Thriveabetes 2016

Well another Thriveabetes is done and dusted ☹️

Firstly, I would like to thank ALL of the organising team – and despite what they tell you, it is a team effort. And secondly, I would like to thank the Diabetes Online Community for their neverending support and encouragement.

Thriveabetes is a one-day conference for people living with type 1 diabetes, which took place on Saturday, October 1st 2016, in The Killashee House Hotel, Naas, Co. Kildare.

The explosion of social media has been extremely beneficial and supportive to people with diabetes in Ireland. For many years, people with diabetes have connected with others from all over Ireland through the Diabetes Online Community. So, a group of volunteers created Thriveabetes to give this community, people with type 1 diabetes, the opportunity to meet face-to-face in real life.

Thriveabetes 2016 was 50% larger than in 2015, with 248 individuals attending;

– 62 children aged 5 to 16 years

– Approximately 70 adults living with type 1 diabetes and

– Approximately 90 parents of children with type 1 diabetes.

We had 45 people on a waiting list, which never seemed to get shorter! Most of whom were looking for more than one ticket to Thriveabetes. This demonstrates a clear demand for this type of event, which ensures its future for at least another year.

From my perspective, I feel it achieved what we set out to achieve: to provide information, motivation and inspiration to all living with type 1 diabetes. We tried a couple of things as experiments, which mostly worked, but it did provide us with information on how to make it better.

But also our primary objective is to provide emotional and mental support to all the adults (both parents of children with type 1 diabetes and adults with type 1). Why? Well, because most of the medical information on living with type 1 diabetes is available from your diabetes clinic, from attending diabetes information conferences and from the internet. But diabetes doesn’t read textbooks (thanks Liz Warren on Twitter for that quote -it’s priceless) and everyone’s diabetes is particular to them, which makes Thriveabetes different from other diabetes conferences.

And because, Parents of children with type 1 diabetes, how often does anyone ask YOU how you are doing? I bet people ask about your child plenty, even about their diabetes! But not about how you are doing!

Adults with type 1 diabetes, are you ever asked how you’re coping with this life long chronic illness? I bet not often. But I’m sure people ask how your diabetes is doing.

Thriveabetes is first and foremost a support event for adults. Everything else, such as the children’s programmes to allow more parents to attend, is a bonus. We do have plans to repeat Thriveabetes; we are just not sure if we can pull it off in 12 months or 18. But our blog is here to stay. And if you would like to share stories with us on the blog. Because you ALL have stories to tell.

Looking to the Future of Thriveabetes. In the coming weeks, we will upload all the photos taken at Thriveabetes and our conference booklet. The Thriveabetes organisation team will have a debriefing session on how we move to plan the next Thriveabetes and how to overcome the financial challenges we faced this year. As always you can keep up to date with our planning progress by subscribing to our email newsletter or our Facebook and Twitter pages.