ALDA Meetings

People sometimes ask me which are good meetings for a new person to attend, and I always give the same reply - the next one! We realize that it's often hard to attend your first meeting, but we promise you'll be happy you did. And if you put it off, when you finally do attend you'll be kicking your self for all the great meetings you could have attended, but didn't.

As you can see in the following schedule we do a variety of things throughout the year. But we always make sure to allow time to socialize; we believe that getting to know others with hearing loss is the single best thing a person with hearing loss can do for herself!

July 16, 2005

You may know that several HLN personnel have recently been trained on conducting lipreading (also called speechreading) classes, so we decided to experiment on the folks at the ALDA meeting!

We introduced the p, b, and m sounds with two speechreading videos and a computer-based program. We had a variety of exercises using those tools and also working in pairs and small groups. We must have learned something at our recent training, because everyone loved the class! In fact we decided that a 20 or 30 minute speechreading lesson would become a regular part of our monthly meeting!

August 20, 2005

At our August meeting we had presentations on some of the local and national hearing loss organizations. Representatives from the Escondido chapter of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH) and Cochlear Implant Association International (CIAI) talked about their organizations. We also heard a few words about the host organizations Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA) and Hearing Loss Network (HLN).

Because of the intense interest in the presentations, we didn't have time to conduct our speechreading practice, We did have some time to chat and get to know each other a little better - which was a great thing, because we had about half a dozen new people in attendance - not counting the presenters!

Our newcomers reported that they felt welcome and will be attending our meetings regularly. So if you've been putting off your first visit with us, please do attend a meeting soon. You'll be so glad you did!

September 17, 2005

We hosted our Wild West BBQ at the September meeting. This was a catered meal with BBQ Beef, Chicken, and Ribs, and all the trimmings! We also had several trays of wonderful chocolate desserts, which are my personal favorites. We also played Bingo and had some time for people to chat with their friends!

October 15, 2005

Curtis Humphries from Cochlear America gave a wonderful presentation on cochlear implants (CIs) in general and the Cochlear Freedom implant in particular. Audience interest was very high, with lots of questions and comments!

November 19, 2005

Our Thanksgiving Potluck was great, as it always is! We did a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. No one walked away hungry, and folks were eager to take leftovers home for another meal or two. And despite all his boasting, Larry was NOT able to eat all the desserts!

December 17, 2005

In December we had our Holiday Celebration and White Elephant gift exchange. If you've never participated in a White Elephant gift exchange you've been missing an exciting new experience! We topped it all off with caroling! I'm serious! We really did! Those who have attended our holiday celebrations in the past knew to turn off their hearing aids , bring earplugs, or do whatever else they could do to protect themselves from the truly horrible sounds we produced ;-)