Congratulations!

Just a quick update to say huge congratulations to all the winners at the RCSLT awards yesterday. It sounds like it was a fantastic day. I was extremely disappointed that the trains were cancelled so I was unable to get to London L I enjoyed following the days event on twitter (#rcsltawards) and hearing about all the inspirational SLTs.

On another note I’ve been tweeting my blog a lot recently and am delighted to say that 68 people have retweeted it to more than 100,000 followers! In addition to this the following people retweeted my blog: Sharon Hodgson MP (4793 followers), Gareth Gates (60496 follwers), Julie Etchingham ITV (19824 followers) and Michael Le vell (Kevin from corrie – 47328 followers). I appreciate every single retweet as it all helps to spread the message further that speech and language therapy transforms lives.

I’ll blog again soon about my day yesterday (even though it didn’t quite turn out as planned!)

Congratulations to all #rcsltawards winners once again!

~ so excited that my blog has exceeded 13,000 page views! Thanks for reading! ~

One year on...

Tuesday 18^th October 2011 was one of the most exciting days of my life! I can hardly believe that it has been a whole year since the Mass Mobilisation event in Westminster, where I joined over 200 other Speech and Language Therapists to discuss speech and Language therapy with our MPs.

I have just emailed my MP, Ian Lavery, to thank him once again for meeting with me last year and also to send an update about Giving Voice. RCSLT are inviting everyone to contact their MPs this week to help mark the one year anniversary.  Whether you were able to be in Westminster last year or not, you can help mark this occasion by emailing your MP about Speech and Language Therapy.

RCSLT has prepared a short briefing to remind your MP of the campaign’s key messages, which you can get by contacting Claire Moser at RCSLT - Email: claire.moser@rcslt.org.

Let’s see how many MPs we can contact between us and get them all talking about Speech and Language Therapy again! J Sending the email only takes a few minutes and could really make a difference to the campaign!

Houses of Parliament, 18th October 2011

Let’s remind our MPs that Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives.

“If you think you are too small to have an impact – try sleeping with a mosquito in the room!” Dame Anita Roddick

Aphasiafest

On Saturday evening I went along to Aphasiafest at The Cluny 2, Newcastle  to raise awareness of Giving Voice. Aphasiafest was a night’s entertainment to raise money for the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA).

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. To find out more visit www.neta.org.uk

We set off in plenty time as I’ve never been to the venue before and I am known for my poor sense of direction! I had the satnav and found the venue with no problems (well, ok! That was a tiny white lie – we arrived, on time, with just a couple of wrong turns!)

Upon arrival we were greeted by a number of friendly faces and I was told where I could put the pop up banner. We displayed it near the doorway so that people could see it on arrival. I handed out leaflets and pens and left some on each of the tables for people to read and take away. I also left some leaflets with the lady selling raffle tickets, for people to pick up as they came in.

I love talking about Giving Voice and Speech and Language Therapy and welcome opportunities to do this to audiences. I was quite excited for my little speech on Saturday night and the nerves didn’t really kick in until I got up on stage. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach, but I was determined to have them fly in formation! It doesn’t matter how many times I get up to talk in front of an audience, I still get nervous before I start to talk. I always practise what I am going to say, several times, before I give a talk, to ensure I am well prepared. However, the addition of an audience changes the whole situation and I am suddenly aware of how I am communicating. People tell me that I talk really fast, so I am always aware of this when talking in front of an audience, to ensure that I deliver the talk effectively. Making a speech, however short, always reminds me that I take my own communication skills for granted every day, and that for people with communication difficulties, day-to-day situations might feel this stressful on a regular basis.

I spoke for a couple of minutes about Giving Voice and Speech and Language Therapy, as well as some key facts about Aphasia and NETA. The audience were lovely and I think the little speech went down quite well :-)

I encouraged people to take the leaflets away with them and to pass them on to someone else to spread the message that little bit further.

There was a variety of great entertainers on the night, as well as a raffle, to raise vital funds for the valuable work of NETA. I had an enjoyable evening on Saturday and hope everyone else did too, whilst raising awareness  and valuable funds for a brilliant cause!

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

~ Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, I'm delighted it has exceeded 10,000 views! ~

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!

Oranges and Jelly Babies

Last Sunday I went along to the Great North Run to support the thousands of runners by giving out Oranges and Jelly Babies.  My brother-in-law, Craig was running to support the North East Trust for Aphasia and completed the run in a brilliant 1hour53 minutes – it’s not too late to sponsor him if you want to help support the valuable work of NETA here.

My sister (Joanne), niece (Toni),  and I were all wearing the Giving Voice t-shirts I got printed last week. Three friends also came along to help and they were all wearing black and pink!

To say I was excited on Sunday morning, would be an understatement! There is something about the atmosphere and the sheer determination of the runners that makes being a spectator an exciting event. This coupled with the fact that we were handing out Jelly Babies and Oranges as the exhausted runners reached the 11 mile mark, made for a very exciting day!      

As you may remember, we’ve been buying Jelly Babies every week over the last couple of months to ensure that we had plenty to hand out on the day.

In total we had 50 bags and 6 boxes of Jelly Babies, 480 quarters/eighths of orange and one large tin of Cadbury’s heroes. We gave them all away to lots of grateful people! I was very excited to see that Jeff Hordley (Cain Dingle from Emmerdale) got some Jelly Babies from Si’s tin (who was completely unaware of the exciting situation, as he’s not particularly a fan of Emmerdale!) I also offered Tom Lister (Carl from Emmerdale) a Jelly Baby but he smiled and said “No Thank You”. Lots of people thanked us for our support, even if they didn’t want a jelly baby or piece of orange. It really amazes me how people have the energy to be so polite after running 11 miles, which is another reason I love the Great North Run so much.  All of the runners are heroes in my eyes!

On Friday my dad helped me construct a board that I could display Giving Voice posters on. Well, I say he helped me, it was more the other way around! I was his glamorous assistant while he did all the hard work. What a superstar! We displayed this board near where we were standing and I noticed lots of people reading it as they ran past. Two people also cheered for Speech and Language Therapy as they recognised the Giving Voice logo and message J

Some of the jelly babies

My friend and fellow SLT, Mo did a brilliant job of shouting ‘Oranges’ and ‘Jelly babies’ - so much so I think the people at 10 miles might have heard her! Hehe!

Joanne did an amazing job of cutting up all the oranges, only stopping to deal with a medical emergency. Unfortunately a young man collapsed near my sister – luckily she is a qualified nurse and one of the other people helping, a qualified doctor, so the young man got medical attention immediately, before the St John Ambulance people came and took him to get an ambulance to hospital.

Toni, Me, Joanne and Mo

My dad came along and took some photos on the day and Toni did a brilliant job of cheering on the runners with the Jelly Baby mascots I got from Cadbury last week. My mam cut up some of the oranges while Joanne was assisting the poorly gentleman.

My nephews Darius and Dom, did a super job of handing out the oranges and jelly babies with me and running along with the runners so that they didn’t need to stop.

With thanks to everyone who helped out (particularly Joanne for being chief orange cutter – which is no mean feat!) 

And to finish, here's a short video from the day...

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives

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

Tweets Galore and Jelly Mascots

I am delighted that so many people have retweeted my GNR blog entry! I’ve had more than 35 retweets of this entry and my page views have gone up a lot over the last week.

Retweets include:

TV: Nicola Wheeler (Nicola from Emmerdale – more than 18,000 followers)

Comedians – Lost Voice Guy, Emily Wood, Andrew Arrowsmith, Simon Donald, and Ian Gordon.

Radio: Koast radio and Simon Conway from metro (who said I might be on their news this week!)

I haven't listed everyone but thank you so much to each and every one of you who has taken the time to retweet and/or read my blog. It is very much appreciated.

I’m pleased that lots of people have said they will be looking out for me at the 11 mile mark and I’ve also managed to recruit some extra helpers on the day. I’m also very excited that I have Giving Voice t-shirts for us to wear. I ordered them from a local printing shop and picked them up last Friday! Only 3 days to go until the run!

You may remember that I wrote to Cadbury asking if they could support us at the Great North Run by donating some Jelly Babies or a mascot etc. I received a letter on Friday saying that they are unable to provide any sweets as they support lots of causes - but they did send two delightful cuddly Jelly Babies!  Thank you Cadbury – how cute are they! I love their little boots too – looks like they are ready to run!

Don’t forget to watch out for us on Sunday whether you are running or watching on TV (hopefully we’ll make an appearance in the background as the elite runners pass us!)

I was hoping to publish this post earlier in the week but the #RCSLTconference2012 in Manchester has kept me busy over the last few days.  I’ll blog more about that soon as it was a brilliant 2 days!!

Speech and Language Therapy Transforms Lives