Yay, we now have a semi-formal name. We’ve had an offer from the Stroke Association, who’ll print some flyers for us, which we discussed when we met yesterday. Of course, the main title of the poster, right at the very top in big letters, is our name, so we had to decide what we wanted the group to be known as. I mean, it’s only a label, there’s not going to be anything set down in law or anything, but it’s a first step.

Aside from this, the idea of a flyer was well-received. I think that we realised, as there were only four of us present, that we could do with some new blood. We started off with a Stroke Association template, we tweaked it a little, and that was that. I mean, even if we’d have thought the template we started with was perfect, it would still need tweaking to reflect our unique name and address etc. – things which are over-and-above any whims we may have had.

But this should allow us to post a permanent advert of ourselves at, say, the stroke ward. My wife also said there are plenty of flyers for all sorts of support groups on the wall at her surgery, so that sounds like more publicity. Legwork, but publicity.

The group started off, long before my involvement, as a wroking-age arrangement. With the current attendees, though, I can’t really see a specific age group, although many of us are youngsters. So working age maybe, but at the same time you’re only as old as you feel!

I think the restriction actually comes in the form of “level of recovery”, and for some very practical reasons. Yesterday, four of us turned up, all of us were survivors, so it’s undoubtedly a “peer” environment. Therefore when I see e.g. Harlow offering Speech & Language stuff……well, we simply don’t have the facilities or the expertise to offer anything like that. So there are certain things that are just beyond us, plain and simple. What we can (and do) offer is a bunch of people who have all seen the world from a similar perspective, people who have probably been there and done it (between us, we have a whole lifetime of living with stroke). Not always, of course, which is why it’s a two-way street and very much a peer-to-peer approach. The upshot, of course, is that someone who does require, say, speech and language therapy might find their time wasted by coming and chatting with us. Unless, of course, they want to chat as well.

So maybe the next logical steps are to think about things like a web site and a social media group? to get ourselves some kind of online presence? After all, people like me work better at the end of a telephone line these days! But let’s maybe get the leaflets printed up first…