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Recruiters’ Club Annual Reception: Party with a purpose

The bar was certainly set high by MyPlus with their first Annual Reception for the members of their Recruiters’ Club. With just the right mix of formality, entertainment and networking the evening was a roaring success with the last of the party goers literally having to be shown the way out.

With a drink in one hand and delicious canapés in the other, members of the Recruiters’ Club along with others who work, or have an interest, in recruitment and disability listened as Helen Cooke, Director of MyPlus welcomed them to the evening. As well as an opportunity to talk about developments at MyPlus and what’s topical in the world of disability and recruitment, the purpose of the evening was to launch their new Student Recruitment Toolkit. A practical guide, the Toolkit is designed to raise the confidence and knowledge of recruiters to realise new possibilities by creating a mindset and process that enables the successful recruitment of students who have a disability or long term health condition.

Guiding recruiters through 8 clear areas of recruitment from strategy to onboarding, Helen was keen to emphasise the practical nature of the Toolkit, enabling recruiters to achieve tangible, measureable results in an area that many continue to find a challenge.

Helen also took the opportunity to remind people of the other resources at their disposal including www.myplusstudentsclub.com, partnership logos and their training events before handing the mic to Simon Minty; it was time for the entertainment…..

After a short introduction Simon, producer of Abnormally Funny People introduced Steve Day; a hilariously funny comedian who draws on his experiences of being deaf. From ‘deafing it up’ if the money is right to stories of learning to lip read (or not) and Boris Johnson and the paralympic flame, Steve had the audience in absolute stiches. And just when people thought they couldn’t laugh any more, it was time to hear from the second comedian of the evening, Jess Thom. Jess has Tourette’s Syndrome and talks about what life is like having tics and people’s reactions to them. With constant shouts of ‘kittens’, ‘biscuits’ and ‘I love cats!’, Jess took entertainment to another level however she also managed to cleverly weave in some strong messages about inclusion.

Acknowledging that there was no way she could follow Simon, Steve and Jess, Helen invited people to continue the evening by filling up their glasses and continuing the conversations which people readily did.

MyPlus would like to thank Baker & McKenzie for generously hosting the first Recruiters’ Club Annual Reception

Abnormally Funny People:

 

Simon Minty

Simon is the producer of Abnormally Funny People. He co-produced and performed in the sell out Edinburgh Fringe comedy show “Abnormally Funny People” in 2005 and then again in 2015. He was a co-producer of the Abnormally Funny People documentary of the first Edinburgh show for a documentary for Sky Television.

As well as the live shows, he wrote, co-hosted and produced the Abnormally Funny People Show (podcast) for two years. He has written comedy sketches for BBC Radio 4. He is a keen traveller and won the Travel X Travel Writer of the Year 1999 – Best Television Feature presenting a Channel 4 Travelog programme in China.

He regularly works with media organisations to help them improve the portrayal of disabled people and increase their employment within the creative industries. Clients include BBC, Channel 4, Five and Sky Television as well as ‘indies’ like Warner Bros, Shine, Wall to Wall and Endemol.

Simon is the co-host the BBC Ouch talkshow and the Phil & Simon Show.


Steve Day

Warm, funny, frank and thought-provoking"- The Scotsman

Steve Day is a truly unique comedian - witty and engaging whilst dealing with the dilemmas of being a deaf man in a hearing world. His stories of multiple children, wearing a suit and the problems caused by not knowing how words are pronounced have audiences in raptures. A disabled performer, Steve is more concerned with success in the mainstream comedy circuit, but is happy to 'deaf it up' as necessary if the money is ok, and there are sandwiches.

A familiar voice on Radio 4, Steve has appeared many times on You and Yours, was a token man on Woman's Hour, has appeared in two radio dramas, All Fingers and Thumbs with Bill Nighy, whom he punched dramatically, and Sound Barriers with Patricia Routledge and Caroline Quentin, both of whom he was prevented from punching.


Jess Thom

The world’s first fully-fledged Tourettes superhero!
 

Touretteshero is an organisation that celebrates the humour and
creativity of Tourette's Syndrome. Performing the titular role of
Touretteshero is Jess Thom, an artist, playworker, and expert
fundraiser, who currently helps coordinate a large play project in
South London. Jess has had tics since she was a child but wasn’t
diagnosed with Tourettes until she was in her twenties. With some
encouragement from her friends, Jess decided to turn her tics into a
source of imaginative creativity and the Touretteshero project was
born.

Touretteshero debuted their first stage show Backstage in Biscuit Land
at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014 to five star reviews.
Touretteshero can also sometimes be heard announcing continuity shifts
between programming on Channel 4