About 3 years ago, I was working as a volunteer with Carole who was the Project Manager for The Hampshire Autistic Society Advocacy Service in Basingstoke. At that time, Carole was running a group called Internet Explorers for children and young people with Asperger's Syndrome. It was a social group which met on a Tuesday evening with the aim of making friends, working on the computers, talking about any difficulties or problems they may be having and recognizing the fact that they are not alone.
I recognized that there was a need for a group like this for adults in Basingstoke, and I had a vision that we could start one up. With the help of Carole, Marcus (our support worker) and a few other people who were willing to help, we started a Planning Committee and worked out what we needed to make this project happen and what facilities we required. Fortunately, there was some money in the pot that we could use to employ Marcus as leader for Virtual Friends. We managed to get the group off the ground and started meeting regularly on a Monday evening. We would meet in the office and use the computers, we had a chat-room up and running on the HAS Advocacy website and we would be able to communicate with the members who weren’t able to make it to the group.
After spending some time on the computers, we went to one of the local pubs, The White Hart in Basingstoke and spent the rest of the evening in there. The reason we decided to go out to the pub rather than stay in the office for our meeting was because we felt that it was important to get out into the community and learn how to socialize with other people and the best way of doing that was actually going out and doing it.
When we started up the group, we would have people drop into the centre to talk or get to know us, and it was usually people who had been referred by someone else or another agency. Gradually our numbers started to pick up and we became quite a lively group.
Two years ago, in early 2002; we were officially opened by the Mayor of Basingstoke, who came to the office to meet us all and look at what we were doing. The local paper also came to take some photos and write up an article about us.
The important thing about Virtual Friends is that it is a group, which is run by the members, and they make all the decisions and govern the group themselves. The aim is to promote Asperger's Syndrome and work together to support each other.