Introduction

This page tells you about the origins of Amity Reading Clubs, from its early days in 1974, right up to this year, including our current work on our Computer Literacy Project. 

It provides useful information which will enable you to exploit the remaining pages dealing with the other aspects of our work, and the people who undertake it.

For this page, please click on the following headings to go straight to the material you need:

Our Mission Statement
An Introduction to Amity Reading Clubs
A Brief History
Contact Information

Our Mission Statement

Amity Reading Clubs aims to provide for adults with special learning difficulties, the best literacy tuition enabling them to take charge of their own lives.

An Introduction to Amity Reading Clubs

Amity Reading Clubs provide literacy tuition to adults with special difficulties in literacy, utilising the unique approach pioneered by Gladys Zonena Glascoe in her work as Tutor in Charge of the Blackfriars Literacy Scheme from 1970 to 1974.

A typical Club (not a class) operates on a weekday evening in a local community building. One-to-one tuition is undertaken by Volunteers in the Club setting under the tuition of an experienced Supervising Tutor.

Particular importance is given to the social support provided for Students. This comes initially through the relationship with their Volunteer tutor, but also from the Supervising Tutor, the wider Club network as a whole, and from the resources of Amity central office.

No charge is made for tuition and our operation is able to continue its work through the generous help of our Volunteers together with supportive community and statutory agencies.

Amity does not aspire to provide literacy tuition to all who need it, nor indeed is that possible. Our approach is however unique and as such is particularly valuable for Students with special learning difficulties. Thus, one of the most important aspects of our work is to demonstrate a working model of our approach which is capable of replication by others.

This Web Site is intended to be an important tool in promoting both our work and how and how we approach it.

Formed in 1974, Amity Reading Clubs became a Registered Charity No 276011 in 1978.

A Brief History

The origins of our approach go back to 1970 when Gladys Zonena Glascoe (then Gladys Zonena) was Tutor in Charge of the Blackfriars Literacy Scheme. Over her four years tenure she experimented with and pioneered the unique approach to Literacy Tuition now enshrined in Amity.

In 1974 Gladys moved from Blackfriars and established Rathbone Reading Clubs together with Philip Glascoe. By now, the technique was firmly in place and the organisation affiliated to the Lambeth Committee of the National Elfrida Rathbone Society. Over the next six years, as new Clubs were opened, a series of new initiatives were piloted. One of the most important was the pioneering of Literacy Tuition to the residents of Day Centres for the Mentally Ill.  This tangible recognition that the mentally ill could have problems over and above their illness was a significant advance. We are pleased to record that our initiative generated a change in attitude to such work by the Statutory Agencies.

In 1978 we applied for and received Charitable Status. By the early 1980's, following a greater concentration of focus on the "esn child" by the National Elfrida Rathbone Society, we reinforced our commitment to "adult literacy" through the adoption of our current name, Amity Reading Clubs.

In 1976 we were delighted to be the recipients of an eighteen month grant by the newly formed Adult Literacy Resource Agency (ALRA), to fund a half time Co-ordinator.  The funding for this post was subsequently taken over by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), who also funded the costs of our Supervising Tutors.  Sadly this funding came to an end with the cuts in education funding in the early 1980's.

The 1980's saw a refining of objectives coupled with the need to adjust to increasing competition for the restricted financial resources available for voluntary work in the Capital. As a result, by the end of the decade we had rationalised the scale of our operations, concentrating more on improving the quality of support to individual Clubs and their Students.

In 1990 Amity affiliated to Trust Thamesmead, an Umbrella Charity which supports voluntary and community work in Thamesmead, and has derived great benefit from this association.

Latterly in the 1990's we have introduced the Computer Literacy Project. In addition, we continue to regard the promotion of the benefits of our unique approach to Literacy Tuition to both agencies and individuals, as an important part of our work.

The Computer Literacy Project itself received a great boost through the generous support of the National Lottery Charities Board, which enabled us to invest in new laptop computers, printers and other equipment, and has enabled us to launch this web site and enhance our other communications.  We are most grateful for this generous backing.

The recession of the 1990's has impacted  on our work at Amity and on society as a whole. Nevertheless, our approach is durable and cost effective and we continue to flourish. We enter the twenty first century with both optimism and encouragement arising from the continuing success of our Computer Literacy Project.

Contact Information

For any information or enquiries about Amity and its work, please contact Gladys Glascoe, our Founding Organiser, by any of the means set out below:-

Telephone

0044 (0)1227 711 012

FAX

0044 (0)1227 711 012 (Call first)

Postal address

61 Cedar Road
Sturry
Canterbury
Kent
CT2 OJG
United Kingdom

Electronic mail

General Information: philipglascoe@amity.org.uk
Webmaster: philipglascoe@amity.org.uk