SLDJ Group was set up to demand the resignation of James Strachan and David Livermore as CEO and Chair of RNId on the grounds of their anti-deaf management. The ideal place to pitch our demo was outside the RNId Hear for All exhibition held on Friday 13th October.

We produced an A4 leaflet (which can be seen on the other page) explaining our demands and the reasons why. This was attached with a clipping from the Guardian newspaper titled ‘Blood on the Pages’ – a review of Doug Alker’s book ‘Really Not Interested in the Deaf’. One member copied and pasted real size colour photos of Strachan and Livermore to wear as masks plus body worn A3 photos of the two men with appropriate quotes. We also made placards with the words ‘Really Not Interested in the Deaf’

When we all arrived outside the Conference venue in the morning we positioned ourselves fairly near the entrance, on the steps, with at least 600 A4 flyers to give out. We were ordered to move by the security guards on the grounds that we were on ‘private property’. However we had a legal monitor with us who successfully argued that we were not causing an obstruction or doing any harm! At one stage we were threatened with the police but of course that would not look very good for the RNId so nothing happened!

Since the outside of the venue was fairly big we decided to spread ourselves around at strategic points and moved away from our original position. Soon people were arriving in taxis and on foot and we ensured that each one was handed a A4 flyer prior to entering the Conference. One taxi driver even offered to put up the flyer in his cab office for the general public to read whilst waiting for a taxi! The majority of the conference goers were supportive to us after reading the flyers, a few said it was ‘about time a stand was made against the RNId’ Quite a few deaf people said they were going to the Conference under duress as they were told to do so by their bosses but instead of going straight in, they would then proceed into an anti-RNId discussion with us?! People would be coming out of the Conference and keeping us up to date with RNId staff reactions inside towards the demo. Obviously there were some people who refused to acknowledge us and made disparaging remarks towards us. One elderly gentleman scowled his face upon seeing the placards and said ‘How very interesting’ and stood there stony faced next to the person for about 5 mins! What he was trying to achieve, I don’t know!

Within two hours the A4 flyers had almost gone and by then we felt we had made a good impact and so decided to stop for the day and have a spot of lunch. We all took off our masks and placards and placed them visually on the steps next to the doors of the venue. One security guard who we managed to befriend (after he read the flyer) turned a blind eye to our actions and allowed the mask/placards to stay on the steps for a short while before he was compelled to remove them about half an hour later.