Fabulous Fireworks

Remember remember 5th November...

On bonfire night this year I was on a river cruise on the Tyne with my family. It was a fundraising event hosted by North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA) to raise money to support their work. As you may know, NETA supports individuals (and their families) with Aphasia - communication difficulties following a stroke, or other brain injury.

I met my family in Newcastle straight after work and we headed to the boat which was waiting for everyone to board at the Quayside. Once on the boat we ordered some drinks (a nice hot cup of tea as it was freezing outside!) and waited for our cruise to begin.

I was wearing a black and pink dress (accessorised with a Giving Voice badge!) and I put Giving Voice leaflets on all of the tables. I provided my family with Giving badges too, which they all happily agreed to wear (with only a little reluctance from one of my teenage nephews!)

I volunteered to sell the raffle tickets so I had the opportunity to speak to everyone on the boat. It was nice to catch up with some of the members and they were interested to hear about how my new job is going :-)

The evening was lovely, with fireworks lighting the sky. Many people stood upstairs on the deck, wrapped up warm,  to enjoy the view. My nephew and niece both had a turn at driving the boat which made their night!

It was lovely to spend some time with my family and help a fantastic charity raise some extra funds. I enjoyed helping to sell the raffle tickets and it was a good opportunity to hand out Giving Voice leaflets to remind everyone about it. I saw people looking at them and some took them home.

An enjoyable evening raising money and awareness of Aphasia and I look forward to the next time I can take part in one of their events. My family and I have been fundraising over the last few months and I presented NETA with a cheque for £200 on the night. Together with the fantastic fundraising efforts of my sister and brother-in-law for the Great North Run, and our afternoon tea event in September, I am delighted to say that we've raised more than £1000 for NETA this year! Thank you to everyone who has helped us to support this fantastic cause!

Me presenting the cheque to Janet Speight, Chair of NETA 

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!)

From April to July - where did the time go??

It has been a while since I last updated my blog (April) so I thought it was about time I gave it some attention. Life has been quite busy recently and although I haven't had time to blog, I have still been Giving Voice, so here's a little update :-)

A few weeks ago I went along to an event in Gosforth which aimed to raise funds for the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA). For those of you that don't know, NETA is a charity which is based at Newcastle University and supports people with Aphasia (communication difficulties following a stroke or other brain injury). It also aims to raise awareness of the impact Aphasia has on the lives of individuals and their family and friends. If you would like more information about NETA visit their website here

The donkey derby was a cinema race night allowing people to place bets on horses before watching the race on screen. I won a prize in the raffle but sadly none of my horses were winners! Before the event I sold horses for one race to my family (owner of the winning horse won a prize) and we named this race Giving Voice Gallop!

For those of you that do not know, NETA won a Giving Voice award last year for local partnership of the year, so they brought their lovely award along to display (for more information about NETAs own celebration of this award, see July Bulletin page 9). I also made a quick speech on the night to remind people about Giving Voice and to inform anybody that hadn't already heard of it. We also put leaflets and pens on the tables and encouraged people to take these away and pass them on. New patron of NETA, Lord Shipley, attended on the night and made a short speech. An enjoyable night was had by all and we raised money for NETA in the process!

On the subject of NETA, my sister and brother-in-law are both running the Great North Run for them  this year and like the previous two years I will be on the sidelines sporting my Giving Voice t-shirt and handing out jelly babies to the runners. To find out about how this went last year click here. We bought our first box of jelly babies last week! To sponsor Joanne and Craig and help them support NETA you can visit their just giving page here

Thanks for reading, hopefully it won't be so long before I update this again!

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives!

#GivingVoiceUK

A Friday Phonecall...

I just got quite excited when my phone rang and I saw it said ‘Ian Lavery’s office’ knowing that it would be regarding the invitation to the NETA and Giving Voice event.

Unfortunately as Ian Lavery doesn’t get back to constituency until a Thursday evening he is unable to attend the event. I thought this would probably be the case but I am still pleased to have heard from them. Ian has read the letter and his secretary says if there is anything else he can do or if I need him for anything else just to get in touch again.

If you didn’t see my previous blog, you may not know that I wrote to my MP to invite him to a celebration event to celebrate NETAs award win. I also took the opportunity to remind him of Giving Voice and the importance of SLT and thank him for his previous support.

I am delighted that I still have a developing working relationship with my MP and look forward to keeping him up to date with Giving Voice in the future.

If your MP doesn’t already know about Giving Voice why not write to them and spread the message that

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

Sunny Days and Happy Things...

Loving the sunshine today! The winter blues are slowly disappearing as I notice the nights beginning to slowly get lighter, payday draws steadily closer and the sun is shining brightly through my window... The time between Christmas and the end of January always seems so long but there’s been a few exciting things happened this month so I thought I’d sit down and share them with you.

Firstly, I am extremely excited that my train tickets are booked for the Giving Voice Working Group residential next month! I remain positive that the train service will serve me well and that the weather person in the sky stays happy to allow easy travelling for me and my fellow working group colleagues. So far this year, my Giving Voice involvement has had a slightly slower momemtum than usual, so I am super excited about getting my teeth properly stuck back into campaigning and meeting fellow Giving Voice enthusiasts at the training next month. I look forward to sharing my Giving Voice adventure with you all.

Secondly, as we were unable to make it to London for the Giving Voice awards we are holding our own little celebration in Newcastle. I’ve been helping the North East Trust for Aphasia  (NETA) organise a celebration which is to be held in March. As part of this event I have been asked to talk for 10 minutes about my involvement in Giving Voice and why I nominated NETA. I have written to my MP to invite him along to the event (and of course took the opportunity to thank him for his previous support and remind him of how brilliant SLTs are!) I’m really looking forward to being part of this celebration and will update you after the event! :-)

 

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives!

It's Twitter time!

Welcome to my 60th post...I’m excited to see that my blog is rapidly approaching 10,000 page views! At the beginning of the year this was just over 2000 page views, so to be almost at 10,000 views is incredible! Thank you to everyone who reads it.

When I’m on twitter I often have a little look to see which celebrities are online, to tweet them my blog. Last week I tweeted it to Chico and Gary Barlow with the hope that one, or both of them might retweet it to their followers. I was very excited to find that Chico did just that (he has more than 30,000 followers!)  and he now follows me too! :-)



Retweet of my blog by Chico
#pma = positive mental attitude



Gary Barlow did not retweet my blog, but he did retweet Becky Beaumont’s. Becky is a 22 year old stroke survivor who blogs about her experiences. It is truly inspirational, and just goes to show that stroke can affect anyone at anytime in their life. Gary Barlow has more than 2 million (!) followers and it’s brilliant that he retweeted Becky’s blog to so many people! Check out Becky’s inspirational blog here - http://luckygirlbec.blogspot.co.uk/

Becky did not need a Speech and Language Therapist for her swallowing or communication needs following her stroke, however many people who have a stroke do need the specialist support of an SLT.  As you may know, the North East Trust for Aphasia offer long term support for people who have communication difficulties following a stroke (or other brain injury). Last week I got an email from NETA asking if I’d like to go along to promote Giving Voice at an event they are hosting this Saturday in Newcastle. Always welcoming of Giving Voice opportunities, I have agreed to go along with some leaflets, and to make a short speech at some point during the night :-) Event details can be found here. I’ll update my blog following the event!

RCSLT Conference 2012

Last week I attended the RCSLT conference at The Midland Hotel, Manchester which was an inspirational and educational 2 days. It was extremely well organised with lots of brilliant speakers. The theme of the conference was Driving Transformation through Evidence Based Practice and there was lots of practical advice that SLTs could take away and put into practice.

The Midland Hotel, Manchester

It was also great to talk lots of speech and language therapists working with all different client groups, each and everyone an inspiration.

The Annual General Meeting saw the inauguration of new council chair Bryony Simpson, as Hazel Roddam, previous chair’s term came to an end. I’ve never been to an AGM previously and was grateful of the opportunity to attend while at the conference this year.

The Robin Tavistock Award is presented annually to a person, or group, who it is felt, has made a significant contribution in the field of aphasia. This year the award was presented to Professor Pam Enderby on Wednesday 12^th September. It was a pleasure to be there and listening to Professor Enderby’s achievements and contributions to the field of aphasia made me extremely proud to be part of such a diverse and valuable profession. A standing ovation filled the room as Pam made her way on stage to collect the award. Read more about why Pam Enderby won the award this year. Professor Pam Enderby truly deserved to be this year’s winner.

At the end of the second day Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, gave an inspirational and informative Giving Voice update, ensuring that everyone knows the campaign is still ongoing and reminding people of the deadline for this year’s Giving Voice Awards (last Thursday 13^th September). He encouraged that we continue to engage in the campaign to highlight the value of the profession. He pointed out that society adapts well for people who are blind, deaf or cannot walk, yet the same level of adaptations are not made for those who have difficulties with communication. I think this is a very valid point and highlights the need for us to continue to campaign on behalf of those who struggle to make their voices heard!

I had a brilliant day supporting the runners at the Great North Run yesterday and will be blogging about this over the next few days. Thank you for reading my blog, I am delighted I have almost reached 9000 page views!

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

Celebrating 10 years of NETA

On Tuesday I went along to The Mansion House in Newcastle for afternoon tea to celebrate the North East Trust for Aphasia’s 10^th Anniversary. It was a great afternoon and I met some lovely people.  I was wearing my Giving Voice badge and was able to have a few Giving Voice related conversations with the people sat at the same table as me.

For those of you who don’t know, the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA) is an independent registered charity which is self funded. Aphasia often arises after stroke or other brain trauma and it means difficulties with communication (speaking, understanding, reading, writing). Aphasia has a sudden and profound effect on the person, their family and friends. It impacts on the individual’s confidence, personal relationships, employment and social life.

NETA supports people who have Aphasia in the North East, and their families as well as raising awareness of Aphasia.

Tuesday afternoon was lovely, it was great to meet lots of people who benefit directly from NETA as well as listening to the inspiring speeches from, Janet Speight (chair of NETA), Professor David Howard and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle.

In Janet’s speech she mentioned how happy everyone always is when attending NETA. She said that you might expect the people there to be sad but everyone is always happy. I was really inspired by the sheer determination of the individuals who have aphasia and how they don’t let this stop them communicating to the best of their ability.

It was also lovely to hear so many people talk about how much NETA, and Speech and Language Therapy has helped them and their families since their stroke.

NETA is a brilliant charity and I was delighted I could be part of the 10 year celebration. Keep up the great work NETA and here’s to the next 10 years! Why not go and check out NETA’s lovely new website?! http://www.neta.org.uk  

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives