SOSA is a charity in its own right, running weekly sessions in athletics, basketball, boccia, swimming, equestrian, and a multi-sport taster sessions. As the picture shows, I went to see one of the athletics sessions at Westminster Lodge.

But I could have gone to basketball at Loreto School, boccia at Nicholas Breakspear, equestrian at the Oaklands College Smallford campus, multi-sports at Harpenden Leisure Centre, or swimming at either Harpenden pool or Townsend School.

They’re also getting involved in a community allotment in the Mentmore Road allotments in Cottonmill.

So it’s entirely my own fault that I knew so little of their activities before one of the parents contacted me.  Frankly I had confused it with the better known and higher profile Paralympics movement for physically disabled people.

I was really impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment of SOSA’s volunteer coaches, the parents, and the very small professional staff.  The trouble is that their finances are on a knife-edge.  Their chief funding comes out of various “pots” in the county council budget.  So they are very vulnerable in the current public spending climate.  They’ve already taken a hit this year but have managed to continue by paring everything to the bone.  If there are more cuts next year, they would find it very difficult to continue without a fairy godmother.

It was clear to me how much pleasure the participants gained from the various activities.  It provides an invaluable outlet and confidence builder.  So congratulations to Deloittes in St Albans who provide help in both money and kind, including a lot of staff involvement, and the network of parents and friends who slog away at fund-raising.  And a plea to the county council to do its level best to protect this little corner of the Big Society.

If you want more information on the Special Olympics movement, you can find out more here.

PS I didn’t know what Boccia was either.  So this is what it says on the Boccia Federation website:  Boccia (pronounced ‘Bot-cha’) is a Paralympic sport introduced in 1984.  It has no Olympic counterpart.  Athletes throw, kick or use a ramp to propel a ball onto the court with the aim of getting closest to a ‘jack’ ball. It is designed specifically for athletes with a disability affecting locomotor functions.  It is played indoors on a court similar in size to a badminton court.

The aim of the game is to get closer to the jack than your opponent.  The jack ball is white and is thrown first.  One side has six red balls and the other has six blue balls.  The balls are leather containing plastic granules so they don’t bounce but will still roll.  The side whose ball is not closest to the jack throws until they get a ball closest or until they run out of balls.  Once all the balls have been thrown one side receives points for every ball they have closer to the jack than their opponents closest ball.

So I hope that’s clear.

The BBC was determined to give no hint of the lavish excess we have come to expect from Broadcasting House.  Arriving at the nondescript office building at 1 Hastings Street in Luton, we were shown to a totally empty floor, just carpet tiles and pillars, and then into a stuffy room with five chairs for the five of us and a chair for Jonathan.

A nice touch was a cuddly toy in party colours on each chair to mark where we should sit.

The debate was rather more robust than the previous decorous encounters in St Albans churches, not least because Jonathan was considerably more probing as chairman.

We covered traffic, public transport, Green Belt, MP expenses, immigration, schools, and free gardening for specified council tenants.  The questions had been recorded in St Albans by local residents and then played back to us.

You can hear the full debate here.  (You need to start listening 2.02 hours into the programme.)

We have one more face-to-face encounter this Friday speaking to sixth formers from various local schools all gathered at Nicholas Breakspear.  It really is just nine days to polling day.

Sighs of relief all round.