BSL Newsletter - October 2025

IMPORTANT LINKS:
Deaf Connections Project: https://www.nottsdeaf.org.uk/deaf-con...
Book BSL courses: https://www.nottsdeaf.org.uk/course-b...
BBC See Hear episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...
Deaf Where website: https://deafwhere.events/
Event calendar on our website: https://www.nottsdeaf.org.uk/events-c...
Facebook event calendar:   / events  
Duty times and drop-ins: https://www.nottsdeaf.org.uk/duty-tim...
Sign up to our monthly newsletter: http://eepurl.com/i8MVeY

TRANSCRIPT:
Hello friends. November is around the corner so it’s almost time to wrap ourselves with woollen hats, scarves, and gloves (if you haven’t already!) And start our Christmas present shopping - don’t leave it too late!

We are delighted to announce that this is our TENTH newsletter! We’d love to hear any feedback on what you want to see in our future newsletters and how we can improve! Please feel free to get in touch by replying to this email.

SPOTLIGHT OF THE MONTH: DEAF CONNECTIONS PROJECT

We launched Deaf Connections in May 2024 and this project has been funded by Nottinghamshire County Council. The aims of the project are:
-To develop better social connection opportunities
-Improve access to organisations for deaf, hard-of-hearing and deafblind people
-Provide opportunities for sharing and development of new skills
-Create better information networks
-Support with signposting and connecting with other organisations or charities to share information
To further improve access in Nottinghamshire, we would also love to encourage deaf, hard-of-hearing and deafblind people to share their visions for setting up their own community groups or activities, which we can also support you with at the start.
Recently we set up a new hub, taking place at our hall upstairs. The launch was on Friday 10th October and we are pleased to have a good number of deaf people turning up and sharing their ideas about what activities and workshops they want to participate in. We look forward to hosting this monthly get-together every 2nd Friday of the month.
We are currently looking at venues in the Mansfield area to set up a similar hub there.

BSL COURSES FOR PARENTS AND CARERS OF DEAF CHILDREN
Our free Level 1 BSL course for parents and carers has just finished - well done to the group for completing the course! But it is not the end, we’ll be providing another free course in November or December - please get in touch with us to express your interest and reserve your space!
Email us: [email protected]

TO OUR LEVEL 1 BSL STUDENTS
Congratulations to all our students who completed their final assessment for Level 1 BSL last week!
They had Ben as a tutor, who recently became our newest BSL tutor on top of his employment support role. We are glad to see more of him in the office!
There are still spaces left for our November and December courses, so if you’d like to learn British Sign Language, there’s still time to join!

DEAF CREATIVE GROUP
Thank you to those who came to our new Deaf Creative Group! We are excited to organise more dates which are 12th November and 10th December, 12.30pm-3pm. The location is Costa Coffee, 2 Goldsmith Street, NG1 5JS.

STAFF MILESTONES
Two of our newest staff, Katrina (that’s me!) and Rachel have been at NDS for just over a year!
Alison, our amazing Welfare Rights Officer, has been with us for 23 years! She has helped so many people over the years with her kind and caring support.
Sam, our fantastic Finance Assistant, is celebrating 16 years with us! Sam works hard behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly.
See our team webpage

BEN ON BBC SEE HEAR!
Have you seen the appearance of our Employment Support Worker, Ben, on BBC See Hear? With Kirsty from SignHealth they talked about Access to Work, how it is essential to the deaf community to be able to work and how the recent cuts affect us.
Watch the episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...

LAUREN & JAMES START THEIR INTERPRETING COURSE
Our Interpreting Service Coordinator, Lauren, has recently started the first part of her interpreting course and is looking forward to getting her trainee badge in the future. One of our interpreters, James, has started the 2nd year of his course too.

EMPLOYMENT SUPPORT UPDATE
We’re pleased to announce that our Employment Support service has been expanded to 3 days a week (Tuesday-Thursday). Ben will be running some training and information sessions. Get in touch with Ben at [email protected] if you need 1-1 coaching and support on Access to Work, job seeking, writing applications and CV.

DEAF WHERE
Have you seen the new website for the deaf community, called Deaf Where? There is information about deaf events, all in one place. You can filter by type of events and location and find events you may be interested in.
https://deafwhere.events/