Dear All,
Many THANK YOUs to everyone who organised, attended, contributed to and supported the NADSN Conference 2024 at the University of Greenwich on Friday! It was so wonderful to see you all in-person and online! Thank you for making the day such an enjoyable and memorable success! 🙏🎉😍
Huge gratitude to Dr Melanie Thorley and her STAART Tribe, Ambassadors and Graduates, especially Fiona Davidson, for all the time, energy and enthusiasm they put into hosting the Conference and providing everything we needed – including Positive Pants! The “hugs”, “handshakes” and “don’t touch” badges were a genius idea! 🤩
Huge appreciation also to Alan Dudley, Megan Rudden and their Disabled Staff Community for sharing their journey with us and making us all feel so welcome!
It meant a great deal to have Banji Adewumi MBE (Director of EDI) and Prof Jane Harrington (CEO & Vice Chancellor) join us in-person and hear them both speak so powerfully, with genuine meaning and joy. Banji stayed with us for the whole day while Jane took time out of her super-busy schedule to be with us briefly. Now we can understand why our friends at the University of Greenwich boast about having Jane and Banji on their side!
Of course, it wouldn’t have been much of a Conference without our amazing presenters: Dr Melanie Thorley, Alan Dudley, Dr Melanie Best, Dr Stuart Gore, Dr Meredith Wilkinson, Andrew Crosbie, Prof Yota Dimitriadi, Dr Jennifer Leigh, Prof Dan Goodley, Prof Gayle Brewer, Prof Nancy Hansen and Dr France Rose Hartline. Wow! NADSN is so proud to call you our own! Thank you for all of the time and energy you gave in preparing and delivering such engaging and stimulating talks. We couldn’t have asked for livelier participation from the audience too!
It was of course NADSN’s 10th Anniversary Conference and Celebration and it was really special to be hosted at the University where the Social Model of Disability was first conceived, followed more recently by the SPoD! The ever-admired Jacquie Nicholson and Stuart Moore offered an eloquent summary of NADSN’s story so far, what we’ve achieved together and how we want to build on this going forwards as a community. Stuart thanked everyone involved, and bought a gorgeously-decorated egg-free birthday cake which had already been shared out over lunch (please find a picture attached, courtesy of Avril Coelho)!
There was a real sense of camaraderie, energy and passion in the room and online. The diverse catering was delicious, and there wasn’t a boring sandwich to be seen! And to top everything off, as it got dark, the Greenwich campus was lit up #PositivelyPurple to celebrate us and the International Day of Disabled People!
A big shout out to Rachel Heyes for reinvigorating NADSN’s socials in time for the Conference! People have been posting their pictures from the Conference on LinkedIn etc which has been lovely to see. Please send your photos to Melanie Thorley (m.thorley@greenwich.ac.uk) if you’d like them to be included in the article and gallery she is creating.
The travel disruptions and technical issues that hampered the start of our day did not phase us at all. That’s the NADSN spirit! 💪
The Conference wasn’t recorded, unfortunately, but plenty of “official” photos were taken. The photos, along with the presentations and other resources, will be uploaded to the NADSN Conference webpage very soon. In the meantime, …
- If you’re not already a NADSN member, please join us via the NADSN website.
- Follow us on our social media channels via NADSN Linktree.
- Let us know if you’d like to join any of the NADSN Sub-Groups.
- Please share this link to the National Disabled Staff Survey with your Disabled colleagues and Networks:
- Please share this link to the “Marginalisation in Science: Disability and Inclusion” documentary with your Networks and anyone who may be interested:
- “Put on your Positive Pants” for the latest STAART ART Prize Competition:
We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did! 🙌🙌👏👏🤗🤗🥳🥳🤩🤩💜💜
Many thanks to you all for your support and being involved.
Best wishes,
Hamied, Jacquie & Stuart
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