Muscular Dystrophy UK would like to thank the London Lodge 108 for their donation of £5629.30. The Charity were selected as charity of the year by Richard Spooner. As part of his nomination, the Lodge organised a Ladies Dinner on the 26th of November raising £4,110 featuring a raffle and food. Alongside this, the generosity of the members through out the year raising over £1500.
Richard Spooner of Lodge 108 says:
These closures could be problematic for many disabled people, including some people with muscular dystrophy for a number of reasons. Disabled people often buy their tickets over the counter as it can be difficult to access automated ticket machines which are typically too high up to reach or don’t have a full range of available accessibility features. In some cases, some discounted tickets that disabled people may be entitled to are also not available from ticket machines.
Another worrying loss will be the assured presence of station staff at a set location to assist people in accessing train services – we know that people in wheelchairs in particular rely on staff assistance to make their journeys.
A lack of staff at train stations will also threaten other important provisions such as accessible bathrooms, heated waiting rooms, even fully functioning lifts.
Overall, the loss of station staff has the potential to lead to less accessible travel at a time when we know our community already face a difficult time when travelling.
Where staff are no longer present and you require assistance, rail companies are proposing you make your way to the nearest help point. They are also proposing that a ticket could be bought during your journey, at a ticket office on route, or at the destination.
There are two types of consultation taking place. Each train company is running their own consultation using different documents, proposals, language, and email addresses for what is one of the biggest changes in generations in the train service. These consultations have been extended until Friday 1 September. Along with a range of other organisations we have signed a letter of objection led by Transport for All, the disabled-led group striving to increase access to transport and street space across the UK.
The other form of consultation is being run by the House of Commons Transport Select committee in parliament. We will be launching a survey to gather your feedback to help inform our submission to the committee.
The government will make the final decision on what train station offices close.
Today (Wednesday 19 July) is Changing Places Awareness Day – the annual event highlighting the importance of fully-accessible toilets needed by more than a quarter of a million people in the UK.
As co-chairs of the Changing Places Consortium, we work with venues, government departments, suppliers, and our amazing campaigners to call for Changing Places toilets to become a mandatory requirement under building regulations for all large public places, like shopping centres, and major leisure venues. To mark Changing Places Awareness Day, we’re celebrating some of the fantastic progress that’s been made and key events from the last year.
People often think of a brand as a name and logo. But it's about who we are, what we do and why we do it. It runs through all of our work, from our support services and campaigns to our fundraising and research, and at the centre of it is our community.
We’ve been sharing expert advice and support to people with muscle-wasting and weakening conditions for over 60 years. There are more than 110,000 people in the UK today with one of over 60 conditions, as well as all of the people around them, but we know we’re not reaching enough of them.
We want to ensure that people hear about us, and when they do that they are clear about who we are and what we do. Having reviewed our brand last year we found that, although it has some great elements, it didn’t present a clear picture of who we are today. We also knew that our brand needed to be more accessible. Our colour, font and logo wasn’t as accessible and inclusive as it could be, particularly online.
We haven’t reviewed our brand for some time and as this year we’ve been developing our new three-year organisational strategy, it was the right time to also review our brand. A strong, bold, and recognisable brand means people will know who we are and what we do so they can reach out for support and in turn become part of our community through fundraising, campaigning and volunteering.
Making sure our refreshed brand best meets the needs of people with a muscle-wasting or muscle weakening condition has been at the heart of the project since the very beginning. We involved members of our community throughout the process, including people living with conditions, healthcare professionals, researchers, supporters, staff and volunteers. Their feedback and valuable contributions were listened to carefully and taken on-board at every stage and we’re really proud of the final result.
We’re still orange, we’re still called Muscular Dystrophy UK, but we’re now clearer, bolder, and stronger.
Michael Attenborough CBE, a long-standing supporter of the charity, as was his father Lord Richard Attenborough CBE, narrates our new brand video:
While you’ll see our refreshed brand online and at large events from July, many of our materials will be updated in the coming months as we use up our current stock. We want to minimise our environmental impact and roll out the refreshed brand in the most cost effective and efficient way as possible. You may, therefore, see materials which use both our old and refreshed brand for some time yet.
Catherine Woodhead, our Chief Executive said:
We’ve already made great advances that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago, and we are determined to go even further and faster. Our community makes us stronger and that’s why we decided to work together to refresh our brand.
Our refreshed brand will enable us to engage and inspire more people going forwards and support our sustainability and growth as an organisation. We’ll be able to go further in achieving our ambition to share expert advice and support people to live well now; fund groundbreaking research to understand the different conditions better and lead us to new treatments; work with the NHS towards universal access to specialist health; and together, campaign for people’s rights, better understanding, accessibility, and access to treatments. Ultimately, we will be able to reach, help and support more of our community.”
The more of us who come together, the greater the impact we’ll be able to make. Together we are stronger. Join us. Sign up to our newsletter today.
