April Meeting Recap

by | Apr 30, 2018 | Recaps

April Meeting Recap
Last night, the Dallas Chapter of the National Stuttering Association celebrated it’s 36th anniversary with a remarkable meeting and here’s a quick recap of what happened.

From many old-timers to a few new faces, the room was beaming with excitement. After introductions and a few announcements, we ceded the floor to Lee Reeves, founder of our chapter, who prepared a special lecture and video for us to celebrate this occasion.

Lee Reeves took us back to 1982 when, after reaching a low point in fluency, he realized that he needed help beyond what his SLP could provide. His need for support and his tenacity took him to form, in April of 1982, the Dallas Chapter of the National Stuttering Project (NSP), later to be renamed National Stuttering Association (NSA). Lee then shared with us a video he made in 1988 to promote the chapter and it was heart-warming to see people attending our chapter still to this day.

Take a look!
Our origin story!
The words of Lee highlighted the importance of belonging and being understood by others, as well as the synergy that can be created when a group of individuals come together with a common goal– the fact that his effort is still going strong 36 years later is proof of this.
Did we mention we had pizza and donuts?
But hey, we still had a meeting to run, and with that we gave the floor to Jay Mishalanie, a new member of our chapter, who had prepared a discussion for us with the topic of “Stuttering and Happiness: can a person who stutters be truly happy?”

Jay talked about happiness, what it is, where it comes from, and how important OUR BELIEFS are in creating our reality. He mentioned how the difference between a negative experience and a positive one, can sometimes come down to what we want to believe, and how starting to question our negative (and possibly misleading) assumptions can be the beginning of “recovery”.
He opened the floor to questions and comments and many members of our chapter shared stories that highlighted how, many times, happiness comes down to mindset alone. To end the night, Jay encouraged us to not let our stuttering occupy most of our thoughts with the great phrase “it’s not life or death, it’s just speech.”What a fantastic night. Here’s to 36 more years of unity, support and shared happiness.

Thank y’all!

Dallas NSA