Aspies For Freedom

I've been thinking about this for nearly two years now.

The autism community in Victoria is usually well connected, and now we have an opportunity for those who want to to seek autistic advocacy and leverage autistic potential.

There are a lot of people in Melbourne and in the country all spread out.

It would be great to meet some of them at Scienceworks and talk all about this and around this and through this.

Even if we don't have a formal organisation, the nucleus of one would be great.

What do Melburnians and other Victorians think?

There are certainly some initial things we can do.

We already have a few social skills groups for people with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism, and Autism Victoria and the organisational members of that place are well-patronised.

It's a shame the inaugural Australian organisation had to go down in the way that it did. It is still the Townsville Adult Aspies Group which is good.

There are good co-operatives that could do the things we do, and it would be important to be flexible in structure.

I happen to be on the steering committee (one of the 17 who put her name down for "Those interested") of Wikimedia Australia, so in a few months I should have had some experience with an incorporated organisation and everything that goes with it.

I have a fairly impeccable reputation within the Victorian autism community. They know I'm not mainly there to stir or to cause trouble. I am indeed very reluctant in appearing in public, and I will only use my knowledge and skills for the greater good of the community.

If we can gather a few like-minded people Aspies for Freedom Victoria would be great.

Hi Bronwyn. This is Steven Wood. I live in Croydon and have good access to the Melbourne public transport system, and can thus get to meeting for such an organised group. So you've got my vote on that one. I'd be very happy to participate in an AFF Victoria and really do something to help change the current climate that is still hostile to us Aspies/Autistics in quite a few key areas. Both my parents and my second sister are tools of the "Anti-Autistics New World Order Brigade"/"Cure-and-Control Autism" crowd; they can see that I'm ready to achieve success in my creative talents (especially my music talents), and success is something that they really do not want to see from their own second son and second brother simply because yours truly has an "autism history". But hey - in unity with others of the autism/AS spectrum, there is strength! So let's get a local AFF thing happening here in Victoria and let's get all our strengths back. I say let's make it happen!

Cheers,
Steven.

Put my name down, wither or not I can get down to Melbourne from Bendigo is going to be the major thing, depends on other committments.

Hi, I don't live in Melbourne, but visit once a year.

I was in the TAAC group in Townsville, which is now disbanded but some of us are getting another adult group together and we've started with some informal social activities.

We recently lost a very valued member of our group but he now lives in Melbourne. We've had a rift with a more general group in our city as they didn't seem to have much of a place for adults with autism and this is a pity.

Best wishes for success with AFF in Melbourne.

Well, I like the sound of that.  I've been around longer than most in Melbourne (DX'd in 1992 - things have changed a lot since then!), although I am not that well tied into the local community (other than an occasional attendance at ASSN adult group functions).  I agree that Autism Vic and ASSN have made considerable progress in that 14 years, but there is room for a grassroots group to exist as well.

Time can get limited for me, but I'm happy to do what I can.  My main expertise is on the "back end" - making the technology work, although I can also take on other roles, as long as they don't require too much "up front salesmanship".

As for my situation, I have a partner who is also on the spectrum (yay! ).  My family can be a bit "dismissive" of some of my issues at times, but still accept me as I am.  

Anyway, hope to hear more, but don't be surprised if I post rarely, forums and me don't get along at all, and I can't see any solution to that (short of re-engineering them to look more like the BBSs of old, or adding a decent email based backend).  Anyone interested in the long and boring explanation can contact me directly.

When I first came into this thread I thought it was going to be about the Victoria located in Canada, not the one located in Australia.

I hoped this would have said "Aspies for Freedom Victory".

That would have been nice.

I think this is a good thing to try. (Even though I haven't lived in Victoria since I was two.) Good luck with it.

Victoria in Canada, or Victoria in Australia?

The second one.

There was a group for autistic people here in my small area that a woman from the education department ran but it was very annoying. I was always the oldest teenager there & there fore had the responsibility of looking after the younger people while the adults talked. But parents would come once & find out abit about it then never come back?? They always said they had other commitiments & some of them just started ignoring the organisers completly. In the end there just wasnt any point in continueing it because it was the woman, my mother, me (getting draged along) & a diff family each time.. & cos it was a diff family every time they always covered the same things.

Im in South Australia about 3 hours away from Adelaide right near the border of Victoria. This place is a complete whole & there perspectives here rnt very open minded. ur gay so u must be a freak, ur Autistic u must be retarded heck if ur the slightest bit of an indivdual ur considered an outcast.. aint a great place to live when u have all 3 of those things i just mentioned :/