Team Gorey!
By Sarah Gorey
Our son’s school told us that Niall had dyslexic tendencies; we were unsure what this meant so we started to search the internet.
That’s how we came across the Leicestershire Dyslexia Association (LDA). We went along to their Open Day for Parents; we listened to the speakers and took part in the workshops. We came away with a better understanding and we both came to the same conclusion ‘they have just described Niall - that’s exactly how he is’.
Niall has great difficulty with literacy and numeracy skills, information processing and organisation skills. He can never remember the days of the week and, even with support from his school was falling further behind. However, he can build amazing objects from lego and his hand to eye co-ordination is fantastic.
We took Niall along to the LDA Saturday workshops, where we met Fiona and Chris Hossack and their team of hardworking volunteers. Over the past year, Niall’s confidence has grown; with their help he’s finding strategies to help develop his literacy and numeracy skills.
There’s a wealth of knowledge within the group, they helped us with supporting evidence and guidance to complete and submit Special Educational Needs documents. After a lengthy and time consuming process we’ve been successful and managed to secure additional support and specific one to one dyslexic lessons for Niall at school.
So, after all the hard work, dedication and support LDA had shown our family we wanted to give something back.
Team Gorey was formed! David took the lead role as the swimmer and the rest of family Sarah, Ailis and Niall as the support team.
David planned to take part in 3 one mile Open Water swims in Manchester, London and Lake Windermere. The events are sponsored by British Gas and a total of 10,000 swimmers attend over the weekends and race in various waves.
On the 15th May we travelled to Salford Quays, Manchester, it was raining and very cold with the water temperature only reaching 14C, but the atmosphere and support was great and really helped you through it. David managed a great time of 37mins 50 sec.
The next swim was at Lake Windermere on the 18th June, a great venue and the weather had improved, even the water temperature had risen to a blistering 16C and David’s time improved again to 36mins 50sec. The Lake was fairly choppy which made the swim challenging.
The final swim was in London on the 2nd July and the sun was shining and the water reached 17.5C. The atmosphere was great and family and friends came to support David at his final swim. David also managed to beat all previous times and completed the mile in 35mins 31sec.
'Team Gorey' would like to thank all their family, friends and colleagues who sponsored David to complete this challenge. To date £1600 has been raised for this very worthy cause. Thank you!
Swimming for Dyslexia
Nicholas Sutcliffe, an Advanced Paramedic for the Cumbria and Lancashire area Ambulance Service and his 60 year old Father Trevor will be raising money for the British Dyslexia Association by taking part in the Great London Open Water Swim and the Great Scottish Open Water Swim in the coming weeks. Having already completed three swims as part of the five for www.great.swim.org/ earlier this year, each a mile in length, Nick and Trevor are improving their times on each one, with Nick's Father achieving 27th place out of 10,000 for his age group - which is amazing!
Nick's reasons for choosing the B.D.A. as a charity to support are as detailed in his own words:
'My daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia and has dyspraxic tendencies 3 years ago, since having her assessed we have put her into private education with extra tuition and support. Emily is now 10 and we found that the main stream schools are not geared up to deal with this condition and don’t seem to want to invest any extra time into a failing child with this condition. It is due to this that I would like to raise money for your charity.'
Nick has already raised £250, but it would be great to help him reach his £1000 target, so if you can lend some support and sponsor Nick and Trevor, please see his relevant links with details on the next two Swims:
www.greatswim.org
www.justgiving.com/Nick-Sutcliffe0
02/07/11 - Great London Open Water Swim (1 Mile)
24/09/11 - Great Scottish Open Water Swim (1.5 Miles)
We at the B.D.A. wish you Nick and Trevor the very best of luck and hope all goes well on these next two swims!!!