In February 2020, members of the ACI UK Executive Committee – Oliver Madden (President), Andy Green (Vice President), Clare-Louise Cotter and Noel Singh – were honoured to visit Drumbeat School in Kent to meet pupils and teachers and to present the School with its new 17-seater Variety Sunshine Coach, replacing an old vehicle that gave excellent service for over 10 years but is now uneconomical to repair.

ACI UK was able to fund this new vehicle (c. £28k) because of the extraordinary generosity of ACI UK members and supporters in 2020 involved in a number of fund-raising events, including our annual Charity Golf Day (July 2019) and Quiz Night (October 2019), and also the fund-raising activities and personal donations of individual members.

ACI UK intends to continue its fund-raising effort in 2020 in support of Variety.   The Golf Day scheduled for 10 July 2020 will now take place later this year, and we plan on hosting another Quiz Night in October.  We are incredibly proud of our longstanding support for Variety – the Children’s Charity and extremely grateful to you all for your generous support.

About Drumbeat School and ASD Service
Located in Bromley, Kent, Drumbeat is a special school for children and young people with autism, providing education for 185 children and young people aged 4-19. It also provides a service in Lewisham providing advice and support to schools and families on Autism.  Drumbeat’s Outreach Team provides training and other specialist guidance across all settings, offering short term targeted support in mainstream settings, including working with children and staff to disseminate good ASD practice.  The school’s outreach function aims to transform the services available to all children and young people with ASD in Lewisham, inspiring them to be ambitious and supporting them to achieve their full potential. The school needs a new minibus to replace their 11 years old Sunshine Coach that has started to show signs of wear and is becoming expensive to maintain. The coach will be used every day during the week to take the children on visits into the community to develop their independence. The coach will also be used for swimming classes and to duke of Edinburgh camp trips.