Jessica Cook welcomes everyone to the book launch of "NF2: Our Journeys". She outlines the day's events which include watching a video of the book's creation, the official book launch at 12pm, book signing until 1pm, music activities during the lunch break, speakers in the afternoon, and group photos before concluding. The event aims to celebrate the achievement of the book and bring together the NF2 community both in the UK and internationally to support one another.

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Saturday, 13th July 2013
Can You Hear Us? NF2: Our Journeys - Book Launch
Jessica Cook – Welcome speech
DARREN OSBORNE: Good morning everyone. Attention please, if you could find a seat, we
will be starting in about two minutes. Thank you. Is that loud enough for people who didn't
hear? Can you hear me at the back?
How is that?
NEW SPEAKER: Better, thank you.
JESSICA COOK: Right. Hello everyone. Erm, I am Jessica and welcome to the official book
launch of NF2: Our journeys. Hopefully the hard of hearing are sat at the front so you can see
Mirella typing on the screen, if you are not, you know, after the break come to the front.
So, it feels amazing to have you all here for this celebration and
achievement. I have been in touch with a lot of you for most a year now but not yet had the
opportunity to meet you so this is really special for me.
We are not all here today, of course, because half of the authors from the
book are international, but we will be thinking of them today and also of the ones that have
sadly passed but who feel here today as much as we are ourselves thanks to their family
members who wrote tributes for the book.
So, I am going to run you through the day's proceedings, and explain
about some of the activities and various things we have to explore.
Firstly, to point out to everyone with NF2, in the bag you were given at
registration you will find our Can You Hear Us? postcard. We put these in with the idea that we
write down a goal or something you want to achieve in the next three months, and then on the
Can You Hear Us? table at the back there is a post book so no one will see what you have written
and in three months’ time I am going post those back to you. It's all just about trying to think
positively and keep setting yourselves goals to move forward, so that's the idea behind that and
you should have them in your bag but if you don't there is more post cards on the table.
So, hopefully you were all given a bag when you registered. If you didn't
there is more out there and that is full of all different leaflets from various charities and also in
there is the schedule for the day. So I am going to run you through that quickly -- sorry, this is a

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bit dry this speech.
So after I finish talking here we are going to watch a video which me and
Darren have put together about the making of the book when we visited the publishers whilst
they were being printed and that's quite exciting, that is after I have finished talking in a
moment. At half past 11 we will take a quick break and then at 12 o'clock we will have the
official book launch. You can then buy your books from this table here. My grandparents are
selling them for £5 today. After today they are £8.99 from the Can You Hear Us website and that
includes postage and packaging so it's fair for everyone wherever they live in the world.
So then we will have the book signing from 12:15 pm until 1pm. We are
going to have a nice long lunch break, so lots of time to socialise and relax; really informal day,
get to know each other. Please make sure you visit all the tables at the back from the different
charities, lots of leaflets and information, helpful not just for people with NF2 but also their
families.
We have got the Neuro Foundation, Hearing Link, iDID Adventure, Bee
Communications and of course Can You Hear Us and there is some other leaflets from some
other charities you can take away - we have got Action on Hearing Loss and the Willow
foundation, lots of stuff so please take a look. We have children's area, I think we put outside
now, with lots of toys; so please feel free to mingle outside, it is a lovely day.
Also, in the committee room at the back here we have a collaborative
piece and there is a cork board and stack of Post-It notes and what we would like you to do, if
you want, is to write how you feel about today, or about the book or about NF2 in general, just
be creative wherever you want, and we are going to cover that board in Post-It Notes, just
something we can do together. You can put your name on those notes if you want. I will keep
them all afterwards so if you want me to know, put your name but you don't have to.
The next thing is it's an honour to have my friend David Jackson here
with us today to man the music area, which is in this room. During the lunch break I am going to
be in there and hopefully a lot of my deaf friends will come with me and get involved with
music. For those of you who know me you will probably know that music was a very big part of
my life before losing my hearing, playing several instruments in bands and things like that. So it
was quite a shock for me to lose music in that way. I studied at college and university to gain a
degree in music and after I lost my hearing it felt meaningless. But then David came into my life,
and he showed me that anyone can enjoy music, no matter what their ability or disability. So

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please come and have a go, we have got lots of percussion instruments for you to try out. That
will be from 1.30 so David can have some lunch first, from 1.30 to 2.30 that will be open.
After the lunch break you will be hearing from some of the Can You Hear
Us team about our future developments and direction. We have Fred Suter here today, as both
an author of the book and as a speaker, and he is going to tell us a bit about his experiences in
the German self-help group. Fred is originally from Germany but studies in the UK. We'll then
hear from Darren Osborne about and he will talk a little bit about the developments that we are
making in the on-line network base from the Can You Hear Us website, which Darren himself
built and maintains.
The final hour of the day we will be having some official group
photographs and more time to chat together and say our good-byes. But let’s not think about
that right now! This is going to be a very memorable event and I think mark a day of real
positive change in the UK NF2 community, so please do stick around for those photographs
because they are going to be very precious for us all. Okay.
The last thing is my air hostess routine - just to point out where things
are. So the toilets are near the reception area where you came in and the disabled toilet just
down that corridor as well. The fire exits are obvious - the doors; and we have full access to the
outdoor patio area, so please make the most of that. And feel free to mingle out there. Smoking
is prohibited, outside only, and we also have couple of tables out there so you can set drinks on
them and things. Our wonderful volunteers are here to help today and share some of the
workload with me; if the volunteers could give us a wave? Yes, most are at the back.
They have official name badges on so you can tell who they are. My
grandparents Elaine and Eric, they were on the registration table so you've probably met them
already. They will also be in charge of the book sales from here after 12 o'clock. So they are the
ones to go to if you want a book, okay, not me! My parents Wendy, Stephen, my great aunt
Jackie and my friend Laura are on the food committee, so they will be serving you drinks and
things and the lunch will be on this table after we have done the book signing. My cousin Laura,
at the back, she's event director so if you got any questions at all throughout the day she's the
one to go to; long blonde hair kind of look like my sister.
So that's it now from me. Before the break we are going to watch ‘The
Making of NF2: Our journeys’, the video me and Darren produced. Yes, it is all subtitled as well

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okay because I need to hear it as well. So hopefully you will follow okay, I am not sure what the
volume is going to be like. No volume, okay, silent. We can't run it through the PA. So hearing
people you will get to know what it's like for us deaf people, okay; actually I quite like that!
{Applause}.
(Video played).
{Applause}.
Right. I expect we are all feeling pretty excited now and crying, yeah?
Me too! So we are going to take a little break now, and then when we come back it is the
moment, okay, so just going to have a quick change around so grab yourself a drink and when
you come back all the authors of the book need to be on the front row, so you can't sit with your
families unfortunately and you are in an order, so you will have name badges on your chairs,
okay. And then everyone else as you please, okay.
NEW SPEAKER: Before she stops, I think you all agree with me that...
NEW SPEAKER: Yes we do.
{Applause}.
NEW SPEAKER: We are all very proud of her and hope that it's going to be, you know, and it is
not going to stop here, these are from all of us with love (Bunch of flowers handed to Jessica).
{Applause}.
{Concluded}