National Residential Weekend 2022
After not being able to hold face-to-face events for two years, it was incredible to finally be able to get together and celebrate again during the 1Voice Summer Festival at Treloars School in July. Intense heat, 10-hour traffic jams and stomach upsets weren’t going to stop us and we were delighted to welcome AAC users and their families for a jam-packed weekend.
We made a short video to show what we got up to. You can watch it here.
The Friday night welcome session, carefully planned by trustee Frances Sugden and Role Model Kate Caryer, brought families together in smaller groups to explore key locations and get a flavour of the activities to come. Accessible music-making, a photo-booth and Q&A’s with Kate gave us the chance to get to know each other and the site, while having lots of laughs and catching up with old friends.
Saturday got off to a high-energy start with an inspirational and entertaining show by All Star Circus skills. His great combination of clowning, juggling and wisdom about how to deal with mistakes or failures put us all in a great frame of mind for the sessions to come. Following this we were delighted to welcome back Beth Moulam whose keynote presentation boosted the feel-good levels yet higher.
1Voice are hugely grateful to former Trustee Helen Hewson for the powerful sessions she organised over the weekend. Realising that a significant number of members were reaching adulthood, Helen designed two workshops focusing on the skills and considerations these young people would need to develop; directing PAs, considering managing a budget, choosing a college, making life plans. Feedback from members suggests that both young people and their families found this extremely valuable. 1Voice hope to develop further activities and opportunities in this area with Helen, so do get in touch if this is something you are keen to be part of.
Our photobooth rocketed off to outer space, relaxed on the beach enjoying the waves, climbed the Eiffel tower to take in the views and went down under to the shipwreck on Fraser Island, Australia.
We made lots of new friends, meeting other AAC users, volunteers and role models, as we hung out with Spiderman, raced with Mario and then Thor even lent us his hammer.
We were models; fashion directors, designers and artists creating our costumes and props, as well as artistic directors ensuring everything was in the right place and finally photographers, using a wireless switch to take our own photos. Then we even went to the developers and watched the layers of ink build up on the photos as they were printed.
And the highlight of the weekend? The Saturday night disco by DJ Oli. We were massively grateful to DJ Oli and his crew for persevering through an epic traffic jam to safely arrive with his most-excellent trailer of tech! As well as the brilliant tunes, this year saw an enormous light rig, impressive visual projections and smoke bubbles.
A key focus of the weekend was a re-launch of the 1Voice Role Model programme. With a number of members having completed their role model training relatively recently, and the return of some experienced and established Role Models to the weekend, they were able to meet together to discuss their plans and priorities for carrying this forward.
The final session on Sunday allowed the joyful return of the Shelley Makin joke competition. There were, as always, some absolute groaners! It was such fun to gather in the hall, share hilarious and dreadful jokes and celebrate the inspiration, connection, support and creativity the 2022 Summer Festival brought.
Massive thanks go to the amazing volunteers for making the weekend possible. After a weekend of supporting, enabling, and running around - they still had the energy to show some impressive moves on the dance floor! Also a huge thank you to the National Lottery, The Bruce Wake Foundation and the Mouth and Foot Painting Association, who funded the weekends activities. Their support allowed such a wide range of inspiring activities and sessions to be organised.