There needs to be a TMS awareness month

I don't want any more "You're Gonna Die of This Disease Awareness Months" either. Why do we want those images of disease in our brains? I think that the only thing to do when we see those ads is simply to remind ourselves that we are fine and need not worry, then simply move on.

[oops, I got a little carried away and off topic with this paragraph... feel free to ignore it...] I think that it starts with self-awareness. Some TMSers (like myself) aren't necessarily aware of how things like disease awareness months makes us feel. My bet is that you are, but the first step for someone like me is to figure out, using my internal felt sense, how something like that makes me feel. Then, with that clear picture, I can figure out how to soothe myself, perhaps by reassuring myself using logic like the evidence sheet or by simply finding something cheerier to focus on if I don't have something deep to work on that will bring me back. Certainly, in the case of a disease awareness month, the risk of disease is just part of life and really isn't a problem. There is nothing to grieve and so I just move on.

I agree, and some day there will be. It's not something that I would put on the next 3 year strategic plan or even on the one after, because it would take significant financial resources. However, the 501(c)3 nonprofit that sponsors this web site is growing very rapidly and I personally am committed to building an international nonprofit that will be able to take on large projects like that.

One exciting statistics that is indicative of our growth is that over the last year, our website traffic has increased by 85% and our total number of unique visitors per quarter year has increased by 119% (i.e., the total number of visitors is 219% as large as last year). I have planned my schedule so that I will be able to put a very large amount of work into the nonprofit over the next two years (and I'm sure afterward as well). While it takes a very considerable amount of time to run a nonprofit with programs as diverse and complete as our own, we have a group of terrific volunteers who run our chat room (MatthewNJ, who is also the Vice President of our board), our discussion group (Herbie and BruceMC), our Parts Therapy mailing list (njoy) and provide amazing support on our forum (too many people to mention, but you know who you are!), which is what really makes our nonprofit possible.

Speaking of our strategic plan, one of the things I have on the list for the first half of 2014 is to revisit our 2011-2013 strategic plan and make a new one for 2014-2016. When we first set up the nonprofit corporation, we met with a consultant from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), affiliated with the US Small Business Administration. He said that one thing we should do was write a Strategic Plan that identified our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats as well as setting Goals and Objectives for a three year period. I find that the document helps us focus our energies on what is most important.

For anyone who is curious (bless you if you are!), you can see the full document here:
http://www.tmswiki.org/dl/StrategicPlan.pdf
I bring it up now because we will be updating it in the first half of 2014. At some point I hope to post a thread to start soliciting feedback on changes that we should make, but I thought I would post it now, just to start teaching people about the process.

Anyway, another person who is not afraid to think big is Alan Gordon, the author of our TMS recovery program. He is hosting a TMS training in Los Angeles this weekend and is expecting more than 50 practitioners to attend, which I think is amazing (I'm thrilled just getting 10 TMS practitioners in a room). He is also starting a Pain Psychology Center that he intends to operate like a nonprofit, plowing all profits back into spreading the word about TMS. I think that what he is doing is amazing. He cares deeply about spreading the word, just like we do.

Anyway, good things are ahead... and maybe, some day, we will indeed have a hope-inspiring, positive themed TMS-awareness month.

 

Thanks for your kind words, Ellen! It means a lot.

 

Our friend, Georgie Oldfield of SIRPA was able to take "Stress Awareness Day" and turn it into an opportunity for raising awareness of TMS in her local area:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/york.../ko-d-by-the-pain-of-being-stressed-1-6218447

We helped promote it using our Facebook page, showing it to an additional 388 people:
https://www.facebook.com/ppdtms/posts/659513454093689

It is just a start, but if just one of those people show it to a friend who has TMS, a life could be changed.

 

Hi, Walt, if you are interested in doing PR/media outreach, we've got two resources that might help you get your thinking started. The first is a wiki page we made about Public Relations, with some ideas about how it could be used within the TMS movement:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Public_Relations

Another resource would be from our old forum. It turns out that our entire website used to be completely different, based on a completely different computer. That old computer is still running and sometimes there are great discussions to be found on it. For example, we once had a discussion about reaching out to journalists about TMS. Here is the link for that discussion on our old forum:
http://tmswiki.wikifoundry.com/thread/3960919/The+next+big+project+-+media+advocacy!
Sometimes I call the old site the "green" site because it has so much green in it's color scheme. Perhaps a bit too much...