Street Awareness Day in Doncaster

Welcome back to Doncaster Stammering Association. After a long absence, Jamie Harwood (now DSA events co-ordinator) was invited to get involved in its Stammering Awareness Day last December.

Music and circus acts draw in the crowds to raise stammering awareness. The team from Doncaster Stammering Association.

"We had even greater awareness success when Bob started his 'standing on broken glass' performances."

In November 2010, I reunited with Doncaster Stammering Association (DSA) on returning to live in Doncaster after more than 10 years away, involving college and a career in Berkshire.

I was pleased to find that Bob Adams was still going strong as Chair of DSA and to see some other familiar faces. Bob soon brought me up to speed regarding some of DSA's wonderful highlights that I had missed, and forthcoming events - one of which was a Stammering Awareness Day in Doncaster town centre due on 11th December. Bob asked if I would help and I duly accepted. It sounded like I was in for a real circus treat with 'fire eating', 'standing on broken glass' and live music. Exciting as it sounded, I was unsure how this was going to raise stammering awareness. My question was soon to be answered.

At a rather chilly 9.30am I met up with Bob and his circus double act partner Sir James Dangerous. With van unloaded and a nice hot coffee to get us going, we soon had the stall set up and looking good. We had a rocking sound system that was pumping out tracks from 'time2talk', the only stammering awareness cd of it's kind in the world (available from BSA). Then our guitarist for the day, Glen McGlone, arrived all smiley and raring to go. Whilst he sent out funky jazz'n'blues sound waves down the street, Bob and Jamie's double act began. With fire sticks in hand they caught the eye of early morning shoppers by rolling balls of fire up and down their forearms and with spectacular fire eating.

All this was fun and eye catching but unfortunately there was little opportunity for stammering awareness to be shared with large numbers of passers by. Then Bongo Love arrived, a Zimbabwean djembe double act. They quickly got in to the groove, and as they jammed with Glen their cool beats got passers by to stop and watch the show. This gave myself and Colin (former Vice Chair of DSA) the opportunity to get talking and raise that all important awareness.

We had even greater awareness success when Bob started his 'standing on broken glass' performances. With a mound of coloured broken glass placed on the street paving and a bare footed Bob standing with eyes closed, mentally preparing himself for the feat, a large crowd soon circled. Bob then took the mike and explained the purpose of the day by talking about the soon to be released film The King's Speech, and innumerable facts and titbits about stammering. With curious crowds of 120+ this was a great way of clearly spreading the word. Bob then bravely did his thing and the crowd held their breath, gasped and let out collective "oooos" and "ouches" as his bare feet crunched down and ground their way in to the thousands of shards of razor sharp glass. This brought cheers and a huge round of applause plus some questions about stammering. Great! Bob repeated the performance 3-4 times throughout the day with large crowds gathering each time.

By now we had been joined by Lucy Alvey, a fourth and final year student Speech and Language Therapist at De Montfort University in Leicester. She wanted to gain some first hand experience of the DSA's activities. She quickly got actively involved and was really impressed with how the day went. She was a great help, talking with many people about stammering and discussing support options. Lucy was definitely introduced to DSA with a true "ordeal of fire"!!

In addition to music and feats of daring do, other feats of bravery took place - live poetry reading! How would you like to read, on a mike, in front of complete strangers, poems and verse about stammering? Well, that's just what we did! Just being 'out' about stammering can be a challenging yet empowering experience. Wearing stammering related t-shirts at a public stammering awareness day certainly meant there was no place to hide.

All in all it was a fantastic day. We made contact with people who stammer, family and friends of stammerers, shopkeepers, business owners and curious passers by. Additionally we raised a small amount of money which the group agreed to donate to the BSA for the Xmas appeal. Fun was had by all, and for me, personally, I felt real satisfaction that I was giving something back to a subject that is close to my heart - stammering. I look forward to more activities of a similar nature.

I would also like to give a big "Thank You" to Doncaster NDC for supporting this event through a Grassroots Grant (this has also enabled us to have a new website - check out www.doncasterstammeringassociation.org.uk) and to Val Constantine at DMBC for supporting the event and providing a gazebo and electricity.

Footnote: no animals were harmed at any time during the awareness day! For more information about glass walking & fire eating, check out www.beyondajoke.org.uk
Remember - don't try this at home folks!!

Extended version of article in Spring 2011 Speaking Out, page 10