Chennai 24.02.2013 meeting report

Dear Friends,

For the first time Chennai SHG meeting was held outside the usual venue of YWCA guest house. The meeting on 24.02.2013 was held at Hotel Blue Lagoon Resort. Initially 15 members have agreed for the meeting. But due to various reasons, 6 members were dropped out and only 9 members were attended. This is a big resort situated close to the sea shore with large area and covered trees with lush green.   Each paid Rs.500 as entry fee which included buffet lunch.The following members were attended the meeting.

Sivasubramanian, Bijoy Pokkan, Karthikeyan, Prabu Francin, Shanmugam, Gnanasekaran, Shgin, Karunyamurthy and Manimaran (myself).

We all satin chairs under a tree shadow . One new PWS was attended this meeting. We started with introduction like telling their name, about themselves, about their speech therapy experiences and difficulties facing in work places. Each one spoken about 10 to 15 min. To everyone surprise, Karthikeyan who just attended the speech therapy at Coimbatore spoken about 15 min without blocking even single word. A good round of applause was spontaneously came from other members, because he is one of the severe stammerers in Chennai SHG. If he continue to practice like this, he will control most of his stammering in a 6 months time.All the best to him.

Then I asked everyone to tell their name, living place and phone no without stammering (I deliberately put this extra pressure). I started my self and all the 9 members told fairly well except 2 members who stammered a bit. Then I emphasised to them about the importance of pausing. Again I asked everyone to tell slowly 1st their name - take deep breath - their living place - take deep breath - 1st 5 digits of their mobile no - take deep breath - and 2nd 5 digits of their mobile no. In this sequence everyone spoken well. So I advised them to  keep it in mind that pausing is VERY VERY important to control our stammering. Even I can go to the extend of saying that that pausing is much more important than any speech therapy. No speech therapy will yield good result unless we also practice pausing along with it.

After that, we had stomach full of buffet lunch (both veg & non-veg).

I asked the members to form 4 pairs and each pair has to converse each other for about 4 min and noted each others mobile nos. Likewise, different pairs were formed and converse with each others. As I know everyone in person, I played the role of a time keeper. I learned this activity from Ms.Elan during Bhubaneswar NC.

A open session was given to every one so that those who are interested, can speak on any topic.

1.First I spoke about what is stammering, how to  face bullying and teasing from others and how to handle time pressure.To know how to cope up with time pressure, bullying and teasing check the following link.

http://cahn.mnsu.edu/16profin/Default.htm

2. Sivasubramanian Spoke about how to divide the various tasks to be carried out into simple ones and how to achieve it. He also spoken about how to live in the present moment and how to live a simple life.

3. Bijoy spoke about Nero Linguistic Program (NLP), how to erase the past memories from  our inner mind and inject new thoughts into it.

4. Prabu Francin spoke about the VISA he has taken for his family for possible chance of going to Australia.

5. Gnanasekaran has spoken about the problems he is facing in his office and asked for a solution. Sivasubramanian has given some tips to him.

Gnanasekaran has firmly believing that stammering is curable. For this I told it can be but you have to work hard. I know more than 100 PWS after becoming coordinator of Chennai SHG. I know only 5 PWS has overcome their stammering.Those 5 PWS are Dr.Sachin, Mr.Sivasubramanian, Mr.Balasubramaniam, Dr.B.K.Singh (M.P) and an I.A.S officer. So only 5% are able to overcome their stammering. But I believe that any therapy or any technique which successfully cures 50 to 60% may be termed as generally curable and not only 5%. But I informed that it can be controlled upto 99%.

The time has reached 5 pm and everyone  wanted to go nearby beach for relaxation. We relaxed there for about one hour and dispersed from the Resort by 6 pm.

This is defiantly a different experience for everybody as we are at the resort for about 7 hours. Everyone got enough time to know about each others. Everyone noted down others mobile numbers so that they can talk to each other whenever they find time. 

That's all from Chennai chapter.