I have checked and been given the go ahead to add details of our amazing Birmingham event. I am just copying and pasting a previous update and adding photos.
'What a great event Birmingham has been. Building foundations. First of many events, fingers crossed. Massive thanks to Diabetes.co.uk and their PR team for the help and support given to us all. A happy bunch of diabetics getting together to try and help others, travelling from across the UK for the cause. All arranged in less than 6 weeks. Thanks to all forum members who backed the idea and made this happen. Special thanks to
@Rachox and
@shelley262 for all the help you have given me from the outset.
Friday several of us met at the hotel from 3.30pm. It was a funny kind of feeling, in a nice way. We had never met before but we all knew each other and had so much in common. Following introductions we sat in the bar area chatting. It felt great. It was finally all coming together. We happily chatted for well over 2 hours and didnt give ourselves much time to freshen up before meeting back down in reception to go out for our evening meal. Weall walked together through Birmingham, chatting away. The atmosphere in brum was quite electric. There was a buzz in the air all around! 20 minutes later we reached the restaurant. We had a fantastic meal at Jamie's Italian (check out their app...it has a breakdown of nutritional values for each meal i.e. cals, carbs etc). The dessert amazed us. At our request they were happy to do us all strawberries and cream using
@Goonergal's chocolate brought all the way back from America! They threw on a few roasted almonds as we instructed! Perfect. It was absolutely delicious. They ran out of double cream but popped next door to borrow from their neighbouring restaurant! Nothing was too much trouble. Even the chef came out after our meal to meet us. He himself had enjoyed serving us. He had never done so many steaks in one go and loved the challenge! Hannah our waitress has to be the best waitress ever and a credit to her employer which will be reported back! I feel a TripAdvisor review coming on. And I will be writing a letter of thanks directly to Jamie himself although I will be hinting that a couple of lc desserts wouldn't go amiss. It was quite a moment when we all got out our monitors/scanners to test before and after I can tell you. We heard from our waitess that there was another diabetic in the building! We nearly invited them to join us! We had a lovely stroll back to the hotel. Some went to the bar to wind down a little and carry on the night and others retired to their rooms.
Saturday morning Wetherspoons (who do a cracking low carb breaky if you don't already know). We did some furniture removals so we could all sit around a big square table. 11 of us. Quick breaky for some, just coffee or soft drinks/water for others. Back to the hotel which was a stone's throw away. Most walked the 30 minutes to the event in the Custard Factory (how ironic), I took luggage in the car and met everyone there at Kanteen eaterie. Very modern, light and airy. They had booked the whole place out for us from 12 til 3 (although we ran over until 4 which wasn't a problem). It was just the right size venue for about 30 people and camera/video equipment (and outfit changes!). As more members arrived and popped on their badges people just mingled and chatted. A delightful low carb lunch was served about 1pm. Buffet style. As you can imagine it suited some but not all but its a learning curve and details noted for next time. They did very well and it looked beautiful. I enjoyed what I had immensely. Faultless presentation too. The refreshments included refill after refill of coffee and double cream (they went the extra mile literally to buy the cream for us, they did have almond milk but no cream to start with), all compliments of DCUK which was a really nice gesture. An intro from Charlotte Summers who launched the LCHF programme in 2015. She had only just flown back from Canada, launching the programme there. Plenty of time to chat and mingle. Most who had been on the LCHF woe for some time and some who wanted to learn more, reverse their diabetes and lose weight at the same time. There was a lot of knowledge in the room and with hindsight I wish I had recorded all my conversations as there was so much info to remember! It was a very relaxed atmosphere. Photo opportunities galore. Individual videos done for those that were happy to sit in front of the camera, sharing our journeys in the hope we might inspire others. The general theme, Diabetes does NOT HAVE to be the progressive disease we are told it is when diagnosed. We can take control of our health and our futures by simple changes in our lifestyle. We can and have put the beast in remission and many have also lost a lot of weight in the process. DCUK will be linking the videos and photos to their social media sites in the near future together with the inspirational stories and low carb recipe booklets and the blood sugar leaflet. I will try to pin them down to a date but I do know they are extremely busy at the moment.
As the event came to a close some had to carry on their journeys as they had a long way to travel home so fond farewells/au revoirs were said. And the 10 remaining popped to the pub next door to wind down from all the excitement. An hour or so later we all went on our merry way.
Couldn't have done this without my hubby Eric he even had a badge with 'gofer' he made himself. He was there to help and very happy to do so. And that's what he intended to do. And because be himself has lost a stone with LCHF as a non diabetic he was asked on video set to join me! Out of his comfort zone but be did it for the cause! Very proud of him.
Thank you everyone for making this event possible. See you at the next one!!!
