My life's Adventure

Power of consumers

My hopes are high again and my productivity is inspired. I won a spot on the board and was praised quite a bit at our AGM. I met new board members S, G, Di, A, and old members I already know. C came to the meeting and we sat together and talked a bit but we listened more than talked.

• S is also a teaching assistant and has been for 25 years.
• G is an arts worker and has just completed his arts school studies.
• Di is a Russian language graduate from my school. I told him about some of the board issues I dealt with in the past. I mentioned the espionage agent who had come to us about mental health discrimination in the work place. We talked about cold war and working in espionage. There is someone with my name who worked for the KGB and you can find him on the web going on about how people of my ethnic background make good spies because we are cold and unemotional. Perhaps that is true about being cold and this has been interpreted in Canada where we are a minority as schizophrenia in my case. Yes, I still hang onto threads of denial.
• A like Di is also bilingual and A made a good speech about reaching out that our organisation could do. He suggests we reach out to the Francophone commmunity, and also visible minorities. I went to yesterday's meeting hoping that A would get elected as he has some strong opinions about the organisation that I agree with.

I made a speech about about my experience being lengthy and my knowledge of the corporate history of our organisation. I also spoke of my knowledge and efforts concerning the networking of consumer survivor groups. I also spoke in my speech about the pressing of the mental health issue I do with politicians and lawyers and teachers spreading the word of recovery and mental health as an issue that should bring us consumers respect. I ended my speech with a negative psychological ploy saying don't vote for me if you want a quiet none confrontational board and I won in the election. Next meeting is our board training meeting.