Hello, I have an update from Auslan Shop. There’s unfortunately a problem with deliveries being late in Queensland and the north of NSW for people who’ve ordered things from the Auslan Shop. I apologise for the impact of deliveries; there’s a delay of about five days.  Thank you for your patience and understanding over the delays. The delays are from: Brisbane and its regions; Bundaberg; Cairns; Gladstone; Gold Coast and its regions; Lismore; Mackay; Maryborough; Rockhampton; Sunshine Coast; Toowoomba and Townsville.  If you’re worried or wondering where’s your delivery, if you’ve been given the tracking number, please follow that tracking number. If you want to find out something or have a question, please contact me and I will answer. Thank you again for your patience and understanding over this situation which is bad luck. I hope those who live in these areas are keeping safe.   

This week, Deaf Connect and Deaf Australia met with Emma Dawson, Executive Director and Michael D’Rosario, Research Economist from Per Capita

Per Capita have now commenced their research into the status and value of Auslan in Australia; this includes an extensive literature review, and economic and social policy analysis

The aim of the research is to provide an evidence base for our campaign to secure a Government Review into the status and value of Auslan in Australia, which we hope will prompt further action to address several key advocacy issues that were raised during our live stream event.

The first draft of the 10,000-15,000-word report will be received by mid to late March and will undergo a review process undertaken by both Deaf Australia and Deaf Connect. Ensuring we are satisfied with the content and direction of the report, in line with the community feedback collated from our consultation and our sector expertise

Deaf Connect, Deaf Australia and Per Capita will host a webinar for the community to present an overview of the research findings. Time: Sometime in April seems reasonable

Phase two of the campaign will include an advocacy and engagement strategy which will be developed and executed with support from Per Capita ahead of the 2022 federal election.When: April onwards

Further information about our advocacy and engagement strategy, including timelines, marketing collateral and ways to get involved, will soon follow over the coming weeks once Per Capita’s research report has been completed

Hello, my name is Debra Swann, I am the President of Deaf Australia.  We are extremely saddened to share the passing of one of our members, Barry Priori.

Barry was a member of Deaf Australia for numerous years and served on the Board around the year of 1995 when we were known as AAD prior to the change of our name to Deaf Australia.  He also served on the board of SAAD, the South Australian branch of Deaf Australia.

Barry was one of the founders of Sign Language Australia, a business providing support to the South Australian Deaf community through Auslan classes and interpreting booking services.

Barry had a strong belief that Auslan and Deaf culture belonged to the Deaf community and that the acknowledgement of this was very important in our work.  Through his work with Auslan and teaching the language, Barry touched the lives of so many people on the journey of learning Auslan.

Barry was involved in the production of a 30 minutes documentary film, “The Silent World of Barry Priori: Signing not waving”.  This film documents the important journey of his life in a Deaf world from the 1950’s to present day.

On behalf of the board, staff and members, we express our sincere condolences to Barry’s family, friends and colleagues.  Our thoughts are with you all.

Hello. I'm Breda Carty. I work on a special project with Deaf Connect.

Hello. I'm Darlene Thornton. I work with Deaf Australia.

We will have a webinar soon, about what we both are working on.

Webinar will be about Deaf Connect has set up Deaf History and Cultural Recognition Program.

Why we set up and what's involved in that program.

The special focus on plan to set up national repository or website for Australia Deaf history.

We are really excited to work on that new special project for all of us. We are keen to work with other organisations and the Deaf community all over Australia.

Please do join us for this webinar, and we will explain our vision.

Hello. My name is Jen Blyth, CE of Deaf Australia. I want to remind you all that we will have SGM tomorrow night. If you want to join, please do come, but you should join on zoom. It will also be livestreamed on Facebook. But if you want to be able to vote for important issues then you need to go on zoom, but only if you are a member. There will be a link under this video for zoom. If you are not a member then you are welcome to join up now. Thanks and hope to see you tomorrow night.

Hello. My name is Jen Blyth, CE of Deaf Australia. I’m currently here in Sydney. We have had staff meeting which most of us are here to discuss our roadmap and what we have been working on. It made me realise that we have done so much work relating to our roadmap. We had posters with lots of post-its covering the papers. I really have an amazing team. We will also have the board coming for the board meeting, training and SGM tomorrow night. I know it is raining in Sydney at the moment, I hope everyone in Queensland is alright. Its been a hard week this week. Also in this TTT we also have a video with an update about the election campaign. Lastly, a short update with some good news: the Greens Party in NSW has asked for an inquiry into Auslan interpreting in broadcasting. They submitted this to NSW Parliament – asking for this inquiry. This will soon be open for submissions, which means Deaf Australia and the community can make submission about this issue. We will also encourage other organisations to make submissions too to the Parliament of NSW to explain why it is important to have interpreters at all pressers and broadcasts. This is a fantastic opportunity and a great example of how building a relationship can make changes happen. That’s it from me, thanks for watching this update, have a great week, and I hope to see you all at tomorrow’s SGM!

Hello! I’m overseeing a project which focuses on developing eLearning modules which are online courses on different topics that you can access according to your interest/s. One topic we are developing is the Disaster & Risk Reduction (DRR) module. It’s a really interesting course where you learn about different emergency services, what they do, what specific services they provide and how they participate in community education to help defend against disaster. You’ll become knowledgeable after learning all about it.

We want to encourage people to put their hands up to get involved in two different groups; your experiences with one of the groups or both. The first group asks for anyone who has experience volunteering with emergency services such as the SES, fire services like the RFS or any other related services. If you have any experience with this please do come and get involved. We will ask you questions about your experiences to put into the module. It will encourage people to be more curious and learn.

That’s the first group. The second group asks for people who’ve experienced disaster/s such as house fires, bushfires, flooding, cyclones or any other natural disasters. We would like you to tell a short story about your experiences, to be filmed, as a Deaf person experiencing that along with things like communication breakdowns or lack of information available.

If you feel you have experience in one or the other or even both groups, please contact this person who is developing the DRR module named Leyla. Please email her ([email protected]), she will take your details, consult with you before arranging the filming of your story ranging from 1 to 3-4 minutes. The videos will be shown later along with the module at its launch. If you have any questions please contact us.

Deaf Australia recently received responses from a survey sent out regarding a few things; thank you for that. Part of the survey asked about the awards. There were a lot of comments suggesting that one of the awards be dropped and we all agreed that we will go from 4 awards to 3. The award to omit is the Fair Go award. We will provide more information at the SGM, a special meeting held on the 4th of March.

We are excited to open up nominations for the awards dating back from 2020 to 2021. It’s not for this year but for the past year. Have a look at the website which provides information for each different award. We have three awards: the Deaf Australian of the Year, Deaf Youth of the Year and Deaf Community Volunteer of the Year.

All the information is on the website, there is a nomination form you can fill in. There are guidelines to make sure that the person nominated fits the criteria. If there is anyone you know out there in the Deaf community who works hard, is a volunteer and supports the community and so should be recognised you can fill out details about them and why they should win. You can write or film yourself. You can upload the form and send it off, easily done. The nominations have a cut-off date which is the 25th of February at 5pm AEST. When we receive the nominations, we will have a team to assess them and make the announcements at the SGM in March.

So c’mon, get nominating!

Hello everyone! Hope you’ve all had a lovely break over the holidays, enjoying the time catching up with family and friends.

Maybe you know that we at Deaf Australia organised with the CE Jen to have a Q & A discussion online this Thursday (13th January). Unfortunately, we need to let you know that we’re postponing this event to the second week of February, Thursday 10th. We will inform you all of the time this will happen closer to the date. In the meantime, we will provide information over what time this will happen; how to participate in the session and what it will look like on Facebook and Instagram. We will also provide this information in the TTT newsletter in the not-too-distant future. If you’d like to subscribe to TTT, which is free, go to our website and fill in your information to receive the next TTT newsletter.

Hope to see you there! Bye bye.

This survey is important for our members to complete and help us to understand what our Deaf Community wants and to see what we can do. We have a few questions to ask you - which will relate to our upcoming Special General Meeting in February 2022. We want to hear from all of you and make sure we are going in the right direction. It will only take you 10 minutes.

• First section - Membership
• Second section – Awards
• Third section – Colin Allen AM Lecture

We look forward to receiving your response and will share the results with you all when it is available.