News and Events Newsletters September 2021 Newsletter Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to read our newsletter! You may (or most probably not) have noticed that we didn't get round to doing a June newsletter. To be quite honest we had all just lost the plot this year, and needed the summer to recuperate! But we are back! Bigger and better than before! Keep reading to find out more! Firstly, It's our 5th birthday!! We have been supporting people with Aphasia for 5 years! Want to help us celebrate?! Enter our fundraising raffle for the chance to win a prize! Click here for our raffle! £5 or more for the chance to win a Say Aphasia wrist band! £10 or more for the chance to win a pack of Christmas cards and a wrist band! £20 or more for the chance to win a Say Aphasia t-shirt! £50 or more for the chance to win a Say Aphasia t-shirt, Christmas cards, wrist bands and a face mask! £100 or more for the chance to win a bottle of Champagne!! We have new drop in groups!! Oh my goodness, how wonderful!... I hear you cry. Yes we are excited too! Here is a big warm welcome to our new groups in Abergavenny, Darlington, Selsey, and Winchester! For more information about our new groups click here. If you know someone who could benefit from having a drop in group near where they live, please let us know. Get in contact Here's a message from our new peer leader who will be running the Darlington group. My name is Pete Coady and in December 2017 I had a major car accident and was air lifted to hospital in Middlesbrough. I spent 8 weeks in a coma and a total of 11 months in hospital. Due to the car accident I sustained a brain injury which has affected my balance on my right side and my speech, language and writing. I received daily physio and speech & languish therapy whilst in hospital which continued on a weekly basis once discharged home. When leaving hospital, despite all the therapy input I was still unable to walk and needed the use of a wheelchair and other mobility aids to help with my daily living. My speech (expressive aphasia) still needed working on as I continued to have difficulty finding the right words to say. I was determined and focused to hitting achievable goals for myself. I can now walk a short distant using sticks and I was also introduced to online “SayAphasia” group which has been a big help achieving my goals and help set new speech goals. My speech and language is getting better and I want to give something back to the community. We have built a new “SayAphasia” group in Darlington, beginning on the 5th October and then the first Tuesday of every month. The group is running at St Thomas’s, North road, Darlington. If you’re interested, please come along. Successful grants! We have received a grant from the Sussex Community Crisis Fund to carry out a digital inclusion project. Aim:To pilot a service extension to make our online services accessible to members who do not use zoom at the moment. How we will do this: * Design a course with SayAphasia members * Buy 8 i-pads for easy online access * Free accessibility training for SayAphasia Staff at Apple Store Brighton We have found the use of Zoom chats to be amazingly beneficial for most of our aphasia members as it has helped reduce loneliness and isolation. It has also been a great way to continue to keep communicating, especially for those who don't see many people day to day. However, we want to make sure that our service is accessible to everyone, and so this grant will help us to include people who either do not have access to a computer or are not digitally literate. Do you have aphasia, and struggle with using technology to communicate? Click here to be part of this new project! A message from our Skipton group! Say Aphasia Skipton is restarting its monthly drop-in group on Friday 1st October 2021. After a break of over a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the group is looking forward to meeting up with friends with aphasia and making some new ones! Please click here for dates and times of the drop-in meetings. The Skipton group also has a new venue - The Hub at Skipton Town Hall. The Town Hall, based in the centre of Skipton, has recently had a large renovation and now includes improved disabled access and facilities amongst its attractions of a museum, art gallery, shop and concert hall. There is a large pay and display car park with disabled parking behind the Town Hall. In the coming months, Say Aphasia Skipton will take part in an art exhibition to raise awareness of aphasia and is preparing to have a team in the Great Skipton Santa Fun Run which is returning to Skipton town centre this year. Last year the Say Aphasia Skipton team raised over £500 for Say Aphasia by participating in a virtual 5km Santa Fun Run. The group also hopes to do some video interviews with people with aphasia for the Say Aphasia website. If you are interested in coming along to a Skipton drop in, please email us at [email protected]. Thank you for taking the time to read our words. If you have any questions please get in contact here. Manage Cookie Preferences