Welsh Focus Conference

Damien Chick, co-founder, OPENING ADDRESS, April 4, 2012

So we’ll start the morning’s proceedings with my colleague Damien Chick here and Damien is going to give you an intro into what we are and what we do. Thank you Damien.

DAMIEN CHICK: Thank you Henry. Thanks for coming hope everyone had a safe journey down. The weather isn’t so good. We did try and book a sunny time with the weather office but there we go we’re in Wales. We have to deal with the rain.

Welsh Focus has been set up about 7 months. And it came out of a discussion that me and Henry had relating to disability and other marginalised groups not having a platform for their views, things that matter to them, and we felt there needed to be a web-site and like me and Henry it doesn’t just stop at a web-site. So hopefully through today we have gathered together some brilliant speakers which all the names are in your delegate pack and on the speech that I thought I was going to do but due to my dyslexia I’ve slightly gone off that speech, so hope you enjoy the speakers and hope you find them thought provoking. Sometimes challenging I hope. But also leaving you with a key message that disabled people are the important population that needs to be listened to when we start developing services and that is what Welsh Focus wants to do so I hope you have a really fabulous day and hope you enjoy the speakers.