One of my earlier appointments in 2003 found me speaking to a management group in Edinburgh on Cultural Diversity. This got me thinking at the beginning of the year about labels or expectations that are put upon us. Being on another disability board (which deals with all the different types of disability equipment) is making life fairly hectic with meetings that have to fit along side my Orchestra Animateur work.

The new music centre for the Northern Sinfonia (called The Sage Gateshead) has sprung up on the Quayside which is due to be completed autumn 2004. This project has kept me off the streets working closely with the architects, looking at general access issues for the building. The biggest disruption of the year came in September when I moved my home to Gloucester for 3 weeks for special Russian treatment with intensive physiotherapy. This involved moving most of my gear and carers down to a country bungalow.

I stayed in Gloucester for the duration whilst my carers were shipped back and forth every couple of days by train. I was treated for four hours a day, five days a week for three weeks. I really enjoyed the challenge of such an intense work out. Everyday I was put on an electric exercise bike which did good work on my arms and legs. Among a whole host of different physical and mental challenges was an amazing hand held machine that would encourage the brain to renew old pathways. This machine is a result of a hand held device developed in Moscow for Russian astronauts. With only a few hours of usage my fingers started tingling again for the first time in eight years since the accident.

This tingling does not guarantee future movement but we are alot further along the track than ever before with more sensations and possibilities.

I'm on an exercise regime now I am home, to continue the progress I have made whilst planning a possible return trip back to the states in 2004.

December 2003 has just ended with me having finished reviewing another new brass CD; arrived at the end of another term of school workshops and university brass teaching; having prepared the local church brass group with their Christmas music but I m realising that Newcastle United will not survive the next couple of weeks without me supporting their home games.

It has been a fantastic year for Trust concerts again, (not wanting to single one out) which have taken place from Newcastle down to the South coast. I am always humbled by the responses of these events and the loyalty and sincerity of people.

Its only as I print this update with an immense amount of gratitude to God and to you my encouragers that the words 'The Clarence Adoo Trust' takes on a real meaning.

Clarence Adoo www.Clarence.org.uk