Exciting news about the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Celebration of Creativity event

 

Hello there blog readers

 

Just to keep you updated with the exhibition event:

 

The event is happening at Studio Room at the Rothes Halls on the 29th October. It starts at 12 noon finishes at 4pm. But the exhibition will be open to the public until 6pm.

 

Title: Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Celebration of Creativity

 

We have:

 
Provost Jim Leishman opening the event
 
Dr Ross Cooper as a key note speaker
 
Anita Govan dyslexic poet giving us a performance
 
Myself Steve McCue hosting the event
 
There will be over 70 images from the five Unique Dyslexic Get Creative workshops on display in the exhibition
 
Traditional Scottish music


My name is Stephen McCue and I am the founder of Dyslexia Pathways Community Interest Company and we are based here in Glenrothes in Fife. Since our foundation in 2009 we have secured contracts to provide dyslexia support services to two universities here in Scotland.  We have also worked with many organisations and individuals in the five years we have been trading including the Scottish Parliament.

 

As part of our social contract we have also provided free support, guidance and information on all things dyslexic to people here in Fife, across the UK and indeed all over the world.

 

Last year we embarked on a new project for us, “Unique Dyslexic Get Creative”. We secured funding from a number of sources including: The Big Lottery, Foundation Scotland, Community Trust Fife and Fife Community Learning Network.

 

The objectives of Unique Dyslexic Get Creative were to:

 

·  Support, promote and celebrate the creative talents of dyslexic individuals across the full range of creative spectrum

·  Promote and raise awareness of a more positive social model profile of dyslexia

·  Bring dyslexics from across Fife together to share their stories, develop their self confidence and self esteem. To do this we ran five free to access creative focussed workshops across the whole of Fife.

·   Develop a hub for all things dyslexic and creative for people to access and use from across Fife and the world. To do this we set up a social media hub and dedicated Unique Dyslexic website.

 

I believe we have achieved all our objectives and would like to inform you of some of the successes Unique Dyslexic Get Creative has had:

 

·  We organised and ran five creative workshops across Fife that were all well attended. Workshops took place in Lochgelly, Dunfermline, Anstruther and Cupar.

·  We received nothing but positive feedback from all participants of these workshops.

·  We have well over 600 followers on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We also have nearly 500 likes on our dedicated Unique Dyslexic Get Creative page and showcased the work of many creative dyslexics here in Fife, Scotland and other countries around the world

·  We have developed and launched a dedicated Unique Dyslexic Get Creative web site

·  We have raised awareness of the social model of dyslexia in the local press and radio

·  I am very proud of the achievements of Unique Dyslexic Get Creative over this last year and of myself and the other directors of Dyslexia Pathways CIC who all volunteered their time and energy to make it such a success.

 

 

 

 

 

We will be inviting people and organisations from across Fife and Scotland to attend this celebration to see for themselves what creative dyslexics can achieve as well as giving them an opportunity to promote their services.

 

There will also be an open invitation to the public to come and visit the event from 2pm onwards.

 

ta for taking the time to read this blog

 Steve McCue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

feeling tired and crabbit lol

Hi blog readers hope you are all feeling well and motivated lol.

I have been struggling the last 10 days or so....had my meds changed and its just made me feel tired and crabbit and just plane unmotivated. My ability focus on work has been affected to.......

I am a bit like the hubble telescope when they discovered it was not working lol.

Now crabbit is one of those Scottish words and it means grumpy I think.

I think I could just do with a few days away from the whole Unique thing and work in general but its just not a do able thing at the moment. What with the Unique exhibition just under five weeks away I don't have the time to put it down.

I did get away on Sunday to Lochore Meadows with the missus and Layla which was fun. All sun, ice cream and relaxing......

 

 

 

Luckily I have my plan and I am using it to get things done. Right now I am looking for a dyslexic musician and poet for the exhibition. I don't really need them but it would be cool to have them performing bring a bit of light and shade.

I will be sending out the invitations for the even later this week or by Monday 29th at the latest.

This week I have to start processing the photos for the exhibition also. 70 a4 size prints ouch lol

Still slowly, slowly creepy monkey as they say....gawd knows why they say that, or where it comes from lol

anyway that's it from me for this blog folks, ta for taking the time to read my blog

Steve

Up all night again lol

Hi blog readers I hope you are all well..........

Its 5 am here and there is no way I am going to bed tonight lol

Still in the process of planning and organising the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Celebration of Creativity on 29th October 2014.

We have just received an e mail from the Provost of Fife Cllr Jim Leishman agreeing to open our event which is great news for us.

I am looking for some entertainment for the event, Preferable a dyslexic musician living in Fife and a poet as well. I have a contact to chase up about this.

Have to find some exhibition boards to hang the photos. I have a number of options to chase up next week.

Have just completed updating the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative web site. Here is the link so come along and visit our site. 

http://www.uniquedyslexic.com/ 

I am enjoying my business incubator experience with Acorn Enterprise. The facilitators are great and its always great to meet with other entrepreneurs as well.

On the down side I have to attend the incubator for two days a week for the next 18 weeks and my heart rehab one day a week. This is going to restrict how much work I can do over that time and affect my income.

So its going to be tough until after Christmas financially. I don't really have a choice with my rehab and I don't feel I have a choice but to go the incubator. I have to go for the business incubator if I want to develop my business and ideas further.

I also know that I have to take things a little slower because of my heart attack a couple months ago. Its a difficult balancing but that, as they say, is that.

Looks like its going to be a win for better together....totally gutted........but onwards and upwards for Scotland and for me personally.

Many thanks for reading my blog

the biggest day in Scottish history is here 18.09.14

#scotsvotes Well its been a long time coming. The vote for Scottish independence is here.

Remember the best way to predict the future is to create it.

So lets get out there today, vote yes, and create a better future for Scotland.

But remember if we win independence or stay with the union the people of Scotland must all work together for the good of Scotland and her people from the 19th September 2014 onwards.

If we win independence we will need to work together to make independence a success.

If we do not get independence we will have to work together to fight a Westminster government that makes policy which:

Creates more poverty instead of taking people out of poverty.

Wants to privatise the Scottish NHS.

Makes policy that benefits the rich few at the expense of the many. 

Has lead to a huge growth in food banks across Scotland and the UK.

Is making the lives of disabled people a misery.

Has seen the erosion of all our human rights.

Is eroding social justice for all.

Good luck Scotland we love you

more to dyslexia than reading, spelling and writing

Hi blog readers. Yet another early blog writing start for me today. On Saturday 13th September 2014 we ran the fifth of our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative workshops.

This one was delivered to us for free by Furniture Plus and Clarabella Christie and their generosity in offering us this enabled us to add this additional workshop to our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative programme.

Some of the aims of Unique Dyslexic Get Creative are to get dyslexics together and sharing stories and experiences of being dyslexic and of being parents of dyslexic kids. To provide them with a forum where mutual support can be offered. To raise awareness of the social model of dyslexia. But mainly it was to provide an opportunity where creative dyslexics could get together, be creative and have fun.

I think you can see from some of the photos here in my blog and in the Facebook album that everyone certainly had fun, all expressed their creative side and up cycled some very old drab boring chairs into brand spanking new looking ones.

Here is a link to the whole album of this workshop on our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Unique-Dyslexic-Get-Creative/1431413910440768

Many thanks for taking the time to read this blog. Please feel free to give us a like on our Facebook page. Only 17 more likes until we reach our target of 500.

Disabled Leader: An Oxymoron? I don't think so.....

My apologies for writing to rather long blogs in succession but I felt it needed to be written.

Reading through my Linked in profile today I saw this conversation going down simply called:  Disabled Leader: An Oxymoron?

I think it is an interesting conversation to be having, especially in these times here in the UK.

I do not agree its an oxymoron I just think there are still far to many barriers in the way to enable many potential disabled leaders to flourish. Until we move away from the old negative models of disability disabled people will continue to be viewed in negative stereotypical ways.

Interesting experiment ask non disabled people what the term disabled means. Or ask how many famous disabled people they know. Leadership ok how many disabled people are there in Westminster hmmmm. I bet it is not 20%, which is a rough estimate of the percentage of disabled people in our society, that much is certain.

Thanks to our beloved condem government disabled people are seen as scroungers or as benefit cheats. Thanks to an education system that fails to provide good support structures in schools and has low expectations of disabled people many disabled kids leave schools with lower qualifications than their able counterpart.

The message of inclusion states that it is society that disables. It disabled 100 years ago and it is going out of its way to continue disabling today.

Sorry not a very positive post. I am an inclusion and dyslexia specialist as well as a dyslexic and disabled person. and worked in further education for many years. I managed a dyslexia department in a college for 7 years.

I have witnessed the erosion and even the closure of specialist education for disabled people in colleges. I have witness the erosion of disabled people's human rights and dismantling of the inclusion agenda thanks to condem policies. 

I was also the victim of two years of bullying in one college I worked which I had to fight against. The only support I got when I was going through this was from two other disabled teachers experiencing the same thing. I took my case to court twice and both times the college waited until the day of my case to settle.

Only people who have experienced this can understand how stressful and difficult it is to go through this. During that two years I was barred from chatting to anyone about my case. I was made to feel like I was the bad guy. My union were totally hapless in fact the person who was supposed to be representing me was a friend of the person bullying me. I would never go back into teaching in a college anywhere.

That is why I founded Dyslexia Pathways CIC and embarked on Unique Dyslexic Get Creative. So that I could continue to teach and raise awareness on social models of disability and dyslexia. I finally got a leadership role but only because I made it for myself. Not because society enable me to become a leader.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog

Thats it I am now officially an acorn lol

Good day blog readers I trust you are all in fine fettle and getting ready for a restful week end.

We have been having some glorious weather here in Glenrothes Scotland. Spent yesterday afternoon playing with little Layla in the garden. Sticking stickers in a book, colouring in and playing silly made up games.

She is five years old and just started primary school a couple of weeks ago. She seems to be enjoying going to school certainly love learning her letters and numbers, playing with her friends etc.

Some of my regular readers may already know that we have managed to add another workshop to the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative. We are going to run another Trash to Treasure workshop in partnership with Furniture Plus this week end.

The workshop is full and I am looking forward to another successful workshop. This time I am not taking part in the workshop. So instead I am going to use my time to film the workshop, interview participants and do my usual raising awareness of dyslexia bit at the beginning.

I am toying with the idea of running another music workshop but this time with a guitarist and bassist or group of musicians to act as facilitators. Have just bought some new music writing / sampling software and was thinking about running it myself.

I have been slowly getting things together for the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Celebration of Creativity event on  29th October. Have been chatting with a prospective guest speaker and a musician as well as written to the Lord Provost to see if he will open the event and give out certificates.

This event is a real step in the dark for me. I have never organised an exhibition, I have no idea if anyone will actually want to come to the exhibition eeeep. 

Ahhh organisation and the nitty gritty details not my dyslexic strong points lol. Like so many dyslexics I see the big picture but struggle with the details.

Luckily I have a plan and I am going to try and stick to that. Famous last word there from me. If there is anyone in Fife who has any experience in this and would like to volunteer their time it would be much appreciated.

Bought some new photo editing software to start processing all the photographs for the event exhibition. I have between 50 to 70 photographs to process for the exhibition. Next week I have a meeting with the people at the Rothes Halls to plan the hall.

Some very good news here. I managed to get a place on a free 20 week business accelerator programme with Acorn Enterprises:

http://www.acorns.internetcreation.co/

It was quit competitive over 30 people applied and I was lucky enough to be offered one of the 15 places on this programme Acorn Enterprises provide an environment where there is no fear of failure

I am hoping I will be able to use this opportunity to develop my ideas and enable me to move Unique Dyslexic Get Creative on to the next level.

I know when I did my leadership course a couple of years ago with the social enterprise academy I found meeting with others on that course very stimulating. Learned a lot on that course. So I am really looking forward to working with others on this Acorn programme. I am also getting a mentor as part of this programme.

I am also going to a workshop at Creative Scotland about moving things on to the next level. I am going to be looking for much bigger pots of funding with them and the lottery and I feel this workshop will be helpful.

Some of you may know that I have been in the initial stages of developing a social media project with a coupe of universities here. Making an application for a Scottish Innovation Certificate etc.

What I am finding is the Universities move at glacial speed. I am not good at waiting around for things to happen. Hence becoming an acorn and looking at other routes.

A post grad student has approached me regarding this idea and I am meeting with him sometime next week. This also may provide a way forward.

Finally and not least I have sent the updates for the Unique Dyslexic Get Creative workshops off to the web developer. Its going to cost just over £300 but it will be money well spent. I am hoping to get this done in the next couple of weeks. So look forward to an announcement on this soon.

anyways that's it from me for this blog......be happy guys and ta for taking the time to read my blog.

not trying to get up anyones nose with this blog just giving food for thought

Hi blog reader out there. I hope you are all well. I was going to keep away from my computer today altogether. But then again I am here blogging away. Its like there is something inside of me that will not let me stop lol. Eeeep I can hear you all shout out now. PLEASE STOP STEVE AND GIVE US A REST FROM YOUR INANE DRIVEL! LOL.

Read an interesting blog yesterday called, "Dyslexia and Me" great stuff. Which started me thinking about dyslexia again, about a dyslexic community and about the way in which society and ourselves view dyslexia and being dyslexic. Now there is a surprise pmsl.

Its important that we ordinary dyslexics have a forum to discuss dyslexia and what being dyslexic means etc. We all have a lot to learn from each other. But the very nature of dyslexia means that many of us will hardly ever meet another dyslexic in the street let alone talk about being dyslexic with another dyslexic. Blogging also is giving us an embryo for a coherent dyslexic community which is something I believe we need. But not a community driven my specialists and experts in dyslexia but by the ordinary dyslexic in the street. 

We need a dyslexic community with a dyslexic voice to represent and fight for the things we need to change and thrive. Things such as access to a good accessible and inclusive education.  Our education systems still fails far to many dyslexic kids and this has to change.

This is one thing we dyslexics of today must seek to fight for and change for future generations of dyslexic kids.

I am going to say something here which may get up a lot of people's noses here. We need to move away from the more traditional models of disability / dyslexia that have, in my view, shackled us to a negative profile of dyslexia. These being the medical model off disability / dyslexia and the charity model.

Lets look at the charity / tragedy model of disability  The Tragedy/Charity Model depicts disabled people as victims of circumstance, deserving of pity.

The Tragedy/Charity Model is condemned by its critics as dis-enabling, and the cause of much discrimination. The biggest issue that  disabled have, is that the non-disabled community, are only comfortable when dyslexic / disabled people are viewed as icons of pity." Because disabled people are seen as tragic victims, it follows that they need care, are not capable of looking after themselves or managing their own affairs, and need charity in order to survive.

Now please do not misunderstand me here I am not criticising and charity here nor anyone who works for a charity etc. Just the perceptions in gives to people out there in all communities. 

Then there is the medical model of dyslexia / disability which basically looks at us a broken in some way. That we need to be cured of our disability / dyslexia.

This focuses on impairment – that there is something “wrong” with the disabled ' dyslexic individual. There is a focus on ways in which disabled and dyslexic people deviate from the norm, and tries to narrow that gap.

An assumption is made that there is the normal that this normal is automatically desirable and to be aspired to. This then automatically leads to a perception that disabled / dyslexic people are abnormal, that we deviate from the normal. The “problem” lies with the individual and what they can or can’t do.

I think you can see both these models do not paint a very positive profile of disability or dyslexia or any other neuro difference for that matter. I, for one, do not see myself fitting in with either of these models.

Now lets move on to the social model of disability / dyslexia. This model says that it is society that disables dyslexic and disabled people. Now for we as dyslexics society disables many of us from day one in school. Where we are taught in ways that do not enable we dyslexics to learn as effectively, using learning materials that are not dyslexia friendly  or accessible by teachers who, in the main are not trained to teach us in an inclusive learning environment.

In essence we go to school that has been designed by non dyslexics, that is delivered, in the main, by non dyslexics for non dyslexic kids. This is why school still fails so many dyslexic kids.

This in itself is a crazy situation especially when you consider that over 50% of young people in our prisons are dyslexic or struggle with poor literacy. Its even more crazy when you consider that around 35% on all entrepreneurs are dyslexic and most of those entrepreneurs have become successful in spite of their education not because of it.

So what do many dyslexic kids leave school with? Low self esteem, self confidence, depression and low or low qualifications etc. What a waste of their potential not only to themselves but to society as a whole sigh.

I hate being negative but sometimes it cannot be avoided.

This is a blog about all our people out there, not just dyslexics. All we do at working class school is prepare our kids for employment or failure.

 

Employment for the vast majority of working class kids is in low paid low skilled go nowhere jobs. Moreover, there are just no jobs available for many young people to apply. Hence the large numbers of unemployed kids out there. According to statistics 767,000 young people aged 16-24 were unemployed in April / June 2014. That's over a quarter of a million young people with no work, they have no income no access to benefits nothing. 

 

The other option is failure because we bury them along with their hopes and dreams under a barrage of tests and exams that teach many of them that school is boring, that education is not exciting or worth while or that they are failures because they do not all get AA results.

 

Look at any support services for young people all being cut in the name of austerity. Precious little of those out there for them to access.

 

Employment is seen as the be all and end all by our uk parliament. If you have no job or there are no jobs then you have no worth and you are nothing.....Not even a human being anymore just a statistic to bandy about glibly. Just an easy target for Westminster to blame, deride or bully. 

 

Young people need to be nurtured, invested in, encouraged and supported because they are our future. Instead we see them demonised, victimised and demoralised.

 

In my reasonable long life I have several generations of young people's lives blighted but by the political leaders of the day. But this time is different because we have austerity that appears to have no end in sight. All we have are cuts and more cuts that will only serve to erode young people's opportunities, hopes and dreams.

 

Who is to blame for this? You tell me.........