NEWS FROM TUAM St
Sharon
I don’t feel as though it was last year that I wrote my last update for the newsletter. Yep, time sure does fly!
Hello everyone and welcome back. This year is a lot busier with me taking on a couple of new groups and deciding to work a Friday once a fortnight.
Monday, Tuesday and Friday I work in the Unit which has been really fortunate with work and always seem to be busy. We picked a new job last year which will hopefully be ongoing work so that’s good and it’s also meant that they guys have been able to make choices about what they choose to do.
On Wednesday I go shopping for the Unit. (My chance to slip in some chocolate biscuits with the crackers). Hamish and Kathy come with me and they do really well working their way through the list!
This year I am supporting Donald and Bruce with their jobs at Meadow Mushrooms so once a month I’ve had a lovely trip out to Prebbleton to catch up on the two of them.
Also on a Wednesday, once a fortnight I’ve been going through to the Candleroom and have been learning from The Masters on how the whole process works. It’s been very educational and fun and Mary and I have even had time to have the odd chat!
On Thursdays I now am going out using the bus system with David and 
Johnny and Craig. So far, so good. We’ve done the Mall thing and of course, with having Craig in the group, we had to go to the airport. Once T-Ball is finished in April we will start going out for the day, so look out for us.
I think it needs to be mentioned that the AJ’s team always wants to better themselves academically and I am proud to say that the Ladies are well and truly beating the boys in our regular Trivial Pursuit games (Managers comment: please note that there is usually only three quiet men against six loud talkative women. What chance do we have!!)
Dianne
I’ve told Jim I don’t think it’s fair that I’ve got to write something for the newsletter considering we are only at work two days a week – but he insisted and as he pays our wages, well!!!
Never having any work is a thing of the past – when one job finishes another one comes through the door. It does seems that counting and packing rubbish bags is a thing of the past though – even Michael Goldstone has stopped asking when are they coming back??
We are doing a lot of work for Fulton Hogan involving reflector plates for over-width vehicles. It’s a job that suits Ross Hamilton’s neat hand and he needs very little supervision. You have to keep an eye on him though as he’s like the battery that keeps going on and on – in other words he does not know when to stop!
We have had two lovely nursing students this last two weeks – they really fitted
in with staff and clients. Although we have a lot of students some just stand out!
We have got a job from NZ Agriseeds which Dennis Smallholme and Ian Pollard enjoy working on. It’s putting about 200 washers in to a jig to be painted and if you don’t catch them when it’s full, they’ll take them all out again – so it could be an ever ending job!!!
Alto are certainly keeping us in work e.g. flush boxes, sippers, bungs and screw jobs – they all yell when they see Jim in the Alto truck arriving.
We have had a lot of folding and gluing jobs from a variety of printing firms – one for the Swandri brand. We even used Horizons to help us as we had so much work!
We are also getting cardboard divisions to assemble from Carter Holt Harvey.
We so miss Laureen Thompson and hope she’s making progress. Barbara has taken clients in to see her in Ward 19 and we have kept her supplied with cards along with Mrs Goldstone who has now gone in to a Home.
Brian and I are away to the USA for two months in July. I did suggest to Jim that we cut the ties permanently, but he said no. Brian said they’d miss us complaining about how AJs is run the three days we were not there, haha – true though!
