Robin Wise

A life well lived.

Robin Wise passed away on the 20 March 2021 at 12:20pm.

Robin at Aberdeen Beach December 2020

Robin had a long Camphill career. Coming to the Camphill Schools in Aberdeen as a child, moving to Cairnlee as a teenager. He then spent his early adult life in Blair Drummond before moving to Newton Dee at 30 years of age. Robin was 59 years old when he passed away.

He died of cancer, which he bravely fought for several years.

Robin came to ND in 1991 and lived with Astrid and Wolo, their daughters and his house mates, Timothy, Archie, Gordon, Diane, Kay, Anne and Jeremy. Jeremy, it must be noted, still lived with Robin all these years later, and he was able to sit with Robin often in his last days. They had a special friendship.

Robin’s parents and sister passed away when Robin was still a young man. This was hard for Robin, but he had an ability to build family around him.

His brother-in-law has stayed an important and central figure in his life. His cousins have built and maintained a close and loving relationship with him. And Robin was able to build a close circle of friends in ND. Rasheeda and Rainer, his House coordinators as a child in Cairnlee lived in ND. David and Stephanie, his house coordinators at Blair Drummond now live up the road in Cairnlee. and Astrid and Wolo, his house coordinators for so long in Newton Dee are his next door neighbours.

For the last 11 years, Robin has lived with Hanna and Jake, Jeremy, Ian, David, Alan and Shamim.

Robin faithfully worked in the Bakery for his whole life in ND - and he loved it. Even these last months, when he could no longer carry out the physical tasks, Robin still went daily for tea break.

Many of you will have gotten to know about Robin over the last couple of years due to his artwork. Robin loved the arts, and really found a style of his own with his distinctive black and white drawings. From 2019 to 2020 Robin was proud to host several art exhibitions in Aberdeen, and had his art showcased in both Glasgow and in London. His London exhibition was part of a larger collection and Robin was able to travel there for the showing before the lockdown began.

Robin was a very quiet and gentle man. His presence in our sitting room over the years created a safe environment. He was always one to put on the tea, and to create a space that others felt safe and secure sharing with Robin. When listening to music, if nothing else was happening, Robin would get up and dance, then go back to his drawing, drink his tea, and have a sneaky piece of chocolate.

You will be missed Robin. And you were loved by all of us.

Our Confectionery is raising funds to bake for a local homelessness Charity

Weʼre raising  £1,000 to fund ingredients for the Newton Dee Confectionery to bake with adults with special needs for a The Care Hub Aberdeen

You may be aware that the numbers of homeless people are rising in Britain and therefore also in Aberdeen. The Newton Dee Confectionery have decided that they would like to bake for the approximately 150 homeless people supported by the Care Hub Aberdeen. A contact from the charity is happy to pick up our production and take it to be distributed, so there is no direct link between us and the recipients - which is essential as many of the people we work with are particularly vulnerable to the Corona Virus.

The Confectionery is happy to bake but we will need to find the funds to pay for the ingredients. It costs roughly £50 for 150 individual tray bakes. We have the skills and the facilities to make this happen, we just need the raw materials.

Therefore, I am asking you to help by making donations. It would be nice to support people outside of Newton Dee. We have needed to close our doors to keep the most vulnerable people in ND safe during this pandemic, but that doesn’t mean we cannot do something positive for the wider community. Your donations will help us provide meaningful work for our Confectionery Team, who have lost opportunities to bake since we had to close the Shop and Cafe to the public. And that work can then go to support others who are also in need. One good deed can be paid forward.

I appreciate your support.

Ulrike and the Newton Dee Confectionery Team.

Click here to donate - Crowdfunding to fund ingredients for the Newton Dee Confectionery to bake with adults with special needs for a local homelessness charity in Aberdeen on JustGiving

---

Corona Update August 2020

Hello friends and family,

It has been a while since we have posted any news on how the lockdown is affecting ND. So, it is about time!

The first thing and the best thing – Newton Dee is still doing well. We have been Corona free throughout the lockdown, and we are working hard to keep it that way. Thank you to all the families and friends who have been so supportive.

Flower deliveries are always welcome.

We still have many people living in Newton Dee with underlying health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable. Because of this, we have been moving cautiously as the restrictions are eased. We have been prioritising opening things up within the community before we open to the outside.

Weeding in Roadside Garden

We have been able to open our workshops internally (with a range of modifications). And we are working on a plan to open some of the workshops to the those who live outside the community. This needs careful planning to ensure we can open things safely and keep social distancing in place. Our Welfare Group is working with Health Protection Scotland, the Care Inspectorate and local authorities to develop a roadmap for re-opening workshops to Day Placements living outside the community. We intend to open this up as soon as we can do so safely.

We have also started a system to enable family members to visit their loved ones in Newton Dee. We had set up a Gazebo outside and had bookable times where socially distanced meetings could take place. This sometimes needs a bit of support – for our villagers, and maybe sometimes for the family members too 😄. We understand though, really, it is hard not to give a hug to a family member you haven’t seen in a while. But I hope you understand our situation too, we are trying to ensure that the whole community remains safe and free of Covid-19 so that people living here can have as much freedom as possible to move about within the community.

Farm and Garden business

The unfortunate reinstatement of the lockdown in Aberdeen meant we had to cancel those meetings for now ☹. This is an important reminder to us about why we need to maintain social distance. We hope the current lockdown will be lifted soon. Fingers crossed, as these visits have been immensely appreciated for the adults we support and their families.

Lastly, we get many questions about our Store, Café and Bakery – When will they open?

The old Store - this is pre-corona, by about 25 years

The honest answer is we don’t know. They remain closed to the public for now. The Store is still working as a workshop for some of our villagers, and they are filling orders for the houses in ND and the other Camphill Communities in the area. This has been immensely appreciated and is only possible if we remain closed to the public.

The situation is the same for our Café. We have set up outside seating, and the house communities in ND are able to book slots where they can go for an outing to get drinks and snacks. This has been very popular and appreciated, especially as we have felt that it is not safe enough for us to venture out to more public café’s this early on.

And last, but certainly not least, the Bakery. The team is a little smaller than usual, but they are busily making bread for all of us in Newton Dee. This is great for the houses, as we get fresh bread, and it also provides meaningful work for some of our residents in the community. And having meaningful tasks is more important than ever during these times. When the store can open to the public, I’m sure the bakery will be ready to make even more bread, but there isn’t a clear way for us to open to the public while maintaining the safe and open environment we need to support the most vulnerable in our community.

Thank you for all your loyal support and understanding. The fact that so many of you want to come to our Store and Café is a blessing – it means so many of you want to support us, and we are grateful. We will open again when the timing is right.

Stay safe everyone.

This is from our last big play - also pre-corona, and I only post it because it makes me happy - enjoy!

Blog & Blether

For those that don't know, The Blether is our own internal publication. With articles written by coworkers and villagers covering everything from holidays, to events in Newton Dee, to what our old short term coworkers have been getting up to, and sometimes just a general interest piece. It's a pretty varied gem of a magazine - so check back here once in a while, or watch our facebook page for new information and articles.