Last meeting

Well, a big thank you to everyone for attending our last meeting. We had a record attendance. A big thank you to the ladies from SARS for the talk. I think everyone got something out of it.

In summary:

Basically everything you spend money on which is related to the challenge/disability of your child can be used as a tax deduction. You need a letter from you doctor to prove that your child has a special need. Then whatever you claim for you need to be able to prove that the reason you bought it is because of your child's special need. For example, if your child is 6 years old and needs to wear nappies or has to drink a certain type of formula then you can claim for it. There was some discussion around whether, for example, you could claim for yoghurt if that is all your child can eat most of the time and the consensus is that you could have a problem proving that this is related to the child's special need.

So the rule is to claim for everything(medical and other) but within reason and bear in mind that you may be called on to prove it. You must keep all slips relating to any claims for at least 5 years.

You can also go back for the last 2 years(could be 3) and claim for things which you did not know about then. You just need to contact SARS and ask if you can be reassessed for those years.

How deductions work: let's say you earn R100 000 in a year and pay R20 000 tax. Your medical/other expenses for your child amount to R20 000. So then your tax calculation will be based on R100 000 less R20 000 ie R80 000. So (if the tax rate is 20%) your new tax amount payable should be R16 000. Therefore you will get a tax refund of R4000.

If you have any queries please contat me and I will put you in contact with Lindsay at SARS.

The other topic at the meeting was our proposed fund-raising initiative. Myself, Louise and Maxine (possibly Deonette?) are thinking of climbing Kilimanjaro in order to raise funds. Lou and Maxine need to raise funds to send their kids to SNAP which is extremely expensive. I thought I would raise money for the group as a whole. There was some debate over how good a method this was of raising funds as a whole lot of money needs to be spent first as it is not cheap to climb Kili. What do you think? Should we rather look at other ways of raising the funds? Any ideas on how to go about it? We are hoping to get some publicity through maybe Carte Blanche and thereby get sponsorship from some large companies for the actual climb. Are we smoking our socks? Do you think it is doable?

In order to raise money for the group I need to get as much information as possible from everyone about their kids. I need pictures and stories and I need to know what you need and why. Bear in mind that this is a selling exercise. We have to make the people want to give us their money. Please send me as much as you can preferably soonish.

Walkers

An interesting post over at Better than normal about the different types of walkers.

Also found a blog that links to CP blogs.

Meeting July 2008

Ok, I've not been very good with updating. Sorry about that. Our next meeting is tonight(3/7/2008) at my place at 7:30 and I have a lady from SARS coming to talk to us about taxes and what we can claim for. We are also discussing a fundraising idea.

Next meeting

Next meeting is at Glenda's place on Thursday 6 March at 7:30pm. Please pop me an email if you need directions.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on 7 February at Sheila's house. If anyone wants to join us and needs directions please let me know via a comment. We are hoping to get as many people together as possible so that we can discuss plans for future meetings and outings.

I promise to update the blog more regularly this year. I wasn't really in the right space emotionally last year to do very much. Watch this space. Billy has some interesting insights on raising special needs children. Go and read her blog, you won't regret it.

Arts and Craft

Well done to the team of Cherub projects on creating such lovely beaded goods to sell. Two of the members of our support group got together and decided to get their kids working. Sandy does beading on clothes for a number of major fashion stores so it was only natural that Ryan (22 with cerebral palsy) and Storm (Glenda's daughter, 18 with Down's Syndrome) got involved and decided to make the most amazing beaded products. They also make very unusual gift boxes out of coke bottles by cutting them in a certain way and then decorating them using decoupage.

If anyone out there drinks a lot of coke, then please save your bottles and we will collect them from you. They must be the 2 litre plastic bottles and only coke - nothing else works.

On another note, the last 2 group meetings have been very interesting. Sorry for the delay in updates. In June we met at Sandy's house and Ian, father of a young man with cerebral palsy, gave us a very interesting talk on his experiences in the world of special needs children. We had an interesting debate on the merits of keeping your child at home with you vs putting them into a home. Basically the conclusion is that different things work for different people, depending on their circumstances. Lots more lively debates on a variety of topics.

July's meeting was at my house. We met a new member (hopefully) and ended up chatting till 1am, much to my husband's surprise when he arrived home out from an evening out expecting to find everyone gone and me asleep! It was a good meeting.

Next meeting and NRT therapy

Our next group meeting is on Thursday 14/6 at Sandy's house, including partners. Please see my latest mail or if you need details just drop me a line, my email link is in my profile.

Note from Sue about the NRT therapy:

We have found a venue for the seminar. It will be held at Bel Porto School 2 Arcadia Ave Landsdown at 10am on Saturday 14^th July. Please pass this message on as we feel the need to bring the awareness of this therapy to all who will benefit. The costs of the seminar is R200 per family (all this does is cover the costs of air fares). We will be holding the assessments and training at my home in Tokai. The assessments will be on the Saturday afternoon and possibly the Sunday morning and the training starts on Monday 16^th July to the Friday 20^th July. The training costs R3,600 for the week and consists of 2 hours a day. To those who are coming please let me know preferred times as soon as possible.

So look forward to hearing from you and meeting up.

Bless you all,

Much love,

Sue Webster

Please phone and chat if you have any queries.

O12-712-4955

0832636837

Celina and the NRT

Hi everybody
Just wanted to let you know what the NRT has done for Celina in just 3 Month.
She is far more alert and her back has straightened out amazingly. I attached a photo with he before and 3 month later so that you can see the wonderful change.
Now after another 1 1/2 month with the new exercises she starts making lots of sounds and is even more alert.
After only one month Celina's diaphragm was visibly working again and her breathing improved greatly. I can just say please consider this for your children. The next seminar will be on the 14. July 2007. Please let me now if you are interested and want to come. It is really worth it. This is the first and only therapy which has really shown big changes in short time in Celina.
I believe with God's help that Celina is going to walk and talk again this year.
Lots of Love and God bless you
Manuela