News Summary

The Staying Inn saw out the old year (2020) in style with our own New Year’s Eve Party. See some of the highlights in this video.

Watch on YouTube – https://youtu.be/x0q0S3GtcVs

Last orders were called and you didn’t get to the bar in time! Don’t worry, we have a selection of some of our previous sessions available.

Rachel from Inclusion London delivered this session to share their experience of working with politicians and influencing MPs.

Recorded at The Staying Inn on Sunday 17 September 2020.

Watch now on YouTube – https://youtu.be/Z9uDQDiZwno

Interview with Deafblind activist & lawyer Haben Girma, we will be discussing the book and Haben’s activism. You can find the book here – https://habengirma.com/book/

Recorded at The Staying Inn on Sunday 16 August 2020

Watch now on our YouTube Channel – https://youtu.be/Ry_M-RkeS4o

If you’ve enjoyed a night at The Staying Inn (or our catch-up content) please donate so that we can keep bringing this brilliant online boozer to your front room!

If you enjoy our content and are joining from outside the UK, please consider donating to our PayPal Pool.

Our GoFundMe is still running too if you are within the UK and can donate via that route.

Each event that we put on costs around £300 and we currently receive no core funding.

The Staying Inn is playing a vital role in connecting many disabled people who will be self-isolating for a long time, and showing non-disabled people the power of inclusive online spaces! Your donation will help us keep our events accessible & inclusive by paying for live captions & British Sign Language interpreters.

We can create stronger connections even when we are socially distant.

Our fundraising is vital to raise money to pay the people who share their talents, knowledge, skills and time with The Staying Inn. During this difficult time many disabled people, creatives and freelancers have limited income, so this fund will pay what it can to those who share their skills with us.

As The Staying Inn volunteers are busy planning lots of exciting events for July & August we need your feedback!

Please fill in our quick survey to share your thoughts on our events.

In the mean-time, if you have any ideas or contacts for our future events please let us know – contact@TheStayingInn.org.uk

We’re particularly interested in finding:

• Wellbeing or accessible exercise
• Accessible games we can play online
• Skill sharing

Our landlady Amy spoke to Lucy Edwards for her YouTube Channel. Lucy, Amy and Dr Amit Patel discuss visual impairment, social distancing & the new challenges created by #Covid-19. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gY7TNg53nM&feature=youtu.be

The iNews catch up with our Landlady Amy and our barmaid Ginny to discover how the Inn is open to all.

https://inews.co.uk/news/staying-inn-disability-friendly-virtual-pub-online-2670409

Landlady Amy had an early start on 30 April 2020 chatting to the BBC Radio 5 Live team about The Staying Inn and our efforts to connect isolated disabled people.

We have since located a transcript of that interview.

"It's reaching a lot of really isolated people"

Dr Amy Kavanagh is a visually impaired activist and landlady of @TheStayingInn – a virtual pub for disabled and non-disabled people.

She's fundraising so more people can come to her pub.🍻

🎧@BBCSounds– https://t.co/4SnxX44AQs pic.twitter.com/AGck19kTH3

— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) April 30, 2020

43 teams joined us, our biggest event so far. Congratulations to Gillian & Thom our winners this week Thank you again to the team helping us make it accessible @weedollydixie @paulbelmontesli  & @mycleartext

Rounds this week included:

• General Knowledge
• Geography
• Greek Myths
• Science
• Queens
• American Presidents in TV & Film
• Sport

Join us again next week!

“My hope is that this crisis will teach us the value of connecting even when we are far apart, & that by sharing a video call & a laugh, we might help break down some of the barriers between disabled people & a society which often excludes us.”

Our Landlady, Amy, was interviewed for an article in today’s Express and Star to showcase everything going on at The Staying Inn.

• Read the full article

Amy in her home office

Another fabulous Stitch & Bitch evening at The Staying Inn!

A huge thank you to @Sarah_Dawns  & @hookandeyecraft for talking to us about making crafts accessible. Some fantastic top tips & tricks shared.

On Wednesday 8 April we enjoyed a fascinating talk from @TeaWanderLust all about Forensic Psychology & Female Serial Killers, you can watch back the session below. You can find the slides here and the accompanying Presentation notes.

There are live captions & full details in the notes.

Another fab evening at The Staying Inn! 34 teams joined us for our weekly #VirtualPubQuiz Some excellent silly hats worn by the regulars. We also had live captions from the lovely Orla! Yay! Congrats to our winners Dr Jon Hastie & Tomas

Tonight was The Staying Inn’s first night of house BINGO.

Thank you to the glamorous @HollieAnneB who called the numbers & kept the evening thoroughly raucous! Congrats to everyone who won the imaginary speedboats, electric knitting machine & silk sheets.