Newbies

We have had an amazing 18 new members since the last newsletter, so please welcome hayley77, alba, jadiesmum, mary, sixmum, jamboqueen7, nancyc, ND, wwwpanfife, Carly, Angelapaterson, lynniex, weebo, angmumof2, riseandshine, Tace, Rorysmum and kate/jonny.

For those of you who haven’t already, please introduce yourselves in the Introductions Forum. It would also be helpful if you posted a bit (as long or as short as you like) in the section relevant to your child’s’ condition so that you can find other parents who are dealing with the same things, and so new members can find you too.

If you’re having difficulty finding the right place to post, you can either email myself or GBro or post on the forum and someone will be able to help.

Remember to also register on ESP2, this is the separate forum GBro created especially for you to show off your photos.

First Official ESP Meet

Plans are starting to come together for the 1st ESP Meet in April. We are organizing a group get-together at Alton Towers for Saturday the 14th April. This is the last weekend of the school Easter Holidays. Details of local accommodation are posted should you need to stay over due to distance.

I will hopefully be making a group booking with Alton Towers which will enable us to get cheaper entry tickets.

I know it seems like a long way away yet, but its only 10 weeks and believe me the time will fly past.

We also hope to start organising some regional meet-ups across the country for the summer time.

So, to register your interest and find out how the plans are progressing you will need to register on the ESP2 board if you haven’t already done so. Remember to use the same username as the one you use for the main ESP board.

ESP Shopping

During January I have been updating the ESP Mall. For every purchase made by using the links in the ESP Mall, ESP will receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, these small amounts help us to keep ESP running. The New Yellow Moon catalogues should arrive any day now, so please let me know if you’d like one. You can join together with friends and family to place and order for their terrific art and craft supplies and of course ESP receives a commission cheque twice a year.

Spreading the Word

If you would like to help spread the word about ESP we can provide you with posters, flyers, and business cards. I am also in the process of producing information pamphlets. Again, just let us know your requirements and we’ll get them sent off to you.

Competitions

The next milestone is 45,000 posts and as it’s a big milestone again, it will be a big box of choccies up for grabs. Terrimumof3 managed to get the 40,000th post in the wee small hours of the 31st January and will be getting some foot-pampering goodies in the post soon.

The caption competition of 5th January was won by Heather., 15th January was Rachel who wins a pen, 22nd January was won by Terrimumof3 who wins a car-sticker, and the 29th January was won by HollyJ. Could Holly and Heather please let me know which of the prizes they would like.

Topofthetree won the January Trivia Challenge – well done. Please let me know your name and address to send your prize.

The February Trivia Challenge has now started and there’s plenty of time to join and win the title for February, as you know there’s another big box of choccies for the month’s highest score.

For details of all the current competitions, just go to Competitions & Quizzes Forum

Birthdays & Celebrations

Birthdays and Celebrations for February are:

Suzy's son Ieuan's will be celebrating his 9th birthday on the 2nd February

4th February is Kelly’s birthday (can Kelly’s mummy let me know who she is please)

The 7th February is Helsxxx’s hubby Steve's birthday

Mrs G is 36 on the 9th February

On the 12th February Caren’s daughter Jade celebrates her birthday

Terrimumof3’s son Joseph’s 4th birthday is on the 15th February

Badgerplace’s wee angel Billy’s birthday is on the 18th February

Ray, Terrimumof3's hubby has his birthday on the 20th February and Sophie’s 2nd birthday is also on the same day.

Mumof4 (Nikki) will hit the big 30 on the 25th February

Helsxxx’s son Dylans 4th Birthday is on the 28th February

Remember to add all your family’s special days to the ESP calendar so we can all help you celebrate.

Our latest addition to the ESP site is our message board for kids – ESP Kids.

It is designed for children who have special needs and also for children whose siblings have special needs. Sometimes it can be hard for children to talk to their friends or family when special needs affect their lives, this is sometimes the case regardless of whether the child has a condition themselves or whether they have a brother or sister at home with a condition. Often their friends just don’t understand. But at ESP kids they can talk to other children in a similar situation.

We have the same adult moderators and administrators monitoring ESP Kids that monitor ESP so you can be assured that your child will be safe as possible.

We have also tried to make it fun by including safe links to child friendly sites where they can do fun things like colouring in.

Have a great February everyone!

Graham Brockie & Debbi Robertson

The Management Team

www.extra-special-parents.org