#HopeForLife Conference: FULL STORY

On 1st December 2021, the TGH team performed at the Hope for Life conference organised by The Jordan Legacy. A day of speakers from far and wide coming together to spread awareness and promote the prevention of suicide in the UK. This is the story of this momentous day: what happened, how it happened and what it meant to us.

Meeting Steve

In June 2021, we had the initial meeting with Steve Philip (Founder). We were incredibly nervous as we really wanted to work with his charity and Sam had spied that they had a conference coming up. We thought that would be a huge opportunity for TGH and BIG STRONG MAN.

So what do actors do when they need to set out a goal? They do what actors do and make super objectives! Cliché, we know, but it helped us get our heads together. Our objectives:

Connect with an organisation working in Suicide Prevention
Get an invite to attend the conference

Steve was very nice: speaking with the confidence that only the most seasoned and professional public speakers can, whilst also being genuinely curious and complementary of our work.

After an in-depth chat about The Jordan Legacy’s activities and how they aligned with The Growth House, Steve just outright offered us a slot to perform at the conference! After we accepted and closed the Zoom, we were literally fist pumping the air like we had won the lottery. This was a chance for our work to be performed in front of some of the most prevalent organisations currently active in the UK surrounding mental health and suicide, and we were raring to go!

We had two days of rehearsal before the performance in which we needed to teach Levi Payne (one of our earliest collaborators) all the scenes and concepts we’ve come up with since we last worked together in February 2020 for the CAST Scratch Night.

We were rehearsing in the Doncaster Unitarian & Free Christian church and any actors reading this will have just had a shiver down their spine as we all know church halls are the coldest place to rehearse known to mankind. Regardless, we soldiered on and got into the thick of it immediately.

Because the show is meant to adapt to different spaces and audiences we had to completely re-arrange all blocking of each scene, as well as insert new scenes that would work best at the conference. Working this way is one of our strengths as we are all adaptable and flexible with our work.

For instance, I rewrote an old spoken word duologue, originally written back in 2019, and transformed it into a new 4 part spoken word piece. I gave it to Sam to assign the lines and we ended up with one of the most exciting scenes yet. The final run through ended with Tom McCready, former Minister and Secretary of the church, waiting for us to finish singing and saying, out loud, with a dry Scottish wit

“Clap clap clap. That was lovely gentlemen.”

The day before the conference we spoke about how it was as important for us to listen and learn from the speakers, as it was to see how a drastic change in environment would affect the performance. Little did we know how raw and impactful the conference was going to be.

At the Conference

The morning of the conference, Pete and I woke up an hour late, had twenty minutes to wash, pack our stuff and leave our digs to catch an 8am train, but we made it to Harrogate in time after having way too much fun for that time in the morning.

This will probably be a longer blog than usual and if I write about the conference in its entirety, there won’t be any room left on the internet, so let me keep it Growth House for the sake of everyone. For the full list of amazing speakers, click here.

We heard stories from everyday heroes, organisations working to eradicate suicide, both socially and through infrastructure; survivors who courageously use their voice and experience to help others in need. For our part in the conference, we shared 2 x 25 minute sections based on our performance as part of Paines Plough’s Roundabout earlier in the year.

Needless to say it was intense. We knew it would be, and so we focussed very much on the HOPE element of the conference and wanted to be a force for joy in an otherwise heavy and emotionally powerful experience. Those that know The Growth House know we bring high energy and passion in buckets. BIG STRONG MAN as a show is meant to get audiences on their feet, singing along and cheering their hearts out… which is not what is expected at a typical suicide prevention conference. It's a totally different etiquette that we are not used to. Despite the challenges we took a deep breath and just leapt into the show.

I’m finding that with each performance of BIG STRONG MAN, that we start the show, I blink, and it's over. I wish I could remember so I could tell you about it, but the point of acting is doing it and not thinking about it. Most performers will tell you that the shows that they barely remember were probably the best ones.

The best way for you to find out what the show was like is to buy a ticket to the BIG STRONG MAN tour in 2023! (Joking, not joking)

After the Conference

Since we showed our performances the comments we’ve received have been phenomenal.

Expressions of interest in the project,
Offers to deliver workshops for other organisations,
Therapists willing to bolster our work with guidance toward an even deeper informed performance.

It’s all been quite overwhelming to take in just how much support has come our way since.

As a final important note to contextualise the whole experience: at the end of the day a lady, who had seemed quite unsure through the performances, approached our booth. She introduced herself as Jordan’s mother, the same Jordan who’s life and death had inspired the formation of The Jordan Legacy and the Hope for Life Conference to take place. After the introduction she proceeded to congratulate us and then said something none of us were prepared for...

“It’s been a very long time since I laughed and today you gave me my smile back.”

In that moment I immediately made a stupid joke about how we are only human and we can’t possibly take such a compliment. But after the emotions of performing work that we care so deeply about, and the words of all the speakers that day, I turned around to face the boys and they were smiling, red faced and wiping tears from their eyes.

I remembered one of the speakers that day said,

“Negative thoughts weigh 7 times heavier than positive thoughts”

Sometimes you have to drop the pretence and allow yourself to take stock of the beautiful things that you have witnessed in your life. With that in mind, I have placed that moment in my vault of memories for when I next feel worthless or low.

After saying our goodbyes to Steve and the team, we got on the bus to the train station and headed back to Doncaster for a well earned drink.

Going Forward with Love

This experience has helped shape us as people and as a company. We are so grateful to The Jordan Legacy for inviting us and believing in our work. We’ll be carrying the lessons from the speakers at the conference into our work and lives for a long time to come. For more information on them, their work and the work of all the speakers at Hope For Life, check out the links at the bottom of this blog.

I’ll stop writing here because it’s Sunday and I want some rest before tomorrow's funding application writing (which, surprisingly, isn’t my favourite pastime). Thank you for reading this and if you want to get involved with The Growth House and what we’re doing don’t be afraid to get in touch with us.

Love,

Chris Finnegan

Don’t Grow Up, Grow Out.