This years Deaffest is being held in Wolverhampton between the 17th – 19th May. More information can be found – https://deaffest.co.uk/2018/08/29/deaffest-2019/

A worthwhile attendance at this capsule event as delegates showed an interest in our activities and both manual and electronic notetaking was acknowledged as an essential communication method.   Awareness of Notetaking was also promoted by our presence, to the speakers who have impact in their fields of work.  Our stand was supported by the following members – Meriel Michaelides, Penny Clarke, Susan Baines and Sisily Alexander – many thanks to them for representing ANP at this event!

Yoga for hard working hands!

Hand and finger joint exercises, courtesy of member, Lisa Kelly’s, Yoga teacher.

Notetaker is royally noted:

HRH Princess Anne has seen ENT at work and acknowledged the focus and hard work with a handshake at a Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and Hearing Link meeting.

The ANP were represented by Meriel, Miriam and Karen at the Deaf Street Party in London on Sat 22nd July 2017.

We had a good spot near the entrance and some early interest to the stand but unfortunately the rain set in and we decided to call it a day at 2pm.  Such a shame as potentially a fun event and good networking opportunity.

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.