The first four or five families became the steering group and began investigating how to operate a support group. At first the meetings took place at Holly House, but we soon out grew the facilities. Investigations into a new location began and in September 1996 we started meeting at the Hyndburn Resource Centre, Accrington, courtesy of Social Services, where we have been ever since.

At the same time we formed a committee and selected a name for our group. The name we chose was CASSEL which reflected our purpose: Children with Asperger's Syndrome Support in East Lancashire.

Twelve months later, with membership increasing, we saw the need to become a registered charity. This status helps with promotion and fund raising as well as having the group taken more seriously.

We began increasing the literature we produced and holding more involved monthly meetings. Membership continued to increase. We developed our first web site. The increased level of interest in our group and ASD in general made us take a giant leap into the commercial world of conferences. In March 1999 we held our first conference, bringing Tony Attwood from Australia to speak in the North West. Almost 200 people, Parents and Professionals, came from far and wide to hear the 'guru' of Asperger's cascade him immense knowledge Feedback from those who attended was fantastic. This spurred us on and in April 2000 we held our second conference with Carol Gray from the USA who instructed a similar number of people in the writing of 'Social Stories'.

During the latter part of 1999 we began to consider a change of name for our group. Many of the membership's children were approaching adulthood. Many new members were not based within east Lancashire and those who contacted us with younger children ere being diagnosed with 'an autistic spectrum disorder' not necessarily Asperger's Syndrome. Discussions began. We concluded that we would change our name to better reflect our growing membership. The name ACTION for ASD was selected from a number of others and in February 2000 this change was approved by the Charity Commissioners. In the very same month we were successful in obtaining almost £5000 from the lotteries to help our children celebrate the new Millennium. We obtained two laptops and some fantastic additional equipment to allow them to try their hand at making web pages. In August 2000 we redesigned our web site and acquired a 'www' address. Some of the children's pages made on the laptops can be viewed from there. Visitors to the web site run at approx. 500 per month with 40 or so requests for information. We have recently received two large donations to the group because of the existence of the web site.

During 2000 the executive committee began the arduous task of formulating a bid to the National Lotteries Charities Board to develop and extend the services the group can offer. This we hope will take part of the group to a professional level of operation and bring benefits to our 'community'.

On Saturday 26th May 2001 we received an offer of a grant from The Community Fund (new name for the National Lotteries Charities Board) they offerd the full amout we asked for £279,695. The offer was accepted, and the hunt for an office and staff began.