It seems like it's been an absolute lifetime since I was sat here in front of you at our Christmas 2013 meeting talking about everything we'd achieved in the months previously since we began in May that year. I like to think 2014 was the year which will lay the foundations for MHAG making an impact on residents struggling with their mental health in years to come.
We have so many projects in various stages of planning which I genuinely believe will make a difference in this town. We talk about the projects at every MHAG meeting and you also get regular updates if you're on our email circulation list so I won't go into then too much except to extend my absolute thanks to our teams – specifically Neil, Elaine, Beth and Andrea for the mentoring project, Fay for the jigsaw project and Sarah, Helen and Pam for the signposting project - but I do just want to go through a whistle-stop tour of everything MHAG has been doing this year. It might be a little bit naval-gazing but I think it's important for us to do at least twice a year (at Christmas and at our AGM) but this is a much more informal way of doing it than at the MHAG and also will hopefully fill us with a lovely warm glowy feeling just before Christmas!
Having looked back through my diary for the year, the very first thing I did with MHAG this year was on January 3, a meeting with Elaine and Neil about what was to become the highly-successful mentoring project. The first event we attended was the LGBT awareness event at Redditch Library on February 1 and the first event we actually co-ordinated was the Valentine's Ball which all who attended seemed to really enjoy – so much so we are hosting another ball in 2015, although this time the theme will be spring. We did a couple of walks in spring as preparation of our Three Peaks challenge – this is something we are still really keen to do but we decided attempting to do it this year with little training would have been very silly and next year is so busy for both myself and Beccy that we think 2016 is going to be our year! My motto very much is if you're going to do something, do it properly so I hope to be putting together a training programme for 2015 so we can ensure we have the best possible chance of completing the event in 2016.
Personally I had a little bit of an MHAG lull in late spring to early summer while I was trying out the mental health services in Redditch for myself (Beccy kept calling it an MHAG field trip every time we went to a new service!) - but rather than dwell on the bad experience I like to think it's pushed me to make MHAG as great as possible and to ensure we are working as hard as we can for anyone else who is in the same position I was.
In July, Beccy spoke to Disability Action Redditch about the work we do. I think it's great so many other organisations in Redditch are interested in what we do and want to find out more! We have such strong links with so many group and that's something we really hope to continue going forward. Of course we have had speakers at our monthly meetings too including Dr Tim Lee who spoke about what the CCG are doing. We had the huge honour of being made one of the mayor's charities for 2014/15 and I'm sure we'll all agree the work Pat Witherspoon is doing to highlight mental health and dementia during her mayoral year is fantastic. As part of that there was the comedy night at the Palace Theatre which was hilarious and struck just the right note between lots of laughs and being thought-provoking. As part of our connection with the Alzheimer's Society, the other mayoral charity, we got to take part in their dementia friendly community walk at Arrow Valley Lake which was a great experience.
Fast forward to October to our second Wellbeing Week – it started with a poetry night which went better than any of us could have expected with over 30 attendees and lots of people getting up on stage during the open mic part of the night – as well as the scheduled speakers - which was very powerful. Our two-day advice shop at the Kingfisher Centre was also a great success and it was great this year that we were able to include an element of interactivity with food making, face painting, colouring and other activities providing a chance for the kids to get involved while we chatted to their parents.
We launched our pledge which is doing well online and in print and then the week after that Mary's support group and some of the MHAG members had the chance to speak to Luciana Berger, shadow minister for public health which includes mental health, during her visit to Redditch. More recently we attended the Pride event at Heart of Worcestershire College and hosted an evening about the mentoring event which I hear went very well! All this alongside the mentoring pilot and setting up the jigsaw and signposting projects – and meeting the movers and shakers as Neil would call them - and I think it's safe to say we are starting to make a real impact in the borough.
But whilst I can look through my diary and detail the events we've hosted and attended, the meetings we've been at and the influential people we've reached out to – what I can't measure is the stigma we've helped dispell. Our last speaker of the year Laney Walsh spoke about Redditch being a progressive town where we were doing more than most to tackle mental health stigma. I couldn't agree more. I really relish the fact it's quite normal for people to see us out and about in our MHAG t-shirts or for us all to be regularly starting conversations about mental health. That was the entire aim of MHAG – if one person feels more comfortable talking about their illness then we have made a splash and we can be hugely proud collectively that we've come together in our spare time to make that happen.
What I also can't measure is what you've all done for me personally. There is no possible way for me to tell you all how much you've changed my life and how much being a part of something as great as MHAG kept me going through some pretty bad times. During our very first meeting last May I was overwhelmed by the fact people were willing to come and share their stories with us and I'll let you into a little secret – sometimes (very occasionally) I fall silent for a bit during each meeting and that's when I'm looking around thinking how absolutely wonderful all of you are and how proud I am to call you all not only my fellow MHAG members but also my friends. I don't need to tell you all mental health is a dark, scary, lonely and terrifying place but having such a wonderful support network around me helped get me through my journey and turn everything around for me. I try not to single individuals out in my little speeches as no doubt I will forget someone and cause offence – and she will have a go at me later for doing this – but I do want to especially thank Beccy. She'll be rolling her eyes at this point and trying to claim she's done nothing! We often talking about breaking down closed doors when it comes to stigma and all of you do that every day but the lady on my right physically broke down my door to get to me (on her birthday of all days) when I was at my lowest point and had given up on staying alive. She won't ever tell you she did that but I think people should know – firstly so that you can marvel at how strong she is! And secondly because it shows the impact MHAG said. I would be dead if MHAG hadn't happened.
So at this point I'll end this speech because there's refreshments to enjoy but I just can't thank you all enough and we continue breaking down doors – hopefully metaphorically not physically – for a long time yet.
Just a quick reminder of all we have going in the coming week:
