Buzzing with ideas - with links

Hi there, it has been a busy few weeks for the OMH project. Let me tell you about a few highlights. A member of the Edinburgh Users Forum brought in a newspaper article about a Survivors History Group in London. I made contact with them and am delighted to be in touch with this group. This is a group of volunteers including Andrew Roberts and Peter Campbell. Andrew has created a Survivors Timeline, detailing significant events in User Movement history. I am hoping to be able to give Andrew some of the big dates in the history of the Scottish Movement. I am looking forward to doing some joint work with this group.

We also had a meeting of the Mad People's History Group, chaired by Steve Tilley, at the University of Edinburgh. There was a phone conference with David Reville and Kathryn Church from the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University in Toronto which was excellent.

Another event we attended was the launch of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival in Glasgow on 10 September. This was great day, where they launched the programme. The festival has more than doubled in size since it started last year. They have 140 events happening, films, plays, literary events and art exhibitions. We also had a chance to meet with key stakeholders, such as Breathing Space, Mental Health Foundation Scotland and Scottish Recovery Network and find out more about their work. We thought that the festival is a fantastic platform and we hope to see Oor Mad History's name in the programme next year!

Archiving is going well. I am meeting with an Archivist at the National Archives of Scotland tomorrow to discuss methods.

I have been out to the Patients' Council to look through thier archival material. Thankyou to Maggie for arranging that. Two members of the Patients' Council are joining the OMH steering group which is great.

I also met with Ruth Rooney from the Edinburgh Carers Council, who worked with both EAMH (Edinburgh Association for Mental Health, now Health in Mind) and the REH Patients' Council. Thanks to Ruth for meeting with me when they are so busy with moving office.

I am heading out the West Lothian today to meet with MHAP (Mental Health Advocacy Project). Really looking forward to seeing them. Also meeting with SUM (Service Users Midlothian) this week, to update them.

Also have another meeting coming up with an early activist, so looking forward to that.

Well that's about it for now. Please get in touch if you are interested in finding out more about the project. Cheers!