oasis norfolk

As we roll out the vaccine, I am reminded of the golden tickets the lucky children got in the Willy Wonka bars of chocolates.  The government has missed a trick here.  If they had put golden vaccine tickets into a Boris muesli bar then they could have raised millions for the treasury, solved the obesity problem and sorted out who would get the vaccination first.

As I write the last blog of 2020, in what has been the most difficult and unusual year in my lifetime, I want to think back to last Christmas, to the festive activities we had.  Our first event at the tail-end of November was the Christmas meal outing at the Sugar Beat, just outside Norwich, organised by Lilly.  Over 30 of us crammed into one room ( unheard-of these days). Then came the annual LGBT Carol Service in Norwich, held for over 25 years.  Finally we had our Oasis Christmas meeting.

On a sad note, this month we lost Mary one of our longer serving members of Oasis.  Serena, Jenny, Phyllis and Barry attended her internment at the graveside on Wednesday 23rd.  Mary was a constant presence at Oasis meetings, as well as at the Catherine Wheel trans group and trans weekends. She will be greatly missed.

We had our final zoom meeting of the year, and it was lovely to see Catherine, a new member of Oasis and Joanna, traditionally the lady that took the money at Oasis, for the first time.  Conversation topics were varied and when we were stuck for something to say out came all those Christmas cracker jokes.  Again many thanks to Petra for arranging this.

As to 2021, we will continue to run our Zoom meetings, replacing our face to face ones until our leader, Mother Superior gives us the go ahead to safely resume our meetings.

Finally, on behalf of Oasis  I wish you a happy New Year.

Beccie x