Previous Meetings in 2009
November: Participating Parents
People rarely come to Chatterbox and sit quietly in the corner: that’s not what it’s about. We bring people together to engage them in issues they care about, to learn something about subjects that may never have touched them before, and at November’s meeting the key word was participation.
The speaker, Annie Moore, is a Parent Participation Officer for Devon County Council and her job is to work with parents and carers to have their say in the services provided for families. She has to make sure the council is doing what we want as opposed to what they think we want, and as this involves finding the best ways of communicating with us we were put to work identifying what these are. Not surprisingly, use of new technology was a key point but it may surprise the council that we don’t want them to get carried away emailing and twittering because time is a valuable commodity, and while Annie had lots of leaflets to give away, and there seem to be websites galore aimed at getting families to participate, finding the time to look at them is never easy. But we promised we'd do our best to make it!
You can find out more information by emailing the council or by visiting these websites:
October: Burma's Karen. An almost forgotten people.
Not everybody is aware of the close links between Uffculme churches and Asian Tribal Ministries, so Carole Pitman and Rachel Dunn were invited to speak about the work of the Karen Action Group at October’s Chatterbox. The first-hand accounts they gave of the plight of refugees, the photographs they had to share, and their knowledge of the tensions between, and among, Burma’s two largest ethnic groups made a very strong impression upon the audience. It was also sobering to learn how the British reneged on promises they gave the Karen when they helped fight Japanese forces in WWII, and the colourful costumes Carole brought along were such a contrast with the double-dealing, persecution and poverty she spoke about. But she helped spread the word about these almost forgotten people and we were most grateful to her for agreeing to speak.
Click here to see the presentation.
September: Living with kids: a crash course in how to cope.
On its return after the summer break, Chatterbox was delighted to confirm that Culm Valley, a Sure Start Children's Centre, has agreed to lend us its support and we welcomed Debbie, our new creche leader. We were pleased to welcome as a our speaker another Debbie, who is also a member of the CVCC team; she is a play leader, former health visitor and mum of three, so speaks with some authority on how to cope with young children.
Her talk was an overview of the five-week parenting course she will be running at the centre from September 25, and she was keen to emphasise the importance of praising children every day for the things they have done well, no matter how small. Though they accepted the need to be positive, mums were rather concerned about how they would manage to stop themselves from saying 'Dont..' and re-phrase their instructions, given that children tend to act on the last words they hear and are deaf to the "don't" bit.
Debbie also gave out some very useful leaflets which you can download for free from Understanding Childhood.
As well as the 'Living with kids' course, the CVCC will be running a more in-depth parenting course called the Incredible Years, starting in January. For more information call 01884 35993.
July: The view from the other end: a midwife speaks.
Chatterbox exists to bring carers of children together and to build a sense of community. Some months we talk about sensitive issues that often get swept under the carpet, at other times we aim to promote understanding of subjects and experiences most people know little about, and then some meetings are devoted to topics everyone present can relate to: as happened in July. Our speaker, Pam Philips, told us why she had moved from Australia to re-train as a midwife, and how after working in a hospital she prefers the closer relationships she can develop with mums working in our community. Home births, ante- and post natal care, baby loss were all raised at a lively meeting, and we were most grateful to Pam for giving us her time when she and the other members of our local team are so busy.
Sadly, we also said goodbye to Sue Croucher, without whom Chatterbox could never have happened. She has been a wonderful creche leader, and we wish her all the best in her new job.
June: Coping with change
As this extraordinary credit crunch bites and unemployment rises, the focus of June’s Chatterbox was how to cope with loss. The speaker, Anne McClements, a former social worker, has years of experience helping people who have lost jobs, homes, partners, everything, and her husband’s suicide was an immense test of her character and faith in God. But, she argued energetically, whether it is an obvious loss, such as bereavement; a not so obvious one, such as redundancy; or a loss that is age-related, people still go through stages of grief. The intensity and lengths differ, but it is nevertheless a process that eventually comes to a point of acceptance. However, it is not a straight line with a fixed time limit but more like a spiral, and we may revisit a phase, or experience a feeling, years later.
May: Infant resuscitation
So far this year, Chatterbox meetings have covered single parenthood, climate change, IVF and defining love, and while we aim to offer subjects that are eye-opening and thought-provoking, we want to cover practical subjects too. However, we pray that none of the mums at May’s meeting will ever have to apply the resuscitation skills they learnt from Karen, a children’s nurse, who had us practising the steps we would need to take if ever we found an infant unconscious. Whilst inflating a plastic doll felt a little awkward at first, accidents can happen to anyone and inquisitive young children are especially vulnerable, so it was a valuable opportunity for hands-on learning and to talk to Karen about the scrapes children have a habit of getting themselves into.
If you would like to read up on resuscitating a young child, you will find it fully explained here on Families First for Health, a web site provided Great Ormond Street Hospital.
April: IVF
The choice of IVF as the subject for April’s meeting was timely as national data just released had shown that more couples than ever had undergone fertility treatment. But as the audience discovered, whilst the media relishes the subject it does not convey just how demanding it is; how much most people go through before they resort to treatment; how often male problems are the reasons for seeking help; and how low average success rates really are. Louise Brown was thirty last year, yet scientists have still to solve the greatest secret of human reproduction: how the embryo implants in the womb.
Some mums attended because they knew people struggling to conceive, and everyone was surprised to learn that it takes much more than test tubes to make some, very precious, babies. (Actually, glass tubes are not used at all. Only plastic dishes are sufficiently sterile.)
The presentation can be found here
March: Climate Change
After consecutive soggy summers and the coldest winter in decades, some people might have great difficulty accepting that the world is warming up. But Chatterbox mums left their March meeting in no doubt that the climate is changing rapidly, and that it is most likely due to human activities, for we had been privileged to hear from an expert. Rob Varley, of the Met Office, is an experienced meteorologist and government adviser, and his fact-filled presentation was breathtaking.
Average summer temperatures in Devon will soon increase by 2.1° c and, as Rob stressed, 20,000 years ago, when temperatures were only 9° c colder than they are now, Uffculme was on the edge of an ice sheet. Climate change is not new; it is the speed of change that is unprecedented.
Click here to see his presentation.
February: Love is?
The shops were brimming with roses and chocolates, posties were busy sorting and delivering flowery cards, but when asked by the Rev Anna Norman-Walker to define love, mums at February’s Chatterbox meeting agreed that selflessness, rather than roses, is a much better measure of a person’s true feelings. If he was looking down on Square Corner, St Valentine, who was martyred for marrying Christian couples in ancient Rome, must have smiled.
He would also have enjoyed Anna’s entertaining talk as much as her audience. She quoted CS Lewis, Freud and scripture, but if she can remember more jokes like this one we’ll ask her back: “Men love women because they are the most beautiful things in the world. Women love men because chocolate can’t mow the lawn.”
January: Single parenthood
The first meeting of the year was also the last attended by Chatterbox's founder, Beth Collier. We are deeply indebted to her, not only for making our monthly meeting of mums from tots to teens a firm fixture in the calendar of village life, but also for bequeathing a great line-up of speakers for the first half of the year.
In January, the topic was 'Being Mum and Dad: Life as a single parent.' But, as so often happens at Chatterbox, Demi Schneider had much more to talk about than being a fortysomething mum left to bring up an unexpected baby. Her engrossing story, of husbands burning down her house, beating her up, running off with her money and departing the day their child was due, could have come straight out of a trashy magazine. But Demi is now thriving and working as a life coach to help other people confront the challenges in their lives.
She can be contacted on 01884 38269.