Welcome to A.S.S.G.O

Progress Report – 6 year anniversary (2004 to 2009)

 

 

Introduction

 

We first went online 6 years ago. I can’t believe how long A.S.S.G.O has been running it only seems like we’ve been on a few years. The road has been very rocky at times but I’m glad I kept the web site going through out all of the bad times. I don’t think a normal life would have been an option for me let alone a very boring existence for me. It’s been a truly amazing journey in many ways. I have learnt so much about Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Thank you all for your well wishes when I got arrested and put in a hospital for people with ASD’s. A.S.S.G.O celebrates its 6^th birthday this month. There have been many times we’ve nearly had to close because of legal implications but we got through those times and we’re still online. There are no plans to close the web site are this current moment in time. We plan to stay around for many years to come and no one is going to force us to close down if I’m involved.

 

Agenda

 

-          Recruitment

-          Progress since 2004

-          Future Plans

-          Financial and Technical issues

 

 

Recruitment

 

After the web site expanded due to demand on the things that people wanted to see on here we had to take on extra volunteers. I had to advertise at first but after that we got emails from people offering to volunteer for us. An agony aunt service was put in place so that people’s enquiries were dealt with more efficiently if they were going through an emotional crisis. Our agony aunt is a parent of a person with an ASD so she has the understanding of the nature of our site visitors’ problems. We also have a few online befrienders one of whom have been in a magazine and runs her own web site, Bekki Bradley. I check out all the volunteers as a rule to make sure that they are trustworthy and sale.

 

 

Progress since 2004

 

It’s still very early days as it can take years to bring changes. It seems to me that A.S.S.G.O has brought some issues to public attention but the battle is far from over. If we are going to bring about change by raising awareness then it requires determination. We all have to learn to be persistent and if that gets us arrested then so be it. If people who don’t understand know that even getting us arrested isn’t going to silence us then they will have no choice but to listen. There are 3 main rules that you need to learn to be successful in fighting for awareness. 1. Make sure that what you do or say is made public. 2. In the event of getting arrested and locked up you have to create a chain reaction to make sure that although you’re locked up the message you’re trying to make gets passed around. 3. Make sure you tip off local news papers/press contacts so that if they decide to publish it you will have a wider audience which will get people talking about the message you’re trying to portray. Those rules hardly ever fail as I’ve used them in the past. It does back fire occasionally but that’s the best way to be.

 

 

So far we have:

 

-          Been in local newspapers in Leicestershire and St Neots.

-          Increased the amount of information on the web site.

-          Ran many awareness campaigns over the 6 years we’ve been online.

-          Became one of the most popular favourite Asperger’s support sites.

 

 

 

Future Plans

 

-          More awareness campaigns.

-          Tackle controversial issues surrounding ASD’s. i.e: the way it’s presented on television, or MMR link.

-          Encourage people with ASD’s to use the Disability Discrimination Act where appropriate to places or organisations that discriminate against us because of the way we act sometimes.

-          Submit more plans through parliament to make the appropriate changes for people with ASD’s to function more efficiently in society.

-          Work with other organisations to create a better future for people with ASD’s.

 

 

Financial Issues

 

The domain names annual subscription needs renewing soon as it’s about to expire. We last renewed the domain name in 2007. We went offline for a few weeks back then because I didn’t pay for it before the expiry date because I was in hospital. It would be nice to get donations as we are running out of bandwidth because of the amount of information that is stored on our server.

 

 

Conclusion

 

It’s been very eventful these last 6 years since I started A.S.S.G.O. I have interviewed some important people within the Autism/Aspergers field. The first two people I interviewed for the website was Dr. Tony Attwood and Donna Williams. I’ve had a lot to deal with in my own life as regular visitors probably know about. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all site visitors for continually backing A.S.S.G.O when things went majorly wrong for me. I have worked very hard to get us where we are today. I am actually on first name terms with the M.P now because I’ve brought so many things to his attention. Sometimes life requires you to do things that you really don’t want to do. I have done some very risky things in my life just to prove a point. I’m not allowed to condone stupid reckless behaviour as in my position that would be a very irresponsible thing to do. All I can tell you is that you have to do what you feel is right. The only thing I don’t condone is violence. There is really no reason to go about trying to smash someone’s face in for any cause. It’s certainly not a grown up thing to do plus you may come off worse. I don’t like to get involved with conflict because I can’t fight. If anyone starts with me I just back off. I can try to defend people with ASD’s but it is really difficult when people with the condition have actually committed murder. It makes my job very hard to be honest. I would personally never hurt anyone as I’m naturally kind and gentle. That is my personality not my Aspergers Syndrome. I find it hard to be who I am because of the way my Aspergers Syndrome affects my communication abilities. I’m just trying to point out that not everyone with Aspergers Syndrome has the capacity to commit very sadistic nasty crimes such as murder. I know that I am not innocent as I’ve got criminalised because of my actions. That is what I’m trying to point out though because I don’t think that criminalisation of people with AS for their communication problems/ lack of understanding at times should be the right course of action. I am trying to get everyone to work together to make it less stressful for us. I have a theory of how some people with Autism can commit murder. If a person has classic Autism then they see people as objects. If they see a person as an object that means they don’t think they have feelings and certainly don’t think that they will die. They don’t realise that people aren’t as tough as objects and they will hurt them if they do something to inflict pain on someone else. I can see through their eyes because I’m halfway between normal and Autism. I have one major issue with television programmes that portray severe Autistic people. The viewers of them programmes get the impression that that is how people with ASD’s are typically affected. It could really do serious damage to the work I try to do. Those types of things could cause people to want to keep away from people who are diagnosed with an ASD. Where as we are trying to bring people together encouraging people not to be ashamed of who they are and be open with the fact that they are on the spectrum. I especially don’t like it when television programmes show Autistic people going into one of their melt downs. It is distressing to watch but still that’s not the point. When we’re in a panic about something we don’t all go off on one and hit out. I admit that a lot of people I’ve lived with in the past have but not me or others that I know. It’s an issue we do need to address or we’re all going to get tarred with the same brush. I don’t want to get punished for something that I don’t do to be honest just because people think I’m going to deal with things in that way. I’d never hurt no one as I stated before. I do get stressed but don’t have severe melt downs I just annoy people when it all gets too much for me. We still have a lot of work to do but we have achieved enough to say we’ve got somewhere in 6 years so there’s nothing to worry about.