Deaf-Fest – Wolverhampton

Dian, Meriel and I attended Deaf-Fest in Wolverhampton on Saturday 13^th May to represent ANP.

It was a great event and a good opportunity to network and raise our profile within the D/deaf community (and try out some of our new conference tool-kit)!  We had lots of visitors to our stand – some were potential clients interested to hear about the service/s we can offer, some were interested in becoming note-takers themselves (potential new members perhaps?) and others (some smaller members of the deaf community) were more interested in our supply of chocolates!

Meriel’s committee experience stood us in good stead and Dian’s BSL and Lipspeaking skills were invaluable!  We even managed to hold our committee meeting between visits to the stand and the minutes are now available in the ‘members’ area of the website.

Our next event/stand will be at the Deaf Street Party in London (more details to follow) on Saturday 22 July and we would LOVE to invite you to join us then; the more the merrier…!

An Extract from The Metro Friday, March 3 2017 (page 41) Re. RSI

(Comment – Karen Pritchard – Meriel alerted me to this article in the Metro – I must admit I hadn’t realise RSI caused a tingling and stiffness in your back and shoulders as well as arms, wrists and fingers… just shows how important it is to ask for a co-worker for longer bookings – anyway, we thought the members might be interested)

Strain over for desk warriors

Send RSI packing with Leon Poultney

Up to half a million workers in the UK suffer from RSI, according to the Health and Safety Executive – enduring aches, stiffness, tingling or cramp in the back, arms and shoulders. Repetitive strain injuries are caused by repeated movements that place tendons under stress and are most associated with computer work. Tuesday was RSI Awareness Day, held to highlight the risks and pressure governments into drawing up regulation to protect employees from its effects.

(the article then went on to list office gadgets that can help to prevent it and improve overall health – this was mostly relevant for office based employees, but I thought some of the ‘How to Tackle RSI tips were more relevant to us as note-takers)

 Find a neutral position for your hands. Don’t bend wrists towards your little fingers, thumbs or back towards you.

1. Ensure the keyboard lies flat on the desk or table to encourage a neutral typing position and consider a compact keyboard to reduce the stretch on your fingers.
2. Go mouse-less.  Your arm should rest on a desk, so consider a pen or vertical type mouse.
3. The NHS suggests you should take short, regular breaks and move around the office as often as possible.If RSI is already present, try the Painmaster Patch (£24.50) which uses low-current electricity to stimulate the body’s own natural healing processes.

07.03.17 KP 

Meriel Michaelides represented ANP at UKCoD’s Common Purpose: working together on deafness and hearing loss conference held on 02.11.16. About 60 people attended; most topics were unrelated to notetaking but notetakers might want to contact Silent World Sans Frontieres & CAS Training (Susan Hart), who deliver deaf awareness training ,including to employers.  Do they include notetakers in their resource list/training?

Perhaps for wider impact, we can develop a contact with Martin McLean of NDCS and NATSip. He said he was going to prepare a database of resources for young adults transitioning to education and work. There is some research to be done yet as he has done quite a bit of work on the topic.  When I enquired if notetakers would be on it, following a moment of silence, he suggested I contact him.  I’ll let you know what happens.

Dian Donovan (who is also a qualified lipspeaker) attended the Association of Lipspeakers AGM on 5th November 2016

Lipspeaking AGM was really good as we had a training about what to charge and knowing our worth. Really interesting and I am happy to keep all my notes and share the knowledge when we next have a meeting.

One of the Lipspeakers who is a lovely pro-active member suggested we may want to do a joint workshop with them in the future plus the Lipreading teachers so that we can share good practice and make better connections.

I am happy to coordinate this sort of thing.