Rebecca Mansell: Why you should come to the BDA’s annual BSL conference in Leeds in July (BSL)

To find out more about this year’s BSL conference, from 17-18 July in Leeds, click here.

I do love a good Deaf club night. Before I’ve even taken off my coat – in fact, often before I’ve even stepped into the building! – I am saying hello to folk I know, old friends and new, and I think to myself ‘Yes: these are my kind of people’.

Watch Rebecca sign her article below, or scroll down to continue reading in English!

Do you have the same feeling? Everyone is signing away at a hundred miles an hour. Everyone can let their hair down, knowing that they’re among people who Get It. You don’t need to explain yourself repeatedly. You don’t need to rein in your natural Deaf ways. And you know, as sure as eggs is eggs, that there will be information, news, stories and laughter. A lot of laughter.

So if that’s what a standard Deaf CLUB night offers, imagine how it feels when there are ten times as many people to share the occasion!

This is why I prize the BDA’s annual BSL conference so highly. And this year, our association’s 135th anniversary, we decided to double the fun and have a full two-day programme! Arrive the night before and enjoy a warm welcome from our Deaf hosts in Leeds: stay on after the formalities and enjoy a ‘party in the park’ BSL Celebration at the weekend! What’s not to like?!

Oh, and did I mention? If you join the Friday night after-party – our annual Gala Dinner – you’ll be royally entertained by the best Deaf talent in the country while enjoying a fine three-course meal. If that’s not Deaf hospitality at its best, I don’t know what is.

There’s one simple reason for our expanded programme. There’s simply far, far too much to discuss to cover it all in a day. So we have four parallel sessions, with each presentation given on both days, so that delegates can see talks on as many of their chosen subjects as possible.

As Deaf people’s expertise gets to flourish more and more in research, in the professions and across society, there are so many Deaf pioneers producing world-leading analyses and delivering amazing results throughout the services sector. We have made space to learn from as many of them as possible.

But we’re also creating a platform for key hearing allies – our allies at Cambridge University, for example, who have just published a hard-hitting paper on the potential impact of the latest genetic science developments with the BDA’s policy team in the influential health journal, The Lancet.

And our conference will see the launch of a groundbreaking study – commissioned by the BDA from the respected RAND Europe institute (“evidence-based solutions to policy challenges”) on the significance of BSL to the UK economy. This will enable us firmly to answer a question that politicians have thrown at us for generations: why should society pay for sign language services?

Our platform will be graced by some of the leading thinkers and strategists in the Deaf world, starting on the first morning with no less a figure than the President of the World Federation of the Deaf himself, Dr Joseph Murray from Gallaudet University in Washington DC. Elsewhere in the event, former BDA CEO and renowned Deaf entrepreneur Jeff McWhinney will take the stage. We’ll also be welcoming Sophia Isari and Frankie Picron from the European Union of the Deaf.

I could go on and on – we’ll benefit from a youth perspective from the Chair of BDA Youth, Erin McCluskey, and perceptive insights on how to value diverse Deaf communities from Jo Atkinson, Tasnim Ahmed and Lydia Gratis. In attendance, to learn as well as to contribute, we expect Sir Stephen Timms (the Minister for Disabled People in Westminster), representatives of the Disability Unit in the Government’s Cabinet Office and members of the BSL Advisory Board. And Karen Adam, the Member of the Scottish Parliament who is herself a CODA, has been invited to report on the recent review she led looking back at 10 years since the passing of the Scottish BSL Act.

But now I’m just telling you the programme. What’s really special is the story that will unfold about our proud signing community, summarised by our theme: ‘Us. Here. Now. Always.’ As we reach our 135th birthday, we want to tell the world about how extraordinary Deaf people are; about the resilience we’ve had to show to keep our language and our fellowship strong despite oppression; and about the amazing richness of wisdom and culture we have cultivated across the generations.

So we’ll look back at what we’ve achieved , and we’ll look around at what astonishing contributions Deaf people are making in 2025. But perhaps most of all, we’ll be underlining that this is and needs to be a LIVING heritage. It needs to be passed on down the generations, strongly and proudly, and to be shared far and wide so that the world around us truly sees what we see when we walk into a room that is rippling and shimmering with signing, laughter and life.

That Deaf people and our language are here to stay.  The future starts with us.

To find out more about this year’s BDA conference, from 17-18 July in Leeds, click here.