BSA London Open Day 2006
By Tanveer Ali

The open day in Hull last year was a wonderful experience for me. I realised how useful these open days are and how much we can get out of them, so I organised one on August 26 in a community centre in Bethnal Green, near to where I live in London. Organising the open day was a way of expanding my comfort zone and going beyond what I thought possible.

Dr. Per Alm from Sweden gave an informative presentation on how the brain behaves for a person who stammers. Workshops then included Alan Badmington who spoke about his experience as a public speaker and how he overcame his fear of words.

Rachel Albert talked about effective community/social skills. Rob Day talked about his working on the radio and acting. Keith Boss talked about how to avoid modern technology as a crutch. There were presentations from Starfish and McGuire programmes about their courses.

I talked about Paul Cunningham's self help group in North London (Update: no longer active), Paul Harris talked about his self-help group in London and David Vitler talked about the BSA phone link scheme. Steve Sheasby described how a new City Lit course he attended has helped him.

I would like to thank the BSA for their help, funding and support, and Mark Tungatt, Rachel Albert and Caroline Chambers for their advice and help. It would be nice to have the London open day every year and I am looking forward to it.