by Allan McGroarty and Stephen Harte
This was the first McGuire course to be held in Dundee and the Queen’s Hotel in the city centre proved to be a great venue for us. On Wednesday evening, after introductions from Iain Mutch and four graduates of the programme, John McIntosh and Iain Finlayson very skilfully and sensitively led the 7 new students through the first day videos. After a short break, we held split sessions for the graduates (thanks Dave Ayres) and the new students. By bedtime on Wednesday night, we had covered a lot of important ground allowing us to make a positive start on Thursday morning.
Thursday was devoted to establishing a strong foundation both in terms of technique and mentality. The new students received very supportive one-to-one attention from the experienced graduates. Unfortunately, one of the new students was not able to commit to the remainder of the course and left with our good wishes on Thursday night. The remaining 6 students stayed on and completed the 4 days. By end of play on Thursday night, there was a feeling of accomplishment and team spirit all round.
The good work continued throughout Friday with sessions on handling fear and challenging words (Michael Hay), Mantras/Affirmations (Iain Finlayson) and the 4 Fears (John McIntosh). On Friday afternoon, each new student accompanied a graduate on to the street for a personal demonstration of the speaking method in the ‘real world’. The coaches demonstrated the various components of the method including deliberate dysfluency and self-disclosure. As always, this was an excellent exercise in self-acceptance. Among the sessions on Friday night were Voice Projection (thanks to team captains David Ritchie and Peter Quigley) and a graduate session discussing follow-up support (Alan Rogers).
The early morning telephone calls on Saturday went very well with the new students displaying a strong grasp on what they had learned during the previous two days. Matt Smith took the graduates for a challenging split session based around knowledge of various concepts on the programme. Later on Saturday morning we had one of the most tightly run and lively Harrison workshop sessions I’ve witnessed. Everyone involved seemed really committed to stretching themselves and letting go. Thanks to Alan Rogan, Matt Smith, Martin Thomas, Sarah Johnson, and Hein van der Merwe for their excellent Harrison coaching.
By mid Saturday, the clouds and rain had disappeared and the sun started shining just in time for the contacts session. As we made final preparations to leave the hotel, the sound of bagpipes could be heard outside. A good omen!
The new students all achieved their target of 100 contacts and the satisfaction of attacking their feared and difficult situations with the support and encouragement of the coaches. Special mention must go to Matt Smith who completed 453 contacts on Saturday afternoon. He also distributed 45 McGuire business cards to members of the public who know someone who stammers. The public speaking session was attended by a newspaper journalist who will be writing an article on the programme and Stephen Harte’s recent personal achievements.
On Saturday evening, the new students, under the guidance of Sundip Marwaha, coached each other through the McGuire checklist and spoke to David McGuire on the telephone. Following a good spirited reporting back session, Alan Rogers took the new students for Positive Thinking. Big thanks to Alan for what seems to be his speciality. Meanwhile, Michael Hay overcame a host of technical adversities to lead the graduates in a very enjoyable split session. Plenty of speaking opportunities for all involved.
Like many McGuire courses, the Dundee course was an international affair. We were very pleased to welcome Liz Unwin from Australia and Hein van der Merwe from South Africa (not to mention Martin Thomas and Matt Smith from Wales). Following his experiences in New Zealand, and with the encouragement of Dave McGuire, Hein led a group of (male only) McGuire graduates through the Haka (Maori war dance). Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora! Very memorable.
One of the many graduate challenges was to recite, with passion, a William Wallace speech. It was eventually delivered by a Scotsman (Euan Massie) – before that, we had recitations from an English woman (Sarah Johnson) and a British Punjabi (Sundip Marwaha)! All great.
On Sunday morning, Iain Mutch introduced the new students to the McGuire support system and distributed and explained the follow-up support packs. In the main room, David Ritchie ran a disciplined Checklist session with the graduates. Stephen Harte and Michael Hay showed ingenuity in presenting the concept of Self-Actualisation and the importance of being oneself, and Dave Ayres delivered the Relapse Traps with typical frankness. The course ended following some excellent goodbye speeches on Sunday afternoon.
Thank you to all of the coaches who did such great work in the lines and out on the street. Stephen Harte is an enthusiastic McGuire coach with a natural instinct for effective course instruction and it was a pleasure to work with him during the preparations for this course and during the course itself. Final thanks go to David Ritchie for his great work in organising the course. Anyone who has organised a McGuire course will confirm that it is not an easy job. To his credit, David carried out the job with no fuss and a healthy sense of humour.
Intensive courses are important in getting people moving in their recovery. Of course, most important is what happens in the weeks and months following an intensive course. My feeling and my hope is that with the ongoing support of the programme, the new graduates of the Dundee intensive will continue as well as they started.
Allan McGroarty
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This course was memorable for me in a number of different ways, I felt each of the new students really gave their all. It was a great size course of around 40 – 45 people, large enough to cope and small enough to ensure everybody really made a significant contribution in terms of the fantastic coaching that was coming from the lines and the great sessions that we received from the many presenters.
It was really inspirational to work with Allan McGroarty and introduce the small changes we agreed were important and seemed to work very well. Examples of these small but significant changes were, periodically allowing ‘one minute coaching’ (thanks to Mike Hay), giving new students more time to focus on demonstrating checklist by keeping them to a limited number of words for longer than usual and instructing them to feedback checklist headings only for all of Thursday, and also during voice projection exercise we added an individual challenge for each of the new students and managed to keep the ‘fun’ part of the exercise alive.
The size of the course meant everyone had to play a part and they certainly did, the old grads gave a fantastic response, which was the main reason this shall remain such a special course in my memory.
Finally my very sincere thanks to you all – YOU know who you are!
Stephen Harte
