Bye, bye 2025

2025 has had it's ups and downs both for me personally and for All 4 Inclusion.

The year started with my powerchair being removed from me which kept me from being able to explore on my own. Long periods of being stuck indoors was not how I planned for 2025 to start.

In February myself and fellow trustee Sarah Morris attended The Empowerment Awards in London. Whilst we didn't pick up a trophy, it was great meeting new people. In itself this made us feel like winners too; with the new people we met.

The political landscape showed some challenges for the disability community with disability benefits such as PIP coming under attack. The government wrongly talking about PIP as an 'out of work' benefit. In fact PIP is a benefit that helps some people get to work. My personal belief is benefits like PIP are an investment by the government. Remove them and it will cost the government much, much more in health costs. Food Banks will buckle under the pressure as more and more people try making a meal out of some celery, a packet of noodles and rich tea biscuits. (Whilst I make light heart out of the ingredients, there isn't much improvement on this for some).

There have been lots of protests challenging for disability rights and for carers rights too. Without unpaid carers our social care would not survive.

Thank you to every one who took to the streets or wrote letters to MPs supporting disability and carers rights.

2025 saw some amazing fundraising activity. The image above shows Iain McLean, Chris Drew and Dan Ezzatvar pushing Scott Whitney around Manchester for the London Marathon.

Earlier in the year Louise Mora completed a half marathon and Hannah Todd complete a mile swim also raising money for All 4 Inclusion. The summer saw Kevin Daws and Neil Holmes put on their walking boots to raise further funds. There was also the night Chloe Tucker wowed people singing in Liverpool to help support us.

These types of fundraising activity are crucial to allowing us to put on our groups.

In an End of Year Question and Answer session, founder Scott Whitney explained the growth in the number of groups we put on.

2022 saw 1 group every 2 weeks

2023 saw 2 groups a week

2024 saw 4 groups a week

2025 saw 8 - 10 groups per week

Looking at the growth over our first four years it may be easy to jump to a conclusion of big growth again. This is unlikely to happen in the next 12 - 18 months as the trustees are working on solidifying both fundraising activity and volunteer pool. We won't be staying still though. Our annual awards are moving from October to July, which will create a lot of rescheduling for the first year. At the time of writing this, it is likely that 2026 will be an online only event. The in person event in 2025 had it's challenges which were magnified by 101 days in hospital for me. The support of the trustees, volunteers and the brilliant team in Can Petit saw us put on an amazing event. Host Tanya Marwaha, Frank Bruno, Alex Manners and Jed Stone were fantastic on the stage, whilst David Burgess kept people asking HOW with some magic.

All of our team took some training from Hidden Disability Sunflower and lanyards were available for attendees to take away. (https://hdsunflower.com/).

We inducted four people in the Latifa Sanneh Hall of Fame:

001 - Donna Gleeson

002 - Michael Grimmett 003 - Sarah Morris

004 - Terri Louise Brown

These people will likely be joined by further inductees in 2026 with both the in person meet up in Bristol and All 4 Inclusion Awards 2026 giving opportunities for us to induct more people.

I think most importantly 2025 has allowed us to meet new people from Colwyn Bay to Anglesey or from Birmingham to Glasgow and Cardiff to London.

We thank you all for coming and putting smiles on our faces (and each others). Happy 2026.

Scott