NADS are pleased to announce the launch of a series of meetings for disabled supporters' across the country. The first meeting will take place at Birmingham City on 27 November 2008 at 1pm (for 1.30pm) and we aim to finish by 4pm.

The main purpose of the Disabled Fans Forum is to ensure that we continuously gather information and feedback, to better understand the ongoing and current issues that affect disabled supporters. We want to hear about your concerns and any good practice you have come across.

The meeting is open to all individual disabled supporters and two representative from Disabled Supporter Associations or Groups who can feedback the issues of their membership.

If you would like to attend, please either complete this form or email NADS at info@nads.org.uk with your name, organisation represented and any special access needs.

Norwich City Disability Awareness Week
 
Last week saw Norwich City Football Club, in conjunction with main sponsor Aviva, hold its fourth Disability Awareness Week.

The aim of the initiative was to highlight the wide range of facilities and services for supporters at Carrow Road as well as the opportunities to participate in a variety of sporting activities through the Ability Counts programme run by Football in the Community. Activities commenced on Wednesday, November 12 with a disabled supporters forum at Carrow Road. This was a ticketed event giving disabled fans the opportunity to ask their questions to a Norwich City panel including Club Chairman Roger Munby and City player Adam Drury. Paralympian and Aviva employee Danny Nobbs was also on the panel as a special guest to share his experiences of the Beijing Paralympics. Key customer service staff were also on hand to answer queries about disabled matchday access and how to get involved in football with the Ability Counts scheme.

NADS were delighted to have been invited to this event and to help publicise the fantastic work being done by the club - for more information, click here.

"Hate Crimes"

Media Update

NADS have had some coverage in the Football Supporters' Federation magazine (the TFS).

You can download the magazine/articles from here and it includes a good article about our NADS Ambassador, Danny Wallace.

Shop and support NADS this Christmas.

Take the hassle out of Christmas shopping and browse over 5 million products in our webshop.

Every time you make a purchase at our webshop a donation will be generated for the National Association of Disabled Supporters (NADS).

Our most popular retailers include:

FA Research

The FA are looking for members of the football community to become involved in an important piece of research concerning the inclusion of amputee footballers in mainstream and non amputee specific football competitions.

As you may or may not be aware amputee football is traditionally played without prosthesis and on elbow crutches for outfield players whilst goalkeepers are single arm amputees. Currently the FA laws of the game only allow amputee footballers to participate in amputee specific or pan disability football competitions whilst using crutches.

Football takes many different forms and The FA are committed to ensuring everyone has the opportunity to be actively involved in football in a safe, positive, high quality environment where they are given the appropriate support to be the best they can.

In light of this the FA Disability Equality Advisory Group has developed a risk assessment framework to determine whether there are any health and safety implications with amputee footballers participating in the different formats of football with both non disabled and non amputee specific disabled footballers.

The FA has commissioned Logistique to critique, a sports management consultancy firm to test and consult on the Risk Assessment Framework by:

• Checking that the risk assessment processes are sufficiently detailed and robust.
• Undertaking testing of the framework to ascertain its appropriateness ensuring the scope of this and the numbers of trials to be sufficiently robust to allow recommendations to be made back to DEAG and FA Board.
• Seek the views of the disabled and mainstream football communities on the possible introduction of a rule allowing amputee footballers (using crutches) to participate in conventional football.

If you would like to input into this piece of research and offer your views or would like some further information please e-mail phil.heap@logistique.org.uk

Membership reminders 

Join us today to get involved with NADS projects and campaigns and to help shape the future of NADS as we continue to strive for an equality of experience for all football fans.

It’s easy to join – just complete the membership form and return it to NADS, PO Box 2909, Reading, RG1 9LD or by email to info@nads.org.uk. If you need help in completing the form or need alternative formats, please contact us by email or on 0845 230 6237.

You can also pay online with a credit/debit card here and you just need to make sure you let us know the donation is for your membership. You can do this in the information box at Just Giving and we ask that you follow this up with an email confirmation to info@nads.org.uk.

You are subscribed to the NADS monthly newsletter because you have shown an interest in receiving information from the NADS in the past. To unsubscribe or change your details click here.

Please be sure to add our from address into your address book or safe senders list to help guarantee delivery of our email.

NADS, PO Box 2909, Reading, RG1 9LD / 0845 230 6237 / info@nads.org.uk