Tom Weir of Orbiston Drive, Bellshill passed away yesterday at Monklands Hospital. Tom was an inpatient at the QENSIU between April and November last year. The thoughts of all at SIS are with Tom’s family at this time.
A funeral service will take place at Holytown Crematorium on Saturday at 10.30am.
Edinburgh Trams have just released a new video showing the Scottish Parliament’s cross party group on disability visiting one of the trams. Click here to view the video.
Professor Sir Ludwig Guttman (1899-1980) was the founder of modern spinal injury treatment and the Paralympic Games. A long overdue recognition and celebration project of the life and work of this remarkable man is now under way.
In 1944 Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann revolutionised the treatment, and life expectancy of those suffering Spinal Cord Injury with the opening of the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville.
In 1948 to coincide with the Olympic Games taking place in London that year, he set up what would become an annual sports competition for the paralysed. Initially including only those with spinal injuries from the UK, this competition quickly grew into an international event for all disabilities.
In 1960 the competition became truly international when 400 disabled athletes from across the world took part in the Olympic Stadium in Rome to coincide with that year’s Olympic Games. The Paralympic Games, as they are now known, have become the second largest sporting event in the world. It’s hard to believe they started as an archery competition in Aylesbury!
The “Poppa” Guttmann Recognition and Celebration Project is planning to create a permanent tribute to the life and legacy of this remarkable man including the creation of a life-size bronze statue to be erected outside the NSIC at Stoke Mandeville. To find out more about this and the other projects please visit their website by clicking here.
Related internet links:
The “Poppa” Guttmann recognition & celebration project
A new year, a new logo, and now we’ve replaced our News section with this shiny new Blog!
Not only does this give us the opportunity to talk about things that aren’t really news, but it also lets you have your say by posting comments. You can also follow the blog using the RSS feed.
Don’t worry, we’ll still be posting any relevant news and announcements. They’ll just appear in the blog from now on. We’ll also be introducing categories for our blog entries so things should stay a little more organised.
As always we’d love to hear your thoughts. So if you have any suggestions for blog topics then let us know at info@sisonline.org, and please feel free to leave comments on any posts.
Over the coming months we will be posting details of features and events to celebrate our golden jubilee. However, we really want to hear what you have to say:
What do you remember of the past half-century of SIS?
What do you think of where we are now and, more importantly, what should we be focussing on for the future?
You might have some interesting photos or videos of previous SIS events, you might have a specific memory you want to share, maybe you want to suggest a new feature for the magazine or website or perhaps a new service for SIS to provide, or you might just want to wish us a happy birthday.
You can contact us as usual by phone, email, post or by grabbing one of our volunteers at a clinic. Also feel free to drop into the office at any time.
info@sisonline.org
Tel: 0141 427 7686