Basic Guidelines on Running an Outsiders Lunch/Event

by Dr Tuppy Owens, Founder of Outsiders

All members are treated equally at Outsiders lunches and nobody is left out because of their disability or impairments. It’s much better if a group of people run a lunch together, preferably men and women. That way, nobody has to take all the responsibility alone, you’ll each have someone else to talk to, waiting for members to arrive, and won’t feel so bad about a low turn-out, as sometimes happens if local members find they are unable to attend.

Lunches can be extremely relaxed, friendly and really good fun. Putting on a lunch is not really a lot of work but it does require energy and commitment. The Outsiders office volunteers can provide contact lists of local members for you, and advise you on publicity. Posters can help publicize the event, and we can make these for you.

It’s a good idea to spend part of the afternoon in a group discussion on what members really want, and plan a programme that appeals to them. A local website can make an invaluable resource, especially if it had a local forum for members to contact each other with the view to going to events and gigs together, but these need input from the members, and there is no point in setting it up if they won’t contribute.

Here are twenty tips on running a lunch successfully:

Before you begin, discuss your plans with the Outsiders office and be sure to visit some of our other events. Collect your trusted team of other volunteers. You cannot do it alone. If you happen to fall ill on the day of the lunch, you need others to be there. There must aways be a responsible person at the lunch in case of probems.

Be sure to liaise with your team regularly.
Look out for local wheelchair-accessible disability-friendly bars, cafés and restaurants which are not too busy on a Saturday afternoon, or whenever you decide to hold the event. Make sure the food and drink prices are not too high. Before selecting a venue, pay a visit at the time you plan the lunch on the same day of the week, to ensure everything will be OK, including the toilets and parking. Check it out for acoustics — places with no soft furnishings or surfaces echo and the sounds make it difficult to hear what people say and grate on your nerves, so people don’t feel relaxed. Loud music and football on telly are no-no’s. Make sure you can receive mobile phone calls from the venue, and that there is a clear signal. Don’t hire a hall or use a place which charges a fee. Choose a public bar where everyone will pay for their own food and drink. Your only expense will be phone calls to other members and calls to liaise with the venue.
Lunchtime is best because some members don’t like going out after dark. Choose a venue which women, shy people and people with Hearing Impairment will feel comfortable in (i.e. not a sports bar or rock dive). There must be parking nearby and the venue needs to be close to public transport. Check that the local railway station has taxis that can carry people using electric chairs.
Make sure that your event goes on the Outsiders website and in INSIDE. We sometimes don’t publicize the exact address on the website, for fear of attracting undesirables, but our members should have full details, plus your mobile phone number. Phone the local members several days in advance to remind them. Phone the venue the day before to give them an approximate number of people coming, and remind them to make your booked table accessible for wheelchair users.
Arrive early. Check and, if necessary, re-arrange the tables and chairs so that wheelchair users can move around easily and ensure there are chair-free spaces at the tables where wheelchair users can sit.
Keep your mobile phone on for members who get lost or need to ask questions. Keep a look-out for people arriving. Some people feel very nervous about entering a room full of strangers and may need a quiet word outside, to encourage them to come in. Other people may need help in physically getting through the door. People with Visual Impairment may need help getting seated.
People who don’t know each other need to be introduced. Don’t worry if you can’t remember their names — nobody expects you to. Laugh as you forget, and ask to be reminded. Bear in mind that some people with speech problems may have great difficulty in saying their name. Remember that visually impaired people need to be kept up to date about new arrivals and imminent departures.
A good way to start chatting to new people is to ask them how they heard about Outsiders. One of our most important roles is helping members is acknowledging their sexuality, and this can be done in a light hearted fashion, with the type of conversations you would have with your mates. Never assume anything about other members — don’t assume they are virgins, heterosexual or wanting to get married. Just ask what kind of partner or partners they’re seeking, as this will help you introduce them to the right people. If there is just one gay person in the gathering, or somebody who doesn’t relate to the others at all, commiserate and offer to contact the office to try to find some other contacts for them. Keep all this simple, short and sweet and then move on.
Avoid long, deep conversations, unless someone requests a quiet word with you. Keep mingling and introducing people to each other. You haven’t got time to speak to someone for long, as you need to keep one eye on the doorway for newcomers and the other to make sure nobody is being left out or ignored.
If somebody requests personal advice, ask them to wait until you have a space and then take them to a corner and give them ten minutes or so of your undivided attention. Don’t let anybody else join in, as this is private. Answer all questions honestly even if this feels embarrassing. For example, if they smell, tell them. If they socialize clumsily, tell them why. Try to persuade them to seek more professional advice if need be, from their GP, a counsellor or other expert.
Don’t buy rounds or pay for people’s food. Accept drinks from others, though — after all, you have done all the organizing and you deserve a drink. However, don’t get drunk.
Don’t use the lunch to promote your own products, philosophies, politics or religion. Your role as organizer is to look after people.
Never exclude anyone for being “too disabled” or “too odd looking”. If you have a gut feeling that someone is unsavory because they might be exploitative, keep a close watch on them and ask your colleagues to do likewise. If you need to ask them to leave, please inform the office about this. Outsiders cannot accept people with learning disabilities, mental health issues or brain injury if they cannot understand the ethos of the club or how to complete our application form. We signpost such applicants on to other groups. Sometimes, however, they slip through the network and the office needs to be aware of them, as we have experienced real difficulties in the past, which we don’t want to repeat. We simply don’t have the capacity to handle difficult situations, because we don’t have the resources to offer consistent support.

On the other hand, if a member is being discriminated against because of their physical or social impairment, ask others to talk to them and introduce them around. Ask other guests to help if someone needs feeding or escorting to the toilet (although it’s best if members bring their own PAs to cope with these things).
By all means cover your costs with a raffle, the prizes having been brought along by the members. Ask someone who isn’t too shy to sell the tickets as this is a good way for them to get round and meet everyone, with a ready-made excuse to speak to them.
Try to take a photo of the event and do a write-up for INSIDE. The office should also receive a confidential list of all the people who came along, and how they got on, with notes on their needs and what they have to offer.
If anyone gets drunk, try to persuade them it’s time to go home. If anyone is swamping, crowding or generally invading the space of another member, ask them to come and have a word with you. Explain about body language, allowing people space, keep watching them in case they do it again, and don’t be afraid to throw them out. We want to keep the nice people coming back so, if anyone is obnoxious, racist, homophobic or rude, they should be asked to leave.
When the event is over, thank the venue for their service and, if appropriate, have a whip-round to tip the waiter/bar-person.
Don’t hold your events too often, as members are mostly stuck for cash and can’t afford too many outings, but you’ll be surprised how far some people will travel to come to a lunch. If your events become regular, try not to clash with our other regular lunches. The London lunch is always on the 2nd Saturday of the month.
You can agree to give people lifts away from the event if you have a car but avoid picking them up, unless you are in close contact by mobile phone, as their train might be delayed or they might mess you about and make you late.
Ask the members what they would like to do on other occasions. Some seem content to sit in a bar and chat. Others want workshops to help them over their problems. Some like to go to clubs, the horse racing, the Mobility Road Show or other events. Work out a programme to suit everybody, and give your programme plenty of publicity to ensure they are well attended. It’s best to have a list of alternatives up your sleeve, in case your chosen venue closes or event cancelled. If you have to change at the last minute, phone everyone you expect to be coming and pin a note on the venue’s door.

You might have very different ideas to these. Members have, in the past, successfully organized all kinds of things from a trip to Amsterdam to theatre outings, a gay weekend and house parties. Whatever your idea, it’s best to run it past the office team, for guidance.

Welcoming New Members

Engage with new members to find out what they are looking for (most of you will not have seen their application forms, so you have to start from scratch). That will mean taking care not to introduce lesbians to lecherous gentlemen, etc. New people need to be introduced to people they fancy (without seeming crude) or others they might get along with. They need to be made to feel welcome, special, and that this is a family of friends they want to join.

We promote peer-to-peer support so, if possible, introduce them to people with a similar disability who may have more experience.

If the lunch is very small and/dull, newcomers may need to be reassured that those present are not representative of our membership, and perhaps given the names of other people they might get along with, explaining why these people are special.

Some disabled people arrive with a sigh of relief that at last they have found a group of people where they feel totally accepted. You will see the look of delight on their faces.

Others sigh in despair that they are being shoved together with more disabled people, when their aspirations are to find an able-bodied partner. Understand that disabled people have prejudices too, and there is a pecking order in the disability world. Most disabled people go through their teens and 20s hoping for the Knight in Shining Armour or Page Three Girl, and only when they mature do they start to accept their own disability, start to love their own bodies and accept other disabled people as an option as a lover or partner.

This is not a philosophy you can thrust at newcomers, but something they have to find out for themselves. All we can do is open doors, make introductions and make them feel welcome by accepting them, acknowledging them as sexual beings, and demonstrating that you care about their personal and sexual welbeing.

Discuss potential activities with newcomers, such as cinema outgings, Sunday markets, festivals, encouraging them to volunteer ideas and say what they like doing.

Bringing Shy Members Out of Themselves

When a member just sits there, it is not because they are stupid or mentally inept. Underneath the surface you can find all kinds of inspiration, a lovely person dying to help others and have fun.

True, some disabled people have been looked after all their lives and expect others to do everything for them, and now is the time to ask them to do something for others, and take responsibility for themselves.

Communicating with speech-impaired people and encouraging them to become involved in the general conversations

As part of our Free Speech Campaign, you need to talk to our speech impaired members, rather than natter amongst ourselves.

It is very difficult for people with speech impairments to talk to strangers and the people running the lunches need to set an example to the others. Some disabled people tell us that they find it impossible to communicate with people whose speech is difficult to understand, and we have to accept their limitations.

People are speech-impaired for the following reasons:-

cerebral palsy
stroke
stammer
brain injury
facial Paralysis
tongue cancer
meningitis
muscular dystrophy
motor neurone disease
Parkinsons

Most of our members with speech impairment agree that the most important thing they need is confidence training, because it’s so very difficult starting a conversation with someone you fancy when you cannot speak as well as you would like. You are terrified they will become bored waiting for you to say what you want to say, or will mis-understand, or just find you too hard work.

That is why so many people fail to explain how to communicate with them, because they don’t have the confidence to push this on a stranger. So Outsiders needs to help them gain that confidence.

Some people with speech impairments use AAC — Augmentative Alternative Communication devices, which means using a letter board that you point at letters to spell out what you are trying to say, or a machine which you type the words into.

It’s a good idea if the AAC user has written instructions on how to communicate with them, or instructions programmed into their machine. Most AAC users bring PAs with them to lunches, who are there to help us but understand that it cramps the member’s style to have a PA hanging around all the time, and we need to learn, ourselves.

Guidelines for communicating with people who use AAC

See http://www.accpc.ca/Speak_Up/resources

You don’t need special skills to communicate with a person who uses an augmentative and alternative communication system.

Remember, a person who cannot speak does not necessarily have a hearing or cognitive problem.

Make eye contact
Speak directly to the AAC user, not to the person who may be accompanying them
Use everyday language
Do not speak loudly, slowly or in a condescending manner
Ask the person to show you how he/she communicates ?Yes?
Ask the person to show you how he/she communicates ?No?
Ask the person to show you how he/she communicates with the AAC system
Give the person time to communicate. Using an AAC system takes more time than speaking
Do not feel you have to keep talking. It takes time to construct a message via AAC. Try to feel comfortable with the silences
If you are short on time and cannot communicate with the person, be honest and make an arrangement for when you will have the time

If the person is using a display:

Say each word selected out loud so that the AAC user knows you have the correct word
Do not interrupt when the AAC user is in the middle of conveying a message
If you are not sure when the AAC user is finished ask him/ her "Are you finished?"
Say the words in the order that the AAC user gave them
Suggest what s/he might mean using all the words
Write down the words the person is communicating as it often helps in remembering long messages

Some people who use AAC do not communicate in full sentences. They rely on their communication partners to "co-construct" messages. The AAC user gives the key words and the communication partner suggests what s/he might mean using these words. For example: the AAC user communicates, "Mother home" and the communication partner says "Are you telling me your mother is at home?" If the AAC user signals "No" the communication partner might suggest another meaning such as "You are going to visit your mother at home?"

Sometimes AAC users can give "missing parts" of the message. For example: If an AAC user communicates "Angry" -the communication partner might ask, "Who is angry?" The AAC user communicates "Jim".

Publicity

It’s a good idea to let the local press (radio, TV and newspapers) know what you are doing, to get your event listed.

We can also print out flyers to put up.

Head office will give you all the local members of Outsiders to contact, or do so for you.

The first few events will be the time to listen to members, ask what they want, and provide publicity to attract others to the events they want, be it group therapy to learn how to make deep friendships, outings, lunches, concerts, theatre or other stuff.

Good luck and keep in touch!