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Sup ridefans, So I work for a charity where we run playschemes and respite care for disabled children up to disabled young adults, split into three groups; play (5-12), youth (12-18) and young adults (18-25); specialising in our 'non-exclusion policy', meaning any young people are welcome, no matter how severe or not severe their disability is. I work at the youth scheme near Guildford, and on Saturdays we sometimes go on day trips. So today, we went to Chessington. That was an experience. I don't know if I've ever been to Chessington on a Saturday, but it definitely has never been like this. It was so busy the disabled/fastrack queues were almost as long as the normal ones, and when you are standing with a bunch of disabled teenagers... Well. It could have been worse. Still. We arrived at 12 and sat on the grass by the sealions to eat and watch the show from a distance, then split into two groups. One to go on the fast rides (three staff and four young people) and another group for the slower rides/going around the zoo (one of the girls was in a wheelchair). Our leader went to the place to pick up our wristbands and access passes,and returned with both them and a very inexperienced looking staff member who insisted on putting the wristbands on the young people instead of staff despite them very clearly stating on the band that they were "on behalf of", meaning she had to peel them all off when she realised there weren't enough and put them on us instead. The fast group's first ride was Bubbleworks which had been insisted on by two of the young people in our group, then we headed down to check if Vampire was open as we hadn't seen it go past, but hadn't seen displayed anywhere that it wasn't. Of course it was closed which disappointed a lot of us, and took quite a bit of explaining for some of our young people to get them to acknowledge that we couldn't ride and had to go elsewhere. For the next bit I have to explain how we work. When filling in the paperwork before their child can attend, the young persons' parent/guardian must indicate how much care their dependent requires. We have mostly 1:1's, meaning the young person must have their own carer at all times, few 2:1's (two staff to one young person) and some are non-1:1's, so they don't need their own carer and can be dealt with in the same manner as a normal child in a playscheme, though bearing in mind that even the non 1:1's are a spectrum with some more disabled than others that can pretty much be fine. Our group had two 1:1's and their carers, and one other staff member with two other 1:1's. When we approached Seastorm, only the two non-1:1's wanted to ride, meaning the two 1:1's and their carers were planning to watch at the side. When reaching the front of the queue however; the staff member with the two young people were told that despite their care ratio there must be one staff member with each young person. Meaning I had to leave my 1:1 to go on a ride with a young person who was practically fine mentally and physically instead of watching from a position where I could have seen him and been five feet away the whole time not on the ride, and could have actually done more to help from that position were anything to happen (which it wouldn't have). This also meant leaving two 1:1 young people with one staff member, one of which was my 1:1 who had epillepsy, putting me in a position where I would have only been able to sit and watch had anything happened. We encountered a similar problem on Dragon's Fury, where a 1:1 and both non-1:1's wanted to ride, and one staff member and 1:1 did not. But once again as each young person needed to be accompanied by one carer we had to take two first, then wait for me to queue AGAIN with the last young person and let him have a ride. So it was a stressful day with a lot of people, lots of young people having to wait around for their rides and us finding there was a limited amount for both the slow and fast groups to go on, leaving me to believe that the best place to be is somewhere in the middle, being able to ride the large rides but not being picky about going on smaller ones. Ah well, apparently they've had much better visits to Paulton's in the past, so we'll probably just go there next time.

I'm gonna say this straight out, I love my job. I'm so happy to finally have one, it's a massive weight off my chest But I am way too used to having so much freedom to organise what I do. For everyone that doesn't know, my air cadet squadron is my life. Completely. Almost everything I do within my cadets capacity isn't for myself, it's for them. I run my squadron's marching band which I have actually built myself from nothing, I have to organise most events, and I help the staff run the squadron on a regular basis. But if they will have a habit of organising events that clash, and they only let us know about a week or two before... Well when I have to book my rota for work like a month in advance it is never going to work. There is no way I can fit in everything I want to do, and planning now for June is the first time I've really noticed that Plus for the first time I went and booked myself onto this drum major course, something that I really want to do for me, but it means I have to miss quite a big marching band performance and I feel awful for it. When it comes to nerding here with you lot, I have the opposite problem Things here are sometimes organised so far in advance I find myself hesitating in case something else comes up or I get called into work or something goes wrong. I need to be more confident in saying "Right this is what I want to do this day, this is my priority" Work is brilliant so far. I've been there for a few weeks now and I love it I work for a charity called Challengers, who run play schemes and respite care for disabled children and young adults. I work with the youth group, 12-18 year olds and they're all fantastic. The thing is, they're horrendously sort staffed. I ended up properly working on what was supposed to be my induction day (I was only meant to be there for an hour or two), and I was asked to book into extra shifts before I'd even had my proper first day. Still, I know it's just because they're desperate and there isn't any real pressure so it isn't a problem, it's just another really important thing vying for my time. The final thing that isn't brilliant right now is I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to be next year. University if all goes right but I really don't know what to expect and so what I'll be able to do and how much I'll be able to come back. Still, that hurdle will be there when I get to it To end on a positive note, I love living so near to Thorpe. It was great to turn to SCB one day when we finished college early and say "Shall we pop down and grab a few rides?" PS, the park is really quiet on Wednesday afternoons If you've stayed on until the end, congratulations, remind me to give you a hi-five at the next meet I see you at But honestly, thanks for listening to my rant See you at Legoland!