Disability charity makes last-ditch plea for support (From Essex County Standard)

Unfortunately, sadly our government seems hell-bent on making the vulnerable of our society indirectly pay for their failures by cutting and restricting funding into such extremely worthwhile causes, whilst generally the majority of the population sit back and allow these actions to take place. It is indicative of the state our society is in and such cuts become almost treated now as being acceptable. It would be really sad if this lifeline support was taken away. Let us hope that somehow a strategy is developed providing funding that maintains sustenance and continuity of this charity.

So that's what the Paralympics were, just a dream. Welcome back to the real world where George Osborne and his puppet David Cameron see disabled people as an easy target for cuts while their rich friends continue to wallow in wealth.

has anybody involved tried applying for a lottery grant.

Yes, the charity has had two lottery grants, and exceeded the targets in both.

I have been directly involved with this charity for nearly 10 years and I am proud to have been associated with the staff, trustees and all the clients.

in the past 10 years well over 1500 people have benefited from the passion of all involved. The vast majority of these people have been Colchester based (although many have been from wider afield - we even had one person from Aberdeen come down to consult us).

We have provided support directly to individuals, but also to many other local organisations.

It is indeed a sad time not only for all those who have been involved with OTT but also for all of those unknown people who would have benefited in the future.

As previously commented on we have received grants in the past from the National Lottery and received glowing reports from them about our delivery. We have also been fortunate enough to have received grants from a variety of other organisations and right up until now we have continued to make grant applications. Whilst I would wish to express our thanks for everybody bot as individuals and as organisations who have provided us with support I fear that in the current climate OTT will not be the last organisation in this position. Our aim had always been to "level the playing field" for disabled people. All we ever wanted to do was to ensure that a disability didnt preclude people from living their lives in the way THEY chose to do so, even if society as a whole didn't necessarily enable that to happen.

There are many, many success stories that I could cite as examples of the excellent work that OTT has done, but perhaps the most important stories are the smaller ones. Those people that reached an "I didn't know I could do that!" moment. They were frequent.

All I can say is Thank you to all of those involved - we made a difference!