Sunflower Diversified Services, Inc.


Newsletter for November 2005 Volume 2 - Issue 11 - Page 2

Residential Supports
Shelly Shelton
Through cooperation with the Foundry Methodist Church we are pleased to announce a Saturday afternoon gym program, which will be on the first and third Saturday each month from two until four. There will be planned recreation activities hosted by Triage and a couple of residential staff. The first Saturday’s activities included bowling, parachutes and kick ball for a few of the activities. On the 22nd a NEEWOLLAH (Halloween) party was hosted by the church. The admittance fee to get in was to wear one item of clothing SDRAWKCAB (backwards!) There was food, fun and cool activities. Inside sporting equipment is being gathered to offer more options for those taking part in the fun. Nerf footballs, badminton, foam bowling, basketball and exercises are a few of the options offered now. Anyone with game equipment or games may donate items. For clients wanting to participate, you or staff will need to contact Triage so that transportation arrangements can be made. Hopefully many will get out and participate and help themselves keep active during the winter months. Our thanks go to the church and its members for making this possible.

The Great Bend Recreation Center has many activities and programs for folks to participate in. Staff and individuals need to take time and look at and discuss the different activities to see which ones they would be interested in. Winter is a long period of time to be cooped up. Everyone needs an outlet and a change of scenery and maybe a night here and there with friends at a rec. class might help provide that.

Friday the 14th was the yearly Halloween dance held at the recreation center. I was in town and decided to drop by and see what was going on. What I saw was a group of folks having a good time, staff and individuals alike. I think at some time during the time I was there, I got to see almost everyone dancing and the costumes were something to see. We had everything from a princess to Count Dracula there. It is so nice for me to see everyone out of their home environment. From what I saw staff seemed to be enjoying the activities as much as the individuals did. Thanks to the staff that helped get folks their costumes and get them ready.

Staff of the month this time is Mandy Coburn. When I asked why she was nominated, the response was she works all the time, will do anything that is asked of her, stays late when needed and makes sure the folks that she works for gets out and about. The site at which Mandy works lost a long-term employee and someone needed to step up and that would be Mandy. Thanks for your dedication to the folks for whom you work.

Safety News
Harold Jones
Safety Stuff
One of the things we don’t spend a lot of time talking about is Lockout/Tagout procedures. While this mostly applies to the folks working out at the plant, it’s something all of us should be familiar with.

Whenever someone is working on a piece of equipment – like an air compressor, or a baler – the power to the equipment needs to be shut off. This could be done at the power switch to the equipment, at the electrical breaker box that supplies power to the equipment, or any other place that allows the equipment to be totally shut down. Once the equipment is shut off the person working on it can actually start handling electrical lines, saw blades, or any other dangerous moving parts. As you can probably imagine, it would be bad for someone to come along and switch the power back on to the equipment while someone else is holding the wiring, or a saw blade… or working inside the baler.

Lockout/Tagout procedures are designed to prevent that from happening. Anytime you come across a Red and White (or just Red) tag that says “LOCKED OUT” or “TAGGED OUT”, leave it and the equipment alone. The ONLY person

authorized to remove a Lockout Tag is the person who originally put it on. Sometimes you might see three or four Lockout Tags on the same breaker, or on the same piece of equipment. That means three or four different people are working on the same piece of equipment, and each of them has his own tag that only he can take off.

Remember: Locked Out/Tagged Out = LEAVE IT ALONE.

Other happenings of note:
* Construction has started on an additional storage building on the west side of the Recycle Center. Funding for the building comes largely from a grant received from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Within the next few weeks we hope to have that building up and in use.
* Installation of the Fire Sprinklers at Eisenhower and Churchill is getting closer. We don’t have hard dates for the actual installation, but design plans are completed and all the equipment has arrived in Great Bend. It’s possible that they may already be installed by the time you actually read this – if not, it won’t be long.

Have a great Thanksgiving Holiday, everyone!

Day Services
Sarah Krom
"Want to go to the gym?" is becoming the normal Tuesday and Thursday morning question for folks in the therapy programs at CHS. Thanks to a partnership with Rev. Kevin Baxter and Foundry Methodist Church we are able to use their extremely nice facility and provide therapeutic recreational activities that require more space then we previously had available. Janice and Shonita have planned activities and that encourage folks to be physically active. From Bean Bag games to Scoot Ball they keep things moving. Currently they are looking for sports and game items to add to the fun. If you have items you would be willing to donate please contact me. Partnering with community resources to expand our programs let's us continue to make the $$$$ go farther. As Rev. Baxter stated in one of our early planning discussions, "We have the building, you have the people, sounds like a match to me!" His commitment to the community and our clients isn't new; the church has hosted a 'Neewollah' party for our folks in the past. We look forward to watching this program and another successful community partnership grow!

KDOT has accepted our orders for 3 vans scheduled to arrive in the spring. These vehicles will replace vehicles that will border on 200,000 miles by that time. Thanks to our maintenance programs these vehicles will be able to roll down to meet other transportation needs in the agency.

Sunflower will once again host the 'Trail of Lights' at Brit Spaugh Park this holiday season. I am looking for volunteers that would be willing to ' man the XMAS hut' for a 3 hour stint - 6:30 to 9:30 - on a Saturday starting Nov.26th…. give me a call if you are interested…we had a blast last year.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
Winner of this months honor is Coleen Nuss. Coleen manages the Employment Services division. Her responsibilities include daily work schedules for folks and then ensuring quality and quantity of the products they produce. Coleen is counted on by her staff of 10 to trouble shoot and provide them support with client issues that can 'make or break' their days. Coleen handles all her duties with calm efficiency and I can count on her to get it done {even if I forgot to tell her to do it}.