and if this works I copied (am sure its Ok 😀 ) the why the "Way Up" was started.
[b]A brief History of Way Up
In the Spring of 2009, I asked the then Chairman of WAY, Caroline, if there was anything I could do as a WAY volunteer.
Being over 50 myself, it seemed a good idea that I look into doing something for the chronologically challenged, those deemed too old (by the constitution) to join WAY. Something there was so obviously a need for.
I had joined WAY after the death of my husband in a hit and run accident. Someone had mentioned it to me quite early on??it?s a self help group for young widows?, I was told. I?m not sure what appealed to me less. The ?self help? bit, the ?group? bit or the ?widows? bit.
However, 12 months later, I was told about WAY again, joined up and so began a new social life. A new social life with new friends who REALLY understand. Very soon I found myself becoming an area contact and becoming increasingly involved. By then I was fifty and was beginning to be very aware of people of my age who were unable to join WAY because of the constitution. I hated to think that there were people having to cope with the awful situation we find ourselves in with no support, without like-minded, understanding friends, without other people around who ?get it?.
Way Up was about to be born!
Being very much a people person, my only stipulation to starting a new group was that it was to be in no way computer based. Caroline set up a Google Group and a few weeks later I found myself the owner, no less, of a computer based forum.
Way Up remains to this day very much a computer based forum with members from all over the UK. Our members come from Merry Widows and of course from WAY ? via the ?phone team and the Website- and many WAY members over 50 are in both groups.
The Forum is a place to cry safely, to laugh with gusto and without guilt. It is a place to lend support and seek advice; a place to exchange banter and to share humour. It is a place of understanding; a place to care for others as well as to be cared for, a place to give strength when you can, to lean on others when you can?t.
My hope was that Way Up would develop a network of local groups where real people could meet and spend time together, make friends, share experiences, have fun. The virtual world of the computer is all very well and being able to chat to others online is fantastic but there is, as we all know, nothing like face to face contact.
What has happened with WAYup has gone so far beyond that original hope.
April 2010 saw the very first regional meet when 6 of us met up in the North East and in May we had our first National gathering when 17 of us met in Derby.
We have since camped in the Cotswolds, been on steam trains in Shropshire and on ferries in Devon. We have been on planes to far-flung places in twos and fours and tens; we have been pampered in the Midlands and have been all theatrical in London. We had a first birthday party, we have partied in Darlington and we boogied on down in Milton Keynes!
There are now National meets and regional meets and very local meets. To be honest, if it were practical (or physically and financially possible) I could be meeting Wuppers somewhere every week, travelling the length and breadth of the country.
We are a disparate group, bound together in an unwanted, unasked for way.
We are all just trying to build new lives.
Gaynor[/b]
