Should there be such a thing as an autistic union?

Peter said:

What you seem to have in mind is more like an autistic convention with one/2 hour taster sessions.

That was where my mind was going as trying to get socialisation averse people to socialise is going to be like herding cats.

Give them the opportunity to have a quick talk on something that interests them or is relevant would get them together and give an ice breaker topic.

Later when there is more general mingling then there are more people talking who probably met others in a different lecture who introduce the first person and so on - hopefully a bit of a fission reaction of autistic introductions.

Later on if this proves sustainable then you have the basis for modelling it using a permanent venue to see if it can be self sustaining.

I like this sort of mind mapping exercise - maybe I should give a talk on it LoL.

What you seem to have in mind is more like an autistic convention with one/2 hour taster sessions. It’s not a bad idea as such. Maybe you book out one or two function rooms in a hotel for a day fill up one and two hour slots the volunteers wanting to run sessions around their special interests. And then you encourage people who met interesting people in one of the sessions to go and continue socialising in the hotel bar.

I don’t know if there is a clear path for progression from a convention to something like a union. But the idea might have some merit. Maybe in Manchester where there seems to be a number of interested parties at the polls anything to go by.

I would think it needs to be set up as a proof of concept first before going for the big overheads of a lease etc.

Yes it is a good idea providing we get people to come along. I would consider inviting other groups / sites that are advocating for autists to attend, have a stand there and possibly give a talk if you want to go down that sort of route.

Venue wise I think hiring a venue for the day is the best way to prove it works and work out what the attendance will be like.

Best starting point - London obviouly due to communication links and then Brimingham / Manchester and other cities from there.

It will be a significant investment in the hiring fees plus staffing for each of there - have you costed these yet? Insurance should be a part of that.

What sort of things will be on the go? I'm guessing you can persuade some people to come along and setup a dungeons and dragons game, model rail exhibition etc - autistic friendly persuits.

Noise is likely to be an issue as are crowds. Some thought on how to minimise these should be taken.

Overall a great idea and one worth investigating further. I would recommend partnering with an autist friendly organisation to split the admin and increase advertising reach.

Just dumping some ideas as I'm heading out now.

It may be tangental but I want to talk about the Japanese education system and nerd culture. There is a theory that nerd culture in Japan owes its existence to be incorporation of clubs into the Japanese education system. You see when they reformed the Japanese education system they introduced clubs into schools and universities. Clubs that are typically run and organised by students.

Prior to this if you had a social support group at school a clique for want of a better word it probably formed around the conversations you had at lunchtime and other various points of the school day around Smalltalk. The social world of school was Smalltalk driven. And a lot of students didn’t have much of a social life at school particularly the nerdy ones. For them school was turn up in the morning, put your head down, do your work, go home.

The introduction of clubs changed that. It was socially expected that you join clubs. And schools were pretty wide and liberal about what you could make a club about or how many people could make them. In many schools 4 or five people would be enough to start a club.

So people started making all kinds of clubs. Anime and manga club, my personal favourite. Photography enthusiast clubs, School newspaper club for journalist enthusiasts, The music club for people who wanted to be in a band. Occult and paranormal/UFO research society. Almost any interest no matter how fringe could be a club.

This was a system that was great for picking up nerds and putting them in social groups. Suddenly nerds had social lives and realised that they could have interactions with people who shared their interests. You didn’t need to be good at Smalltalk. Didn’t need to pretend that they were interested in the latest fashion trend or popular TV show. Didn’t need to conceal the fact that they were extremely weird and nerdy.

and the great thing about this system is it continued into university. So if you were in the anime and manga club in high school you would just go straight into the anime and manga club in University and easily develop a whole new group of friends again without having to do Smalltalk or pretending to be normal.

And so you get all of these young adults leaving university Who are used to having their own little worlds and who have a network of close friends. And they go on being nerdy in a social context. They’re not nerds quietly doing their hobbies at home. insread they're meeting their friends at a maid café in Akihabara and then wandering around the dojinshi store.

And of course they spend money on their hobbies, not just indoors but outdoors, which means hotspots develop and services and businesses develop around these hobbies.

So different aspects of nerd culture become embedded in Japan because the school system nurtures them at a very young age. Amazingly it turns out that not all nerds are introverts. actually quite a lot of them are extroverts. And that if you raise them in an environment where they’re allowed to socially share their nerdiness they grow up to be the kind of nerdy adults that are comfortable in social groups.

now we don’t really have school clubs in the UK in the same way. Not in high schools. My understanding is most of these activities are adult run and directed, and usually based around something fairly mainstream with wide appeal, often something with educational overtones.

however in UK universities the system is very similar to the Japanese system. Students make clubs, run clubs, and clubs can be about basically anything. At my old university there was a goth club, A metal club, video game clubs, Chess clubs, assassins clubs, DJing clubs, video game clubs, sci-fi clubs, larp clubs, and of course the Anime club. And so many more on top of that.

But unlike Japan we don’t have any real hotspots where that nerdy culture persists into adult hood. There is no Akihabara in the UK. No street in your local town where you can go up and down and see shops and Cafes and entertainment venues catering to your nerdy interest all together.

I know there are a lot of introverts in this thread. People whose response to people is ‘eww people.’ But I invite you to consider the possibility that you might not feel that way if you had been raised in an environment where you could connect with nerdy friends without having to feel weird or do the small talk. And even if that’s not the case for you I invite you to consider what benefit nerdy adults Who are extroverted  might get from finding that sort of environment.

So my question is why does the club system ever have to end? For autistic people Who have some special interest they are absolutely fascinated with, in other words someone who is nerdy, why can’t we continue to build our social worlds around that interest after university. Well the answer is simple because nowhere caters for it. And so my argument is very simply this why isn’t there somewhere that caters for it?

I don’t normally do well in groups. When I was in a union I hated most of it and didn’t get on well with the “leadership”. I haven’t voted yet. Could it be a union of one? Disclosure: I don’t know if I’m on the spectrum. 

Maybe make an anime evening thread and ask who is interested, I could bump the thread at various times around the clock for the next few days to make sure it gets better visibility for you.

Well I can't guarantee I'll always get the time because I have family stuff, but at least over the summer I would like to pick up some anime again, I just can't watch anything too NSFW. So if you can see who else is also interested I'd probably pop in for a few at least a few sessions if hosted in say early evening ish time frames. Once it became established attendance should grow on it's own in time anyway.

I'd love to do that but is anyone interested?

Peter this is slightly separate, but what do you think about opening a weekly zoom meeting to stream anime on a screen share and then after an episode maybe people can discuss what tehy watched before the next one is loaded up? That way you can share your special interest with people in the comfort of your own home and it would be easier to set up and run.

I'd call it something else. But yes. A Charter. And Introverted NT's, ADHDers, Dyslexics who speak both Autistic and NT would be valuable for each group. 

I've got to say I never paid for membership of my student union while I was a member and membership of a club was something like 5-10£ for a year with most events being free, certainly the weekly ones hosted in SU venues were. So I'm not sure what you are talking about. You understand student unions are separate organisations from universities right? Universities do give them charitable grants but this is not a legal obligation. The student union isn't, directly, getting any tuition fees.

Glitter said:

You can hire a community hall for 10 pound an hour.  That's less than the price of a drink each if you get 4 people to join your club.  

The cheapest I found was £43.50/h and that was a 20 person function room with out a bar. Maybe some village hall in outer suburbia or a village charges £10/h but If your community hall isn't in a city centre near good transport links its a bit of a non starter.

Some clubs try striking deals with bars near the university to run extra events in bars function rooms for free on the assumption that the students will buy lots of drinks. But you can't persuade a bar of that until you are an established club. And bars outside of student areas don't seem to offer these sorts of deals.

Glitter said:

If you have a special interest club you'd like to do, there are plenty of places that you could set one up on the cheap.

Believe me I have looked, there is not. There is almost nothing I'd like to do more but all my attempts have failed. I'm sure there must be many other autistic people like myself who have tried and failed to set up clubs because they didn't have the support in place.

But all the students pay money to become members. So it's not exactly a free service.  Plus the money that people pay for drinks etc goes towards the running costs.  

You can hire a community hall for 10 pound an hour.  That's less than the price of a drink each if you get 4 people to join your club.  

I don't think a venue such as you describe would be a good use of tax payers money.  It's just not efficient or cost effective.  The problem is, I believe, not due to a lack of space, but more due to a lack of people willing to run the clubs.  If you have a special interest club you'd like to do, there are plenty of places that you could set one up on the cheap.

You are incredibly welcome.

An Autistic union. Isn't that an oxymoron? 

thanks for adding Bristol 

I heard, but don't know how true it is as I've not yet had chance to research it, that the south west has a higher rate of ND people than the rest of the country

I was less thinking advice on what type of career to get. I was more thinking on advice about how to apply for jobs. Drafting a good CV. Interview technique. How to answer certain sorts of questions and how to format the answers. Practice on aptitude tests. How to write a good cover letter. Different techniques and methods for searching for jobs. How to ask a reasonable adjustments. That sort of thing.

Ah brilliant, thank you.

No need to apologise, it’s great to share interests!

Yes of course.

• Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham- brilliant!
• Drama Queen by Sara Gibbs - very funny!
• Explaining Humans
• Loud Hands - a collection of autistic experiences 
• Stim - An Autistic Anthology 
• Spectrum Women 
• Diary of a young naturalist 

I have just also bought the book Untypical- I have not read it yet but it is meant to be brilliant!

If you want a more extensive list of book recommendations, here are some links:

https://aucademy.co.uk/books/

Also, here is a spreadsheet of all the autistic/neurodivergent literature you could possibly want:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N9A6SUxJPr2j03p5d48-Moxe9dKexfxdNgeOG007ayA/htmlview

Enjoy your autistic literature deep dive, I hope you find a book that interests you!

It sounds like you want ? something autism led run by and for autistic people with visiting professionals with expertise in autistic. 

yes please for the careers advice! The quality of this however depends on whether or not the autistic individual has a cognitive and communication profile to inform such advice - such detailed assessments are usually only available privately. 

Ausomely, sorry to "hijack you" here but I can't  send a  DM to ask.
I noticed you said about reading autistic biographies and autobiographies/memoirs in your profile bio.
Can you recommend me some? I'm due to start summer holidays soon and will have time for reading more then.