1Voice Yorkshire & North East Inaugral Event

The 1 Voice Yorkshire and North East Branch met in person for the first time in May. We had met virtually at the Christmas party last year and had started to introduce ourselves on our Facebook group, but it was really exciting to meet face to face. It fair to say we took over the café in York Leisure centre and held many conversations over coffee and cake.

23 of us met up for our first ever group, including 6 adult and 2 child AAC users, parents, PAs, support workers, and 4 volunteers including our very own 1Voice Patron. For some it was a great opportunity to meet up with old friends, chat and catch up on news. For others it was their first 1Voice meeting so it was fun to meet new people and find out about their interests and hobbies. There was also lots of conversation learning about each other’s communication methods and devices, successes and challenges.

We didn’t plan any structured activities at our first meeting as it was just an opportunity to meet one another and decide if we wanted to do more activities together in the future. We agreed we did and shared lots of ideas for future planning. Fortunately the conversation never ran dry, however we did agree we will plan a more exciting activity to encourage children to join us next time.