Who is going to the ADHD Workshop in Toronto on February 27th?

[ADDled]

How many of us are planning to be there?

I’m really looking forward to the workshop and meeting people from the forums. Do we use our real names on the badges? Or can we use our forum “Combat” names, you know, like in the movie Top Gun?

Just wondering….

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[itsallgood25]

can I be goose! I just found out about it and I am planning on going. I watch the videos on here and they are great

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[ADDled]

Let’s all remember to take our meds before going, OK? Or, maybe not. Let’s see what fun ensues…Oh, look! A dinosaur….why’s the air conditioner so loud?

Seriously, though, I think it will be a very emotional event for many of us from forum. In reading the stories, I’m overwhelmed by the hurt the world has caused us because we’re misunderstood and don’t measure up to some arbitrary standard that is considered “being normal’. And I sometimes fantasize that, just for one day, we find ourselves in positions of authority and able to pass judgement on non-ADHD people so they can perhaps know what it feels like to be marginalized or misunderstood. Then I realize that because we have suffered for so long, we wouldn’t have the humanity to force that on anyone.

I suspect, for me it will be “I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me…” sort of thing.

I am looking forward to it.

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[Anonymous]

Me 2 ADDled. This the first thing like this that I have ever voluntarily signed up for.

Let’s put our NIKs on the badge somewahere.

Sim

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[Anonymous]

I realize this may be a double post…. however, I’ve copied this from the OSC website. The website states that you MUST purchase your tickets in advance, however, being the optimist that I am, I called them to see if you could purchase at the door. They really had no clue so I left my contact details for a callback. I’ll post it once I know:

( OSC just called. Tickets will be available at the door assuming there are any remaining tickets. I’d probably suggest that you call the OSC as the date draws nearer to confirm if they are still available, Here’s the # 416-696-1000 or Toll Free: 1-888-696-1110)

February 27, 2010

“Now What?!” is a workshop for adults who think they may have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or have recently been diagnosed and need help in determining what they should do next.

The event will be co-hosted by one of the world’s leading experts on ADHD, Dr. Umesh Jain (CAMH, Hospital for Sick Kids, Univ. Of Toronto)…but it will be anything but a traditional mental health information session.

Joining Umesh will be Canadian comedian-writer-director Rick Green (The Red Green Show, Prisoners of Gravity, the documentary ADD and Loving It?!, The Frantics, History Bites – not bad for a guy with ADHD!).

With Rick involved, to say it will be a fun, often funny, experience is an understatement. Check out the video preview of this truly unique event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tQDfQKU2UY

From 1:00 – 4 pm, Imperial Oil Auditorium, Level 1. Presented by Totally ADD (www.TotallyADD.com). Advance ticket purchase required (does not include general admission to the Science Centre).

For complete event details and to purchase tickets: http://www.TotallyADD.com/totallyadd-events/

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

Hi Abslt0

Yeah, you may be able to buy them if there are any left. Right now it’s approaching half way sold out, and there’s a whole bunch of newspaper and radio stuff coming this week, so it may in fact sell out. (Wouldn’t that be lovely!) Dunno.

By the way, if you get there early your ticket to the Workshop gets you into the Science Centre. So you can spend a few hours with all the stuff in the halls downstairs. (The Body Worlds show and all the extra stuff is, alas, still an extra admission.)

My daughter saw the Body Worlds show. It’s human bodies preserved in plastic,a nd displayed in cross section or whatever. She said that there was one body with the penis basically splayed open, like Elmer Fudd’s shotgun after Bugs Bunny sticks his finger in the end and Elmer fires it. I don’t know why my daughter told me this, because now I can’t get that horrifying image out of the my head.

Oh, now you’ve got it in your head.

Sorry.

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[BAM123]

Hi Rick, do you ever think that they might have a video workshop or webinar? Many would love to attend but can not becasue of proximity. Technology could really open a lot of doors here, thanks

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[Anonymous]

I would go if I was in Toronto or could hitch a ride on somebody’s Lear Jet, but what are

the odds of that happening by Saturday? Know anybody passing through Edmonton to

Toronto?

These workshops are going to have to spread out because Canada is so wide. Try hosting at

several locations simultaneously with a video hookup and open mikes so we’re all together

at the same time. Existing video conference rooms with everything you need are everywhere

these days and Sunday afternoons are the best time to bring together folks on both coasts

and all points between at the same time. Apply some charm and you’ll probably get most

of those rooms for free three or four times a year. It could end up more affordable than

Saturday’s seminar and bring in a lot more people at the same time.

There’s a budget option too, with video projectors, laptops and internet. Smaller groups

from just about everywhere else could join the party for almost free.With something like

that up and running it should be possible to pull in a lot of internet viewers but giving folks

an opportunity to dress up and go somewhere for the day will inject a lot of life to the party

and help it grow to fit the need pretty quickly.

Going wide has other advantages too, like being able to pull in talent from everywhere at

once without putting a big dent in their schedules. If Rick’s in Halifax and Patrick’s working

in Edmonton, no problem. Everybody can show up without needing jets. Easy and green.

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[Anonymous]

Great! Another workshop that I’d love to attend and instead I’ve got report cards that have to be finished! So this is the consequence I get for procrastinating yet once again. If I had just planned ahead and had my reports all completed a couple of days BEFORE they were due I could be sitting here twiddling my thumbs saying, “I wonder what I could do with all my free time this weekend?”

How is it that I missed hearing about this conference until tonight? Last year just pre-diagnosis for me, there was a conference in May on adult ADHD that I read about in the TO Star just 2 days before it happened. Same thing then. Report cards due on Monday. Is the education system trying to trip up even their own employees???!!

Better run. Enough procrastinating on working on writing those ‘things’.

PS- I hate to admit this but just last Sat. I had my husband buy tickets for Body World on …..you guessed it- SATURDAY! The show was closing on the 28th and I just HAD to see it before it left town again. I wasn’t really sure how I would manage to free up the time to actually go and see it on Sat. with that other nasty job hanging over my head. (Can you imagine this, I actually had visualized myself doing a record breaking fast dash from exhibit to exhibit doing a fast look/see/remember just so I could tell myself I had been to see the show!)

And now I find out there is to be an ADD conference right there at the Science Centre. Am I bad at organizing or what?

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[Anonymous]

Since I am 4500 km away and just found out about this organization/event today (from thestar.com), I don’t think I’ll make it. Damn. I spent the whole morning on this site (unemployed – probably a familiar story here) and have pretty well verified what I suspected for a while now … ADHD. My life has been pretty much a failure (other than rearing 2 great sons), and I have given up. I have just given up.

Anyway, spent 50 years of my life in central/southern Ontario, and know the Science Center well. What a hoot it would have been to go there again. I hope that there will be video taken of the presentations for those of us in the far-flung places of this far-flung land.

Have a ball!

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

The workshop was amazing! We sold out. A week before the attendance was so low we came close to canceling it!

Suggestion for future reference: Book early. Yes, I know you’ve got ADHD. You can spend the 10 minutes now, or spend 20 minutes the day before when the booking website is running slow from everyone trying to get in.

I especially felt for the people who were turned away, some in tears.

The workshop was everything we had hoped and more. Patrick McKenna made a surprise appearance for a couple of the segments, including a Radio Drama about a couple struggling with the husband’s undiagnosed ADHD. Michelle, the woman who volunteered to play his wife with no idea what was in the script she was handed, was wonderful! People laughed of course, but I was told afterwards a lot of people were fighting tears. I do recall it was very quiet at points. I can’t tell you how many of you came up afterwards and said, “I recognized every line of dialogue… Either I’ve said it, or my wife has. It was scary.”

The only downside was that it was scheduled on the same weekend that the Science Centre was closing it’s show Body World’s show, which features real human bodies preserved in plastic and dissected so you can look at them. (Personally, I think skin is there to prevent that from ever happening. But then I’m squeamish.) So parking was crazy. But Ava made sure everyone was warned to be there by 12:00 at the latest. Some where there already at 10:00 as the Science Centre’s doors opened.

Dr. Jain and I opened the day with a comedy skit. I played a patient who can’t understand why the world makes him crazy. Dr. Jain played himself (Which he did well.) Roars of recognition. And if cringing with recognition made a sound, everyone in the room would have been deaf. There was clearly too much to cover in one afternoon but boy, we tried. There was a surprisingly tricky game show about the history of ADHD, a look at the symptoms, the sections on tools, on the Compulsive Impulsive spectrum, a section on medication, the ASRS test, other disorders that can look like ADHD and much more. I think my section on 36 Tools and Techniques only got to about 20 of them before we had to move on.

The volunteers we had helping us get everyone registered and in were amazing. Thanks to Ava Green, Jennifer Johnston, Jimi Doidge, Russ and Pat Le Blanc, Sue Potter, Lisa Evans, Nick & Marta Green, David Mydlo, Zac Black, David Poisson, Caleb Blaine, Jordan Hayles plus Sherie Roberts, Jim and the staff at the Science Centre. They were incredible. With very little rehearsal time they nailed the lights, sound and visuals.

Anyway, lots of learning and information being shared, but I think it’s safe to say the biggest breakthrough for everyone in the room was, “I’m not alone, I’m not bad, I’m not doomed and I can own this.” Ya gotta love it!

What did everyone think? What did you like? Dislike? Want more of? What did you wish we had covered? What did you wished we’d skipped?

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[BAM123]

Every think of simulcasting it on the interenet or doing a web based workshop?

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[Author]

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