Summer 2010

Fixing, cleaning and decorating old house. Moving to new house. Grandma's birthday and my 21st.

Pics on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=246872&id=574347491&l=34b7422e4c

 

Everything is easier for everyone now we live in Ferryhill near Grandma. Aunty Ann and uncle George come up from Nottingham to Grandma's every 2 weeks. Aunty Claire and uncle Mick come up from Oxford every few weeks. My cousins can just walk round the corner to see me. And we have sleepovers.

5 August: Bye Bye My Lovelies

Out with the old...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv6oOujQ1WE

23 July - 1 August ISAAC Barcelona

Biennial clan gathering of ISAAC, The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication in a different country every 2 years. 2010 was Barcelona. 2-day music workshop, 4 days conference and partying, then 3 days holiday then home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hflAfDZqyRY

Movie from our pre-conference music workshop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Nl7xqeiqw

Monday the AAC Band performance opens the Conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Di_PqEJac

On the Friday after the conference we went for a ride out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj4c2hoNsXk

On Saturday we spent the day on the beach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzOHS38itKs

Sunday in and around the Cathedral:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcXQilZosQ

Pics on Facebook:
The AAC Band:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=251859&id=574347491&l=c56c27bd0c

July & August @ Home

Packing all our things for major house renovation, leaving most things packed ready to move to new house and cleaning and decorating old one for marie to move in when we go.

 

9-11 July 2010: DADLG @ Bendrigg

At Bendrigg with friends from Durham Area Disability Leisure Group (DADLG) caving, climbing, zip-wire, canoeing, walking - caving and zip-wire for me. no movie in caves, too dark and wet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwJC8QSVHhM

25 June Cleary Clan Gathering

Had a great night at Croxdale Club with aunties, uncles, cousins. Good idea Ann! Thank you for making it happen uncle Tommie!

Pics are on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4373863&l=09b602a6b8&id=574347491

22 June FaCE @ BACOLL

We invited family, friends, local dignatories and key professionals to a buffet and celebration of our work where we gave presentations, showed our campaign animation The Language Stealers, Jake sang the ABC's of Communication Rights on my Pathfinder, and our friend, 1 Voice Role Model Jemima Hughes, gave a talk and showed the animation she made to promote the 1 Voice Under 13's weekend.

Pics from the event are on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188794&id=574347491&l=8232d7460f

19-21 June Willowman Festival

Summer solstice weekend with family & friends at Willowman Festival, Lenthor Farm, Northallerton.

Our pics are on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4384550&l=f5bc0f9aa5&id=574347491

15 June DADLG Summer BBQ

Our pics from Durham Area Disability Leisure Group summer BBQ and Quadbike ride are on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188767&id=574347491&l=c5da87b693

12-13 June 1 Voice Weekend

1 Voice theme for summer 2010 is Celebrating Our Families. We made and performed a song with some of our dreams in it, and 1 Voice is making a book about us on the theme of Love, Life & Families.

Our pics from the weekend are on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188185&id=574347491&l=28d19846cf

Big Challenge – less than two weeks left to apply!

Looking for funding and support to turn your ideas into projects?
Apply to Big Challenge!
Here's a message from Big Challenge Programme and Support Manager, Abby Kegg:

"The Big Challenge competition for 16-25 year olds is closing to applications on 6th July.

To be in with a chance of winning a share of £65,000 along with support to set up your own community project you must apply before this date.

Your project just needs to inspire other young people and involve volunteers so think big and get involved now!

Check out www.bigchallenge.org.uk for full details and the online application and if this doesn’t apply to you then please forward it to someone who might be interested.

IMAGINE, INVOLVE, INSPIRE
IT’S YOUR TURN!

If you have ANY questions then please contact us on bigchallenge@unltd.org.uk

Big Challenge is a youth-led competition run by UnLtd in partnership with Changemakers and with funding from Vodafone and v. We are part of Live UnLtd www.liveunltd.com where you can find more opportunities like this for young people.

Abby Kegg
Programme and Support Manager

UnLtd
123 Whitecross Street
Islington
London EC1Y 8JJ

Tel: 0207 566 1106
Fax: 0207 566 1139
Mob: 075 4593 3796
AbbyKegg@unltd.org.uk
www.UnLtd.org.uk

15 Jun: Let's FaCE It!

Our first newsletter Let's FaCE It! is printed and ready to share! It's all about the projects and campaigns we've been doing these last 3 years, and how AAC can be used to help people communicate.

You can download a PDF of Let's FaCE It! or view graphics of the pages on the Diana Award Channel at Radiowaves here:
http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/story/137891/title/28MayLetsFaCEIt

Here's the front page to give you a flavour:

Oops! the link to The Learning Disability Parliament on page 2 goes to the ISAAC site. It should go to http://www.serviceuser.co.uk/ If we find any more typos we'll put the corrections here.

25 May: Language Givers Project Log

The last two months we've been working on another animation - Robert, Andrew, Gemma and me. It's called The Language Givers and should be edited and online early next week.

Videos and photos from our workshops are on our Diana Award Channel pages at Radiowaves:

www.radiowaves.co.uk/r/mbr

Scenes, Core Words & Word Parts

This is one of the core words language displays we use for Word Wall Bingo and for the dialogue in our stories - an activity we hope lots of people around the world will join us in when we sort out how to network and host the idea!

A brief description of the activity and learning outcomes is on my page at the Diana Award Channel on Radiowqaves:

http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/story/122566/title/WordWallBingo

05 Mar: Word Wall Bingo

Advocating for Core Language and Literacy - me and Rob word-searching some Song Lyrics for Core Words. We tell you why in the movie info on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhqNcqQfFW8

16 Mar: New MacBook Pro!

Our new MacBook Pro arrived today. Now we can animate, movie edit, make presentations and music any time we want. Thank you Big Challenge!

14 Mar: Equality Without Words? campaign

This movie is our campaign presentation that I gave to Big Challenge in December and the Learning Disability Parliament in February.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CdzvMGsiyY



I am using the Diana Channel at Radiowaves to promote this campaign and my campaign for AAC Role Models in Schools.
www.radiowaves.co.uk/r/mbr

Many Methods, One Goal: To Communicate

This movie is of my PowerPoint talk about how I communicate. I gave it at college in February to help my teachers know how to help me, and is my late entry to International AAC Month 2009 - Many Methods, One Goal: To Communicate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBEMwu8brZU

14 Mar: Language Stealers: The Making Of

A slideshow of pics from our project on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhTgu7tS7CE

11 Mar: The Language Stealers

As part of the Radiowaves Street Life project, funded by Youth In Action for the British Council, and with additional funding from Co Durham Youth Opportunity Scheme, animator Vivien Peach working with us at Henderson House, Chilton.

We made Language Stealers to promote our 'Equality Without Words?' campaign and the language boards of core words we are making.

To watch on YouTube, an read our long description of why we made this movie, click the title to this story or go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vib2__BDCXc

1 Feb: DADLG Steel Drums

This week I started to learn steel drums with the Durham Area Disability Leisure Group. We met up every Monday for six weeks at Greenfield Arts College, learning a new song each session. At the end of the sessions we did a small performance for a few lucky family members.

31 Jan: Stomp

This weekend me and my brother went with the DADLG to see Stomp the musical at the Empire theatre in Sunderland. We all had a great time and thought that the show was fun and exciting.

29 Jan: Animating with Vivien Peach

Vivien spent this session teaching me and Robert how to use iStop Motion. I made a Ten Pin Bowler and Robert made a Footballer.

Link to Michael gets a Strike:

Link to Roberts First Kick.

28 Jan: Tae Kwon Do

I started going to Tae Kwon Do with the DADLG every Thursday at Spennymoor Leisure Centre. The course was supposed to be for ten weeks but since everyone enjoys it so much we have decided to keep it up as a weekly thing.

27 Jan: Animation Props

Robert and Andrew both visited after college to help plan the storyboard and make props for the Language Stealers animation.

25 Jan: Meet New Social Worker

24 Jan: More Art with Andrew

23 Jan: Magnetic Word Parts

My brother finished cutting out the word parts and sticking them on to magnetic strips.

22 Jan: Animation Artwork

Our animator Vivien couldn't make it today so we spent the day making artwork ready for next weeks session. We also cut out word parts and stuck them on magnetic boards to use in the animation and to practice our literacy with.

19 Jan: Big Challenge Meeting

My Big Challenge project manager Jo introduced me and Robert to our project buddy Gillian, who is studying politics at university and has campainged before, and is going to help us make our campaign go international.

We set our tasks for February and March to finish our newsletter, recruit volunteers, make a campaign and petition letter and to create a contact list of people to send petition letters and the newsletter to.

18 Jan: LD Parliament

Today I gave two talks at the Learning Disability Parliament and asked members to support my campaigns for everyone with speech and language difficulties to get the technology and teaching they need to speak, read and write, and to meet AAC role models who are good at altenative communication.

2 Jan: ICT, Literacy & Gaming

Got me a nice little touchscreen laptop and a nice big TV to plug it and my X Box into. Great!

Christmas

12 Dec: Quads & BBQ

Turkey & Tinsell at Hardwick Park quad bikes with DADLG! Andrew had his ride on the quads. When we got home we all helped to put lights on the big tree in the garden, my bedroom and the living room.

4-6 Dec: Big Challenge Residential

Getting to know the other Big Challenge winners and the Youth Leadership Team at Trafford Hall, Chester. Abby, Carl and Joe from UnLtd and Laura, Anna and Tiana from Changemakers were there. Big Challenge is a project of UnLtd and Changemakers.

We had a great weekend of interactive training in project management, with lots of fun and games, and all the winners did a 5 minute presentation about their project.

My Flip camera conked out so I don't have video of my talk, but I did it again at the LD Parliament and will post that when it's edited.

11 Dec: KK2 Disco

I don't like dressing up but most people did. Had a great night with KK2 and the Stay Up Late Campaign.

20 Nov: Community Service Volunteer

10 Nov: Kasabian

After listening to Kasabian in the car all year I finally got to see them live at Newcastle Arena - went with my brother John, cousin Tom and a couple of friends - for John's birthday. I enjoyed the whole gig, especially Vlad the Impaler and Underdog.

5 Nov: House of Lords

We had tea at the House of Lords to mark the official handing over of Shine Week from the Talent and Enterprise Taskforce to the National Youth Agency, and thank everyone who made Shine Week a big success. Shine Week is a national celebration of young people's talent. I was a Shine Week reporter for the Diana Award Channel at Radiowaves and I uploaded videos of my friends' talents to the Shine Week site. 

http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/r/ShineMichael 

http://shineweek.brightlemon.com/users/michaelbreed