Adjournment - Bayley Birds

ADJOURNMENT

‘BAYLEY BIRDS’.

Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (19:07):

My Adjournment is to the Premier, and the action I seek is to call on the Premier to join me in offering words of support and congratulation in celebrating the work of the Bayley House auxiliary club, the Bayley Birds.

Bayley House is a not-for-profit organisation based in Brighton that provides exceptional support for people with an intellectual disability.

Each year the clients put on an incredible Christmas show. Several hundred Brighton residents, Church Street traders with all of their staff in tow, and families of Bayley House clients fill one of the biggest halls in Brighton to sing, laugh, dance, and often shed a tear.

The most recent concert was an incredible event, but it was also a little different. Many more tears were shed as the Bayley House auxiliary club, the Bayley Birds, announced their retirement after 50 years of volunteerism.

Premier, in February 1973, Mrs Ditridge had the idea of putting an advertisement in the local paper, seeking support from other Brighton mothers to start an auxiliary and fundraising club. The advertisement led to four women, who worked on fundraising at the children’s hospital, responding. Three of the four women are still part of the group: Gwenda Hance, Margaret Templeton, and Janet Walter. After the four women met with the Bayley House board, and then Brighton council, the Bayley Birds were formed. The group is currently led by founding member Faye Barrow. Over the last 50 years, the group, which at times included up to 15 women, have made a life-changing impact in my community and on the clients of Bayley House.

Amongst their many good deeds, the group has fundraised $1.5 million in support of Bayley House. That fundraising has come through many incredible events, including grand balls at the Hyatt Regent. Menzies Rialto and Kingston Heath Golf Club, tennis days, fashion parades, card luncheons, golf club luncheons, film nights, open gardens, quiz nights, fetes, Christmas concerts and weekends away with the Bayley Birds’ husbands, affectionately called the Dicky Birds.

When Faye Barrow announced the retirement of the Bayley Birds at the most recent Christmas Concert, she said:

We, the Birds, have given our very best because Bayley House is a special place and will always remain as a special place in our hearts.

The Bayley Birds are right – Bayley House is a special place. But I say to the birds, you too have a special place in our community’s hearts. Genuinely, thank you.