Disabled residents of Botton Village deliver their petition to Charity Headquarters and the Council
10 February 2015
Villagers and co-workers delivered a petition signed by over 70 Villagers AND another letter signed by over 80 Parents AND the statements of support by over 3500 supporters, together filling nearly 150 pages A4. The Camphill Village Trust (CVT) only took one of the petitions and ignored the 128 remaining pages, which in the end were, beautifully presented with a ribbon and flower, left on the doorstep of the CVT office by one of the villagers.
CVT had of course been informed the day before that we were coming in order to deliver the petition. We had also booked to have lunch in our charity's Kingfisher Cafe in the same building, which then - believe it or not - was closed. As if this wasn't bad enough, they then called the police on the group singing outside their office.
Does this not show once again that CVT has no regard for learning disabled people, not even those in their own charity?
This learning disability charity is now being run by a group of managers with barely any experience in learning disability, Camphill or Anthroposophy. However, to greet the learning disabled in your own charity when they deliver a petition and stand waiting outside your office should be a question of common decency and intelligence. On the other hand, we must give credit to the county council where they went afterwards, who offered them a warm welcome and a cup of tea, and people came down to talk and answer questions.
The day in the Press, Radio and TV
The papers have also reported the story: The Northern Echo / Malton's Gazette & Herald / Malton & Pickering Mercury / Yorkshire Post / Whitby Gazette
BBC Radio Interview with a Botton co-worker during the visit to County Hall
Lucinda's account of the day
"This morning 35 of us from Bottonfirst waited outside the CVT office in Malton. CVT took no notice of us. and never opened the door or asked us if we wanted to come in for tea. and there were newspapers and TV camras fimling us all singing and we were standing out in the freezing cold. And in the end we went to a lovely cafe called the tea room and the lady who ran the cafe was totally shocked to see so many people coming in to her cafe. And after lunch we all went to Northallerton to the North Yorkshire county council and did the same and sung our Botton song and showed our banners and posters. And the Manager of the county council welcomed us all in for warm tea and biscuits and had talks to most of us. And when some of us walking to the bathroom we walked past the chamber where talks are held and mertings too. and thenwe all got in our 3 buses and one car to drive back to botton village again. And we are celebrating about our meeting with the North Yorksire County council and giving them my Petition and Allan from Martin house too. and also gave them the papers aboutall the people in botton who have Learning disabilities and how ee need help and need everybody to listen to ys to help us stop the changes. And just a little last thing: we all who went to Malton are taking no Notice of CVT any more they were rude by ignoring us and refusing to say hello to us all.
Here is the new Offical Botton village song to learn - OK here we go then and which you can learn for the public meeting on the 27/02/15 and here are the words it is in the tune of Frer Jacques
We are botton we are botton
we are free we are free
you will never beat us
you will never beat us
CVT CVT
The public meeting is at danby village hall 27.02.15 at 7pm
thanks Lucinda Riis-johannessen
botton villager"
