Conference and AGM, 2006 Deafened People - Brave New World? Benefits from future technology and research NADP CONFERENCE Saturday 17 June 2006 County Hall, NOTTINGHAM NADP Conference and AGM 2006: a report from Robin Hood’s City, by Norah Clewes The AGM and Conference were held at County Hall in Nottingham on 17 June 2006. The venue was a grand building with lovely views of the River Trent and gardens alongside it. The conference room was full with nearly seventy members and guests who were greeted by Councillor Mrs Nellie Smedley on behalf of the County Council and then by the Deputy Lord Mayor, Councillor Mohammed Munir, on behalf of Nottingham City. They spoke about the work their Councils are doing in Nottinghamshire and Nottingham on behalf of deaf people. Following this, Brian Archbold from the Ear Foundation, which is based in the city, welcomed us to Nottingham and told us briefly about the Foundation, which was the first centre to offer cochlear implants to children in the UK. We then started the Conference, the theme of which this year was “Deafened People – Brave New World? Benefits from future technology and research”. The first speaker was Dr Paula Clements of Deafness Research UK (which used to be called Defeating Deafness) on the medical search for a cure for deafness. It is known that birds and reptiles can regenerate cochlear hair cells and restore damaged hearing and Deafness Research UK is looking for the key to how this can be done by humans. Other work they are involved in is identifying the gene for deafness and work on cochlear implants. Deafness Research UK is the only centre in UK doing work on a cure for deafness and is entirely dependent on charitable donations. We will be printing edited versions of this and the other three presentations in the Association’s Newsletter Network over the coming issues and they will be made available on this website.. Following this presentation we had the AGM, which was smoothly conducted by the Chairman, Heather Jackson. Heather thanked Gill Hadfield who had to retire due to ill health earlier in the year – Gill had been Hon. Secretary for five years and has done a tremendous amount of work for NADP. Unfortunately no one has come forward to replace Gill so Heather said the new Executive Committee will need to think carefully at the next EC meeting on 14 July about the way forward for NADP. She also thanked Gavin Macpherson who also retired due to ill health. She said we were happy to welcome Barbara Kersley who had been elected as a new EC member. It was announced that the Gifford Hardy Trophy for the best article in Network had been awarded to Michael Jack for his article “A deaf church organist”. Unfortunately, Michael was unable to travel to Nottingham, so the Trophy will be given to him at a lunch in Canterbury later in the year. We then had a break for a delicious buffet lunch and time to chat with old friends some of whom we only see once a year, plus the satisfaction of putting a face to the name of those we know from email and Network. After the break the first talk was by Professor Roger Moore of Sheffield University about the latest developments in voice recognition technology. This has made great advances in the last few years and he expects it to continue with great possibilities of uses for deaf people in the future, maybe even a hand held device that will translate speech to text instantly for us. The next presentation was by David Padmore from Red Bee Media, who are contracted to provide subtitles for BBC, Channel 4 and a number of other TV channels. They have two hundred people working for them to provide subtitles and in the case of BBC News 24 they are working round the clock. Workers in Australia may soon be employed to provide the live subtitles at night here. The final talk was given by Chris Durst from the cochlear implant manufacturers, Med-El. He spoke about the latest method of inserting an implant which would preserve low frequency hearing which could still be amplified by hearing aids but would provide electrical stimulation for high frequency hearing which has been lost. Clinical trials of this implant have been successful and in few cases where the low frequency hearing was lost patients said they could still hear better with the implant than before. A question was asked if drilling a hole in the skull for the implant could be avoided, but that is not possible yet. Both questioner and speaker agreed that those who have implants are brave to undergo the surgery! (I have to say, as one of those who has had an implant, that it was worth every bit of the courage required!) This was one of the best conferences I have been to. The speakers all gave excellent, clear presentations. They are all professionals who gave their time and expertise for our benefit and I know this was greatly appreciated. The EC team of Roland Hilton, Geoff Brown, Paul Tomlinson and the Officers (Heather Jackson, Ross Trotter and John Davies) worked extremely hard to get everything in place and make sure the Conference ran so well. The Officers also had the work of producing the Annual Report and Accounts and all the procedure for the AGM. Knowing all this I decided to stay on EC for another year to give my support to a group of people who do so much work for deafened people. Twenty-five members stayed on for the evening meal at the Theatre Royal Restaurant where everyone enjoyed the excellent food and friendly service of the Theatre staff, along with lots of chat and friendship and useful exchange of experiences on a pleasant warm evening. I am already looking forward to next year’s Conference! Back