Please read this additional update alongside the July update below as the two are linked.
From September, registration for attendance at our local monthly meetings will need to be confirmed by text message to the group mobile and not using the website here as it is creating too much additional work to be able to manage.
If you have already communcated with the group and/or have already been to a meeting then you'll have been given the group mobile number. if you don't have it, please use the contact form here to request it but please be sure that we have already communicated previously because if we haven't, the request will not be responded to.
This change is so that the group can continue to be managed effectively with the little time that is available to manage it alongside other commitments.
Also in the July update, is a summary of all meeting dates for the rest of this year. Please make a note of these and at any time between 7 and 1 day prior to the date of the meeting, just send a text message with your name and confirm that you wish to attend and we will add you to the list.
We need to confirm numbers to the room facilitators 2 working days prior to the meeting so this will always be the Friday beforehand so we won't be able to accept requests to attend with less than 2 days before the meeting date.
Back in the April update, I wrote a piece about the non Facebook cohort of AS North West members. I explained how - when the group was first set up - there were the two cohorts, members who joined the Facebook group and those who either didn't use Facebook at all or didn't want to join as part of a Facebook group.
Following all the publicity prior to our first local meeting back in April, a number of people requested to attend the group who were not Facebook users and although I had made it clear before about it not being possible for me to run two lots of updates, in the spirit of trying to be as welcoming and accessible to people as possible, I found myself drifting back into delivering two lots of communications and answering copious emails. Whilst I enjoy trying to offer something for everyone, it's once again been made clear to me by a bout of being unwell and unable to run the group, that I just can't do this any more. I'm autistic and have ADHD plus many other delightful side issues and I try to hold down a full time job as well. I can't forgot the lessons from the past I've been taught in terms of needing to put my wellbeing first. It's actually quite a hard thing when my natural way is to put others before myself.
So, the purpose of this little piece here is to make our non Facebook users aware that the onus is on you to check this website and register if you want to come along to any of our meetings. We must have communicated beforehand so if we've not done so, please contact us using the form here in the first instance and ensure that you include a little about yourself, age, diagnosis status etc. If you check and registration isn't open then you'll need to keep checking back.
I would strongly suggest that if you can, you join the AS North West Facebook group. You don't have to join using your name, you don't have to have a picture of yourself, as long as we've communicated prior, you'll be admitted into the group. All updates are posted within the group and they won't be posted separately here going forward.
Thank you for understanding.
Please see the below for the remaining meeting dates for 2024. This is so that people can see the dates in advance and for non Facebook users, know roughly when to check the website to register. Registration usually opens 7-10 days before each meeting.
From Summer, we will be starting badminton and table tennis on weekends. This will be indoors at a local leisure centre.
This won't be a free activity but cost will start from just £1.00 for an hour of play. Please join the AS North West Facebook group for more information or contact us using the form here if you'd like to join in.
Our next meeting is scheduled for 18th June. I am pleased to report that from July, I have a contingency plan and should I be unable to run the group, a very kind group member has offered to help. However, this cannot be in place for June so should I be unable to run the June meeting, I will unfortunately, have to cancel it. I am really hoping that everythings aligns and I'm able to run the group on 18th. If you register to attend and I have to postpone again, you will be informed by email or SMS.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to run the May meeting which was incredibly disappointing for me as it had just got off the ground so well in April. I am considering contingency plans but this is difficult for me because (a) at this moment I'm not 100% myself and don't have the capacity to consider 'big' things and (b) being honest here, I don't work very well with other people. That said, I personally feel I owe it to people who enjoyed coming to the group and meeting others to make sure - as best as I can - that it continues unhindered by various issues that I may be trying to deal with so I will be trying to organise a back up plan and will update in due course.
Resulting from the recent publicity that the group has had, I've been approached by a number of people wanting to attend the group but who don't use Facebook / social media. People who have been in the group from the beginning will know that I used to run two cohorts within the group, a Facebook one and a non Facebook one. It quickly became apparent that doing two lots of updates (and with the non Facebook updates being particularly time and labour intensive), was way too onerous for me so I had to go with the majority and continue only with the Facebook updates as it's the quickest way to reach a larger number of people.
I'm now faced with a growing number of potential group attendees who don't use Facebook but there is no way that I can go back to running two lots of updates. That said, I respect that there are people (myself included) who dislike social media and in a small effort to be as inclusive as possible, I'm setting up a page on this website just for those people who can't access our Facebook information. The page will be separate from the rest of the site and is for use only by people who have communicated with me outside of Facebook.
I was interviewed for BBC Radio Lancashire to help publicise the group being in our new base and this resulted in a good number of new enquiries. I have also tried to put the word out on several social media groups but it's not my strong point so I'm not sure if this latter aspect has made any difference. I'm hoping to revisit the station once the group is up and running and I can be more definitive about how it's working and what we're doing there.
Following on from the last update, I'm pleased to be able to confirm that meetings are going to start next month.
I don't want to put location details on here for safety reasons but information will be on our Facebook page for group members and if you're not a member and would like to come along or join, please use the contact form here to send a message.
I look forward to seeing people next month :-)
I advised late last year that I was tentatively hopeful of securing meeting space for the group.
The good news is that I have been able to secure use of a community room for us at Bamber Bridge in the South Ribble area which is where I am based. I appreciate that this may not be convenient for some group members but I have had to learn and take on board that I cannot try and please everyone and it is better to have an active group in one area and work out a format that can be used to spread further afield than just hope for something to turn up in every single area and in the meantime - nothing actually happens.
Meetings will take place once a month and will start in April. The finer details (such as day of the week and timing etc) should be sorted by or before the end of February at which point, I will share all the information.
Last year I did a lot of work on creating files on Christmas and social expectation as it can be a very difficult time for autistic people. For anyone who wasn't a member back then or who wishes to view these again, please contact me for the link to the files.
For anyone who is into gifting, there are some gift suggestions too. Again, please contact me for the link.
My capacity for running the group has been low of late (for various reasons including coming to terms with another diagnoses) and I have not been able to do what I would have liked. I have had to have a re-think about how best to move the group forward so will update more about this in due course.
Between 1st and 30th April, Understanding Autism North West (UANW) put on an exhibtion of artwork by autistic creators at Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington. Having exhibited some of my own art at a different exhibition last year, I wanted to go along and see what was on display and also to meet some of the creators themselves.
Wow!
Hard to think of a different word that sums up so much. The artwork there was absolutely incredible and if you consider that much of it would never normally see the light of day (aren't we just so reserved when it comes to showcasing our own 'stuff'), getting the chance to see it all in one place was fantastic!
In addition to that, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing some amazing people, including three of the creators and got to enjoy the beautiful building which (if you love your architecture like I do), is a fantastic Arts & Crafts treat for the eyes.
The staff at the gallery were very ND friendly too so all in all, a brilliant day.
Of course, I still needed several days 'downtime' after that event but it was SO worth it.
I've put just five of the paintings below but the image quality really doesn't do them justice. It was actually quite difficult to get decent shots because of reflections off of glass, where the paintings were positioned and a constant stream of people trying to also enjoy them and squeezing past in the narrow space behind.
Understanding Autism North West (UANW) are the only free therapeutic service in Lancashire specifically for autistic individuals and families and they provide over 1,000 sessions of counselling every year. As if that wasn't valuable enough on it's own, every one of their fully qualified counsellors are neurodivergent themselves.
With 94% of autistic people experiencing anxiety and 83% experiencing depression, UANW provide a hugely valuable and rare service and they receive no funding at all, relying on charitable donations. Anything I can do personally or via this group to support them and their work - I will do.
For more information on Understanding Autism North West, please click here.
Do you paint, draw, create in some way? If so, keep a lookout on the AS North West Facebook page as I'll be popping on a post about this soon and inviting everyone to share their creations with other members.
This is just to update and apologise for delays within the Facebook group in terms of :
A little context - last year I started work on a new business venture and also set up AS North West at the same time. I bought a brand new (but inexpensive) phone in order to run the group and deal with enquiries for my business.
I'm now finding out that this phone is not really fit for purpose in terms with what it can cope with. I am now not receiving notifications and typing anything on it is taking forever. All it has is Facebook and Gmail and that's it.
It's apparent that 15.1GB of the 16GB storage is taken up with the operating system and the Facebook app!!
Anyway, last week, I found an old(er) phone that I used to use some time ago but no longer needed. It's a Sony so a much better brand but the best thing is, it has 32GB of storage with only 8 in use so I've now moved everything over to this other phone which should mean that things run more smoothly going forward.
Thank you for bearing with me. I also manage 3 streams of work alongside my voluntary stuff, so some delays will be inevitable but I will do my best (hopefully with the help of the 'new' phone), to keep them to a minimum.
Just a note about posting links. Posting links is fine, provided you give some details about why you think it'e relevant or how it's helped you in some way. These posts do take a bit longer to approve as I need to review links to ensure that they align with group ethos (ie. not promoting any organisations that foster harmful philosophies and behaviours towards autistic people).
Please can I just request that people don't post links to anything that they themselves haven't fully read and assessed.
An 'online' meet ran on 17th May with a fairly good turnout. For me, it was great to 'meet' / (see) some of the group's members and we introduced ourselves and I shared my thoughts on how the in-person meetings will work going forward (which I'll share in the segment below).
We also discussed briefly what could be covered at future sessions and two things that came out of this were the challenges and joys of being autistic and dealing with people so two really good topics to start off with.
The next online meet will be mid June (around 14th). It seemed like Wednesday worked well for people so please watch the Facebook group for more details.
One of the downsides to using Zoom is that the free service only allows a maximum of 40 minutes per meeting so I have to schedule two meetings which run back to back. I'm not a fan of this as it's cumbersome and a bit annoying but the next level up which allows longer meeting is around £120.00 per year and that's not something I can do at the moment. Depending on how the meetings are attended going forward, I may consider an upgrade but for now, it will have to be done in two segments.
I'd like to thank the interesting members who joined the meeting on 17th May. Thank you for attending :-)
The irony is - this group was set up to promote socialising opportunities for autistic adults who otherwise struggled to engage with people in typical settings and yet, I have found it one of the most difficult things to organise, mostly due to my lack of knowledge of suitable places in areas other than my own (Lancashire) but also because of trying to factor in as many sensory considerations and accessibility needs that group members have as possible.
I have liaised with other people who already do this type of thing; some for children and their families and some for autistic adults and the one main thing that came out of this, was the concept of 'just put it on and tell people and if they don't want to come - fine - they don't come.'
Whilst I do understand the concept of this in respect of not being able to please everyone all of the time, it was precisely this attitude that meant that going along to other autistic adults groups was inaccessible to me purely because they all ran at times of the day that as a person with commitments that I can't just drop, I couldn't attend.
My way of working these was that we'd hold one in-person meeting each month and each month it would move around to a different area (one month, Cheshire, another Manchester, another Merseyside etc). However, there was then the issue for me of travelling somewhere only to find that nobody turned up.
Following a brief update at the online meeting on 17th May, I have decided to adopt a different approach. I'll be popping a poll onto Facebook each month just to gauge who would (circumstances permitting) attend the next meeting and the location will be directed from the location of the majority of respondents.
That way, as many people as possible can benefit. If it were to work out that the same location came out top for more than one month, then if there were enough people from the next most popular location, we'd move it there for fairness but other than that, I feel it's fairer to do it this way so as many members as possible benefit.
I will still need to find locations within whatever area is chosen and I'm not familiar with places outside Lancashire but I'm sure people will help me with this :-)
Do keep a look out on Facebook as this poll will be going up quite soon. The weather is quite good now so a good time to take advantage of it :-)
Please remember these two important points :
(1)
If you indicate that (circumstances permitting on the day), you would like to attend a meeting, there is absolutely no expectation or pressure to keep to that if for whatever reason, you can't make it on the day. These things happen and in our community, they tend to happen more often. That's understood.
(2)
Please don't indicate that you'd like to attend if you genuinely feel that you won't go anyway or that it's highly unlikely that you'll attend. Doing this will simply skew the chosen location and may mean that others who could've attended may not be able to to.
Sunday 18th June is Autistic Pride Day.
In towns and cities around the country, outdoor events will be taking place to mark a day where we're all encouraged to be our authentic selves and be proud of who we are and not feel like we have to hide parts of ourselves away.
Here in the North West, a 'Picnic in the Park' is taking place on Saturday 17th June in Whitworth Park, Manchester, M14 4PW.
For more information on this event and location, please click here.
