By: Carol West
This Halloween marked the 16th Annual Edenvale Self Advocacy Retreat.
The 2 day leadership retreat brought together new and old friends from across the province
to celebrate and advocate as members of BC’s Self Advocacy movement.
Here is what Carol West from Prince George had to say:
This was my first time attending the retreat. Our group drove for 10 hours on a Greyhound bus and when we came in we had a great welcome.
Our first workshop was ‘express yourself’ where we did picture and listened to retreat organizer, Gregg Schiller, play the piano.
Other things I liked on Saturday was the’ healthy relationship’ workshop.
This was new to me but I liked how everyone showed support when some one felt sad.
Dorothy Hyslop was the presenter. She talked about ageing parents.
This was very good. She also talked about how to support family or friends with major health issues which was a bit hard to hear about.
I also went to the ‘toastmasters’ workshop. I liked how they used ways of showing us to speak in front of others and not feel I cannot do this.
Plus they asked us to do a table topic. One topic was ‘what makes a good self advocate’.
Musician, Christy Lewis, was great. We had fun being a Broadway stars! One song was from Hair.
Gregg did a great job playing piano and when we wanted him to play we said, ‘hit it Gregg’, and he just started playing.
Friday and Saturday night there was a bon fire and the self advocate game show.
And there was Halloween food, fun, dance and party time. Fun was the word!
Thank you once again to all who made this happen. I enjoyed all the retreat and will tell friends of mine to try to go next year.
I would like to say thank you to the Prince George Self Advocacy Caucus for sending me down and covering my cost. I had a great time.
