisations concerned with Autism will have a fixed monthly part-time wage and
must have a self-employed status. I will fill this post for an initial six months starting in May.
Before that I will continue to do it on a voluntary basis. After six months, anyone is able to apply for the post.
There will be a vote of all members to decide. This post will always depend on regular election.
2. People employed for specialist services- carpentry, plumbing, gardening- which
involve a specific job or for one-off training/artisitc development workshops for
members, have the option to be paid with a cheque if they are self-employed.
So these are the ideas for a few changes!
There is no compulsion in this new set-up to do more or less than is comfortable. Lifestyles change and are changeable and involvements reflect this.
There may be people who feel that the conditions of their involvement have dramatically shifted. – Especially those paid with money before who suddenly are not paid this way. Those who withdraw may need to earn money right now and that might be the priority. That is fair enough.
Whatever peoples’ situation, the space is there. Basically a free space to experiment with ways of living and to question certain beliefs about oneself and others.
Happy New Year!
Ruth
Reference for Becki
11.9.2008
To whom it may concern,
Becki Perriman is my most trusted and long-term worker at Memory Gardens Autistic youth club. I have every confidence in her and her ability to tune into the needs, concerns and interests of the children attending the club.
Becki takes a genuine pleasure in following, extending and supporting the experiences and choices of these children. She knows how to join them in their activity, affirming the details of their various interests, facilitating these by devising special spaces with whatever is to hand. She involves them for as long as their interest remains then switches into a different gear once they have moved on.
She is an excellent one-to-one worker which I feel is the area where her most unique skills lie. She can draw into a communicative space the most introverted of children simply by not making demands on them and allowing things to develop out of their actions. Children visibly relax around her leaning into the spaces she opens up.
Yet Becki is not a soft touch and will negotiate with and expect a certain attention and dialogue from children who are capable of this.
Becki may sometimes appear quiet or uncomfortable in meetings or on first arriving. However over the years I have come to realise that Becki works in a very direct and practical hands-on way and that where that connection is called for in the specific demands of the club she is one of the most pro-active and on-the-ground workers I have ever known.
She has a clear sense of what needs doing, of whom at that moment needs to be given some attention, and of possible problem areas where situations are beginning to boil up. At such times she is clear and coherent in expressing to other workers the needs as they unfold and can express and summarise well in meetings both these situations and observations of a more positive kind in relation to a certain child and some small yet special act of theirs. She has an ability to see through to the real issues concerning children which puts into a different framework acts that might otherwise seem unimportant.
Becki has a real feeling for the children she works with. She has a genuine sense of celebration and possibility in the way she relates to them. They sense her acceptance and quiet affirmation of who they are and this gives them the confidence to express themselves.
I would not hesitate in recommending Becki for this post.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator
Memory Gardens Autistic Sculpture Project
To whom it may concern,
Becki Perriman is my most trusted and long-term worker at Memory Gardens Autistic youth club. I have every confidence in her and her ability to tune into the needs, concerns and interests of the children attending the club.
Becki takes a genuine pleasure in following, extending and supporting the experiences and choices of these children. She knows how to join them in their activity, affirming the details of their various interests, facilitating these by devising special spaces with whatever is to hand. She involves them for as long as their interest remains then switches into a different gear once they have moved on.
She is an excellent one-to-one worker which I feel is the area where her most unique skills lie. She can draw into a communicative space the most introverted of children simply by not making demands on them and allowing things to develop out of their actions. Children visibly relax around her leaning into the spaces she opens up.
Yet Becki is not a soft touch and will negotiate with and expect a certain attention and dialogue from children who are capable of this.
Becki may sometimes appear quiet or uncomfortable in meetings or on first arriving. However over the years I have come to realise that Becki works in a very direct and practical hands-on way and that where that connection is called for in the specific demands of the club she is one of the most pro-active and on-the-ground workers I have ever known.
She has a clear sense of what needs doing, of whom at that moment needs to be given some attention, and of possible problem areas where situations are beginning to boil up. At such times she is clear and coherent in expressing to other workers the needs as they unfold and can express and summarise well in meetings both these situations and observations of a more positive kind in relation to a certain child and some small yet special act of theirs. She has an ability to see through to the real issues concerning children which puts into a different framework acts that might otherwise seem unimportant.
Becki has a real feeling for the children she works with. She has a genuine sense of celebration and possibility in the way she relates to them. They sense her acceptance and quiet affirmation of who they are and this gives them the confidence to express themselves.
I would not hesitate in recommending Becki for this post.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator
Memory Gardens Autistic Sculpture Project
User's group response to Tenancy agreement
Barbara Peacock
Director Of Children`s Services
NCH London Regional Office
22 Lucerne rd N5 1TZ
4.10.07
Dear Barbara,
Our Users Group met today at “Memory Gardens” to discuss my most recent meeting with you and Andrew Mchardy and to look over the Tenancy agreement which Andrew had emailed me.
Members feel that there is one crucial point which is not addressed in the tenancy and which therefore makes it hard for us to agree to this document. The document gives March 31st 2008 as a leave-date from the site for our group.
However members feel that a leave date should be contingent upon active plans that NCH has secured for re-development and should not simply be a date imposed which could then leave the land vacant with no active use aranged for the forseeable future.
Members of the Users Group realise that there is a real concern with NCH concerning our group and the potential difficulties that you see in connection with us occupying the land. We want to work with you and we respect your right to reclaim this land when the time comes for an active project. We have always acknowledged your gesture of hospitality in allowing us to develop this Autistic Youth and Adult service and although we are independent from you, we acknowledge common goals and orientations with regards to User led services and an emphasis on providing opportunities for people to develop skills that link them back into the Community.
I want to emphasise that our members are very clear that we do not want to create difficulty for NCH. What we would hope for is to have a fluid and responsive relationship whereby we all have our “ear to the ground” and as practical developments come to light- in your planning and options for the site and in our options for other sites- that we might all act and adjust even if this is at short notice. This would mean that we could maintain our “Duty of Care” or “Stewardship”, towards this space until such a time as it was needed by you for another active use.
We feel that there needs to be a certain amount of trust in this arangement. We are not going to insult your hospitality by laying claim to this land indefinitely. But what members can not comprehend and find disruptive to their sense of what is right, is having to vacate a space which then turns back into a state of dereliction. I can not emphasis enough how much this disturbs and upsets our members and everything that they have come to work towards and value through their participation in this garden project.
We hope that we can all find the resources to work together and realise a common objective through this period of transition. This period could be used as a way of developing an important link across the border that at times seems to separate us.
I believe that through our on-going discussions, which I have come to value, and through the other points of exchange now in place, that this is already happening. I see this as a good thing.
Again on behalf of my group and for myself included, I would like to acknowledge NCH for providing this site for us over the years and to say simply, Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator “Memory Gardens” Autistic Project.
On behalf of the Members of “Memory Gardens” Users Group:
Margaret Schofield
Jamie Pike
Molly Porter
Eloina Alvarez
Adrian Whyatt
Becky Perriman
Ruth Solomon
Director Of Children`s Services
NCH London Regional Office
22 Lucerne rd N5 1TZ
4.10.07
Dear Barbara,
Our Users Group met today at “Memory Gardens” to discuss my most recent meeting with you and Andrew Mchardy and to look over the Tenancy agreement which Andrew had emailed me.
Members feel that there is one crucial point which is not addressed in the tenancy and which therefore makes it hard for us to agree to this document. The document gives March 31st 2008 as a leave-date from the site for our group.
However members feel that a leave date should be contingent upon active plans that NCH has secured for re-development and should not simply be a date imposed which could then leave the land vacant with no active use aranged for the forseeable future.
Members of the Users Group realise that there is a real concern with NCH concerning our group and the potential difficulties that you see in connection with us occupying the land. We want to work with you and we respect your right to reclaim this land when the time comes for an active project. We have always acknowledged your gesture of hospitality in allowing us to develop this Autistic Youth and Adult service and although we are independent from you, we acknowledge common goals and orientations with regards to User led services and an emphasis on providing opportunities for people to develop skills that link them back into the Community.
I want to emphasise that our members are very clear that we do not want to create difficulty for NCH. What we would hope for is to have a fluid and responsive relationship whereby we all have our “ear to the ground” and as practical developments come to light- in your planning and options for the site and in our options for other sites- that we might all act and adjust even if this is at short notice. This would mean that we could maintain our “Duty of Care” or “Stewardship”, towards this space until such a time as it was needed by you for another active use.
We feel that there needs to be a certain amount of trust in this arangement. We are not going to insult your hospitality by laying claim to this land indefinitely. But what members can not comprehend and find disruptive to their sense of what is right, is having to vacate a space which then turns back into a state of dereliction. I can not emphasis enough how much this disturbs and upsets our members and everything that they have come to work towards and value through their participation in this garden project.
We hope that we can all find the resources to work together and realise a common objective through this period of transition. This period could be used as a way of developing an important link across the border that at times seems to separate us.
I believe that through our on-going discussions, which I have come to value, and through the other points of exchange now in place, that this is already happening. I see this as a good thing.
Again on behalf of my group and for myself included, I would like to acknowledge NCH for providing this site for us over the years and to say simply, Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator “Memory Gardens” Autistic Project.
On behalf of the Members of “Memory Gardens” Users Group:
Margaret Schofield
Jamie Pike
Molly Porter
Eloina Alvarez
Adrian Whyatt
Becky Perriman
Ruth Solomon
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Letter to Barbara
Director of Children's services
National Children's Home
Turner House
Highbury and Islington
24 May 2007
Dear Barbara,
I am writing to you because there has been alot of problems trying to arange a meeting with you. Your PA Vilma Edwards has needed to change the date now four times and still there is not a definite time as I haven`t been able to make contact with her today.
Obviously I am concerned about the implications of the possible closure of Legard Family centre and I feel that I have really not very much to go on as to the full story of the situation and where exactly that leaves us, placed as we are, in the middle.
It seems surprising how hard it is to make contact even though I am at the Garden every Tuesday and Thursday morning and early after-noon and you are just around the corner.
Of course you would be welcome to visit me at the garden and in that sense you would get a clear idea about what is important for us. Alternatively I can be available most afternoons after 2.pm
It is hard with this uncertainty to know what to say to members, whether to go ahead employing gardeners, making grant applications, tending the land. Of course that is exactly what we are doing because our occupancy of this land carries with it certain obligations and always has.
I hope therefore that we can resolve on a meeting as soon as possible so that some clarity can be reached and with this an understanding of what N.C.H is trying to do and what we in turn are trying to do.
Yours Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator of Memory Gardens Autistic Project
National Children's Home
Turner House
Highbury and Islington
24 May 2007
Dear Barbara,
I am writing to you because there has been alot of problems trying to arange a meeting with you. Your PA Vilma Edwards has needed to change the date now four times and still there is not a definite time as I haven`t been able to make contact with her today.
Obviously I am concerned about the implications of the possible closure of Legard Family centre and I feel that I have really not very much to go on as to the full story of the situation and where exactly that leaves us, placed as we are, in the middle.
It seems surprising how hard it is to make contact even though I am at the Garden every Tuesday and Thursday morning and early after-noon and you are just around the corner.
Of course you would be welcome to visit me at the garden and in that sense you would get a clear idea about what is important for us. Alternatively I can be available most afternoons after 2.pm
It is hard with this uncertainty to know what to say to members, whether to go ahead employing gardeners, making grant applications, tending the land. Of course that is exactly what we are doing because our occupancy of this land carries with it certain obligations and always has.
I hope therefore that we can resolve on a meeting as soon as possible so that some clarity can be reached and with this an understanding of what N.C.H is trying to do and what we in turn are trying to do.
Yours Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Co-ordinator of Memory Gardens Autistic Project
Membership
2003
The team that I am putting together at the Memory Garden Project have a diverse range of experiences and personal attributes. Some of them I have been working with now for over two years.
William is a seventeen year old student. He has a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome. He has a sensitivity towards people and environment and can translate these qualities into dynamic balancing of structures made from brick, wood, natural material. He warms grsdually to people, buoilding on experiences and points of interest, yet seems to "get" what they are about immediately, by their gestures and rhythm of communication. He is equally comfortable with nonverbal people as with verbal people, bridging as he does in his own experience, both worlds.
Molly is a sixty year old retired woman. She is able to create a focal point of confidence and continuity and has been coming for so long that she seems to hold the history of the place. She is an excellent mentor and is skillful at interpreting and holding people's life experiences so as to acknowledge difficulties while directing towards change. She has no diagnosi of any known condition but experiences difficulties with large groups.
Lee is a Sculpturer who became involved a few months ago. He has a practical directness and can get things going efore anyone has even turnedto see that he has got things going. Frequently he provides interesting material, visiting woods and parklands to salvage natural materials. He is also gifted at providing a safe framework for our members with more severe Special Needs. He as a clear sense of safety whilst also being able to experinece the value and specialness of the moment and to communicate a sense of achievement and possibility to those whom he works with.
Cecille has a real sense of the quality of materials. She combines these naturally and effortlessly to create forms and sculptures of quality and personal insight. Her obvious love for the feel and texture of this work naturally draws people in who becomeintrigued and inspired through the value and appreciation which she brings to whatever she does. Cecille was a Research Mathematician who tooka different direction after being disgnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and Dyslexia.
Sue is the mother of Chi, a boy of fifteen with autism who comes regularly to the project. Sue is skilled in Gardening and cooking. Within her natural organising skills she is ale to ensure openings into which our members can then become effective. She will for instance prepare and cut food and then encourage membrs to get involved with combining and stirring ingredients. For people who have difficulties in sequencing and thinking ahead, she can create a structure which is clear because it is visually compelling. Her gardening skills too are executed effortlessly often preparing the ground and initiating the fiirtst planting giving others a direction around which to get involved.
Margaret is the mother of William. Margaret has an ability to think by analogy around given situations and problems. She is excellent at linking our aims and the foundations of what we stand for with other projects and concerns. She has a deep sense of understanding of the mind-set of autistic people and can subtly draw on the strengths of such a mind-set whilst silently supporting, without drawing attention to, the areas of difficulty. Margaret has a deep sense of integrity which she can translate into the written word in email dialogues which gradually allows one to get to the grit of an idea or feeling. She can analyse the way that a situation may be interpreted by others and can therefore avert possible misinterpretation. She has come up with many original ideas for web-pages and seep packets.
These are some of the more pivotal members. I hope this helps to give you a sense of our overal structure.
Yours Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Founder Member of Memory Gardens Sculpture Project
____
Part of a letter to a representative of National Children's Home who own the land on which the garden project was situated. This was in response for their request for more details about current members.
The team that I am putting together at the Memory Garden Project have a diverse range of experiences and personal attributes. Some of them I have been working with now for over two years.
William is a seventeen year old student. He has a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome. He has a sensitivity towards people and environment and can translate these qualities into dynamic balancing of structures made from brick, wood, natural material. He warms grsdually to people, buoilding on experiences and points of interest, yet seems to "get" what they are about immediately, by their gestures and rhythm of communication. He is equally comfortable with nonverbal people as with verbal people, bridging as he does in his own experience, both worlds.
Molly is a sixty year old retired woman. She is able to create a focal point of confidence and continuity and has been coming for so long that she seems to hold the history of the place. She is an excellent mentor and is skillful at interpreting and holding people's life experiences so as to acknowledge difficulties while directing towards change. She has no diagnosi of any known condition but experiences difficulties with large groups.
Lee is a Sculpturer who became involved a few months ago. He has a practical directness and can get things going efore anyone has even turnedto see that he has got things going. Frequently he provides interesting material, visiting woods and parklands to salvage natural materials. He is also gifted at providing a safe framework for our members with more severe Special Needs. He as a clear sense of safety whilst also being able to experinece the value and specialness of the moment and to communicate a sense of achievement and possibility to those whom he works with.
Cecille has a real sense of the quality of materials. She combines these naturally and effortlessly to create forms and sculptures of quality and personal insight. Her obvious love for the feel and texture of this work naturally draws people in who becomeintrigued and inspired through the value and appreciation which she brings to whatever she does. Cecille was a Research Mathematician who tooka different direction after being disgnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and Dyslexia.
Sue is the mother of Chi, a boy of fifteen with autism who comes regularly to the project. Sue is skilled in Gardening and cooking. Within her natural organising skills she is ale to ensure openings into which our members can then become effective. She will for instance prepare and cut food and then encourage membrs to get involved with combining and stirring ingredients. For people who have difficulties in sequencing and thinking ahead, she can create a structure which is clear because it is visually compelling. Her gardening skills too are executed effortlessly often preparing the ground and initiating the fiirtst planting giving others a direction around which to get involved.
Margaret is the mother of William. Margaret has an ability to think by analogy around given situations and problems. She is excellent at linking our aims and the foundations of what we stand for with other projects and concerns. She has a deep sense of understanding of the mind-set of autistic people and can subtly draw on the strengths of such a mind-set whilst silently supporting, without drawing attention to, the areas of difficulty. Margaret has a deep sense of integrity which she can translate into the written word in email dialogues which gradually allows one to get to the grit of an idea or feeling. She can analyse the way that a situation may be interpreted by others and can therefore avert possible misinterpretation. She has come up with many original ideas for web-pages and seep packets.
These are some of the more pivotal members. I hope this helps to give you a sense of our overal structure.
Yours Sincerely,
Ruth Solomon
Founder Member of Memory Gardens Sculpture Project
____
Part of a letter to a representative of National Children's Home who own the land on which the garden project was situated. This was in response for their request for more details about current members.
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