Afternoon Tea

On Sunday, I hosted an Afternoon Tea in aid of the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA) at Crossroads Coffee shop in Ashington.

I wanted to use this opportunity to raise awareness of Giving Voice and the North East Trust for Aphasia, as well as gaining some additional funds to support the work of NETA.

The afternoon was a huge success. We sold 26 tickets and raised a total of £185. We also had a raffle and tombola to raise additional funds on the day. Each table had a quiz sheet which everyone was encouraged to take part in. Almost all of the answers were in the Giving Voice and NETA leaflets to encourage people to read them and hopefully learn something new! The tie break question asked each team to write what communication means to them inside a speech bubble. The winning bubble was “Communication helps people solve problems.”

Tombola

Afternoon tea was delicious, with a variety of sandwiches, scones and cakes, all freshly made especially for the event! Everyone thought the food was beautiful and well worth the £5 for the cost of the ticket. We put a candle into a cupcake and surprised my mam with a beautiful version of "Happy Birthday!" (well we all sang anyway!) to celebrate her birthday the previous day! 

Crossroads Coffee Shop was a lovely location and the volunteers were brilliant. They prepared all the food from fresh, themselves. Thank you to everyone who helped out and to everyone who attended!

Cakes and prizes!

This event was definitely worthwhile and I look forward to planning something similar in the future. If you know any local cafe's that support charities why not see if you can arrange something similar where you are?!

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

Meeting a Dragon? I'm in!

Last night I went out in Newcastle with my friends. I only decided yesterday afternoon that I would be going out and I am so glad that I did!!

As it was raining we decided to head to The Gate as its all indoors and this would minimise the amount of time we would get wet! When we arrived at Bannatyne my friend informed us that Duncan Bannatyne himself had just been in! We decided to hang around there a while longer in case he came back, and to our delight he did. We asked him for a photo, to which he happily agreed! About 5 minutes later we decided to go and see him again to get some more photos and to have a chat with him. He was more than happy to chat to us and I gave him a Giving Voice pen and told him that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives. I was delighted that he put the pen in his pocket!

About an hour later I was ordering a drink in another bar and found myself standing next to Duncan again. He said hello and I took the opportunity to raise some more awareness of SLT.

Me: “Did you know that 2.5 people in the UK have speech, language or communication needs?”

Duncan: “I did know that. How do you know?”

I told him that I am a speech and language therapist and he told me about his involvement with Operation Smile UK and his recent trip to Mexico! Click here to find out more!

It was a pleasure to meet him and to have the opportunity to engage in a speech and language therapy related conversation – especially as it was totally unexpected! I always carry a Giving Voice pen with me (even on a night out!) as you never know who you might bump into to spread the message one person further that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives. Wouldn’t it be great if we see him use his new Giving Voice pen on the next series of Dragons Den?! (haha)

Me and Duncan just before I gave him the pen :)

On another note, just one week to go until afternoon tea! I am looking forward to raising awareness of Giving Voice and some much needed funds for the North East Trust for Aphasia, supporting people with language and communication difficulties following a stroke or other brain injury. I emailed the News Post Leader last week about the event and was delighted to see a short piece printed in this week’s edition! Contact me if would like a ticket :-)

News Post Leader

All in all a very exciting couple of days!  

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

A day out at #edfringe

Welcome to my 80th blog post! I didn't think I'd still be blogging now, when I started this two years ago and I am delighted that it has exceeded 19,000 views! Thanks to everyone who reads and shares it to help us spread the word that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives!

Last week my friend and I had an unplanned day off together so the night before when we were deciding what we might like to do, we randomly booked train tickets to Edinburgh so we could check out The Fringe – including a free afternoon show with Lost Voice Guy and Emily Wood.

We were lucky that the weather in Edinburgh was fabulous all day long and this was a great venue for a girly day out! When we arrived in Edinburgh we spent some time strolling the streets (wearing our Giving Voice badges and me with my Giving Voice bag!) exploring the street entertainment. We decided to go to a free show before lunch which was good. After lunch we wandered round some more then began to look for the venue where Lost Voice Guy was doing his gig. Anyone that knows me (and indeed my friend Rachael) will know that our sense of direction is not our strongest point! However, we managed to use the map and find the venue without too much difficulty (only a few wrong turns, and using the longest way possible to get there – but still! We did find it!)

We sat in the bar with a drink and while we were waiting we saw Lee Ridley arrive (Lost Voice Guy). We had a brief chat with him and it was great to hear how well his gigs are going at The Fringe this year.

The gig ‘Are you a technophile?’ - about growing up and living in an era of modern technology, was great! Lost Voice Guy was as funny as ever and I heard some of his jokes that I haven’t heard before J I would have loved to see his evening show too - Voice of Choice - but unfortunately we only planned to go for the day. After the gig we spoke to him again and got some photos too. If you've never seen Lost Voice Guy before and you are going to be at The Fringe this month – then definitely check him out!!

Lee Ridley and me

Rachael and Lee

Emily Wood

Hopefully people noticed our Giving Voice bag/badges as were wandering the streets of Edinburgh enabling us to spread the message a little bit further.

On another note, we are still buying lots of Jelly Babies for the Great North Run (we’ll be handing them out wearing Giving Voice t-shirts) just before the 11 mile mark. My sister and brother-in-law are both running for NETA (and both got their numbers this morning!). If you can help them to support people in the North East with Aphasia (communication difficulties following stroke and other brain injury) then please do so here! I’m really excited to be going along to support this fantastic event again this year!

Only two weeks on Sunday until afternoon tea at Crossroads CoffeeShop, Ashington. Contact me for tickets if you’d like to attend and are in the area! Tickets are selling quite fast so let me know asap if you want to attend this event. I did invite Wansbeck MP, Ian Lavery, but unfortunately he is busy with other constituent business on the day.

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

Summer excitement!

It’s two years this month since I started my blog  (and it doesn't seem like two minutes!) so I thought I’d update it again before the end of the month.

This week I had a productive meeting about arranging an afternoon tea at Crossroads Café, Ashington to raise awareness of Giving Voice, Speech and Language Therapy and Aphasia whilst raising some funds for the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA). Anyone who knows me knows how much I love tea so this is a very exciting event for me, for a very worthy cause. Tickets have already started selling for what is sure to be a lovely afternoon! For more information about this event click HERE. We will have a little quiz on the tables to get people engaging in the information as well as having a little fun and we are also going to hold a tombola to raise some extra funds.

If you know anyone who owns or runs a café could you organise something similar to raise awareness of communication and swallowing difficulties and the value of speech and language therapy. Perhaps you could raise funds for a local charity which supports people with communication or swallowing needs. If you’d like any further information about how to organize an event like this, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Earlier this month I attended the second of the online ‘GIG’ meeting – the Giving Voice Innovation Group were full of enthusiasm for the campaign. If you haven’t ‘met’ the group yet – take a look at this page on the Giving Voice website and get in touch with your local member to see what’s going on in your area! Also, don’t forget there’s still time to enter a photo into the Lights Camera Campaign competition – click here for further details – why not do a Giving Voice activity and submit a photo from the event?!

Last month I attended the North East Speech and Language Therapy Research Symposium, where I learnt lots of interesting information about research being carried out in the North East. Some of the current Newcastle Students held a Giving Voice stand with leaflets and pens etc and I spoke to them about the interest people had in the stand. They commented that lots of people thought the ‘Seven Signs’ leaflets were fantastic and took them to hand to schools or GPs. I think distributing these leaflets to GPs is a great idea so I am going to meet with SLTs in Northumberland to discuss how we might be able to do this. If you have picked up a ‘Seven Signs’ leaflet at any Giving Voice events, why not pass it onto someone who would benefit from the information.

Thank you to SLT student, Dominique Hill, for the Giving Voice photos from the NE SLT research Symposium

It’s only 50 days until the Great North Run (so social media informs me – I haven’t counted the days personally!) – we have quite a collection of jelly babies now to hand out to the runners on the day (whilst wearing Giving Voice t-shirts). My sister and brother-in-law are running for NETA so I will be looking out for them (and other people I know that are running) on the day. If you are able to support the fantastic work of NETA please sponsor my sister and brother-in-law here. I’m looking forward to going along and supporting the event – it’s always a fantastic atmosphere!

Our Jelly Babies Collection so far!

Well, I’m off to enjoy some sunshine now – hope you can too! (Before you do, why not share my blog to help spread the word that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives!)