A long time, a long time ago, probably 7 years B.C. (Before the catastrophe that was building the practice) We hosted one of our Learning from Failure Conferences in the sunshine and the beautiful surroundings of The Carriage Hall in Plumtree, Nottingham.
We had many extraordinary experiences at those conferences. I remember a lecture by a guy called John Lewis, who I didn't know, and I wondered why he'd put his hand up to speak.
He'd contacted us when he saw that the conference was in place and when we were asking for speakers, and he'd come to see us and to talk. He shared the experience of what it was like to irrigate a dental socket with chlorhexidine, trying to look after a patient who then had an allergic reaction and died, and then to be arrested and charged with manslaughter.
To say it was a showstopper is beyond ridiculous. It was a silent room to listen to that story, I can assure you.
Following that though, John went on to help to set up Confidental. Confidental is an extraordinary helpline manned by dental professionals to talk to colleagues in need when they're in distress.
There are a lot of colleagues who are in need and in distress, and Confidental looks after their own, the people who are in their profession, who share their jobs, their stresses, their worries, their dreams, and their aspirations.
If you'd like to help, you can volunteer on the website. If you need the help of Confidental you can go to the website and find out how to talk to someone who will.
In other news, though, there are many people trying to help make things better along the way, so our friend and collaborator Stuart Campbell is embarking on a ridiculous physical challenge with two other dentists, both of whom I'm connected to directly or indirectly in one way or another.
They're raising money for The Canmore Trust, who help by providing safe spaces for lives impacted by suicide.
You will know if you watch anything that we do that we have been big into supporting The Canmore Trust, partly because of our link to John Gibson and partly because of how extraordinary the charity is.
The JustGiving page for Stuart's charity run is here. All of the money will go to The Canmore Trust, and you'll also help three individuals achieve a little bit of a crazy physical challenge, which will help them, too, but if it touches your heart or takes your box, please try to give as much as you can.
From our point of view, We try to help each other in our place as much as we can, but we also try to reach out to the wider community in Nottinghamshire and also globally, helping the charities that we help through our social legacy project and the 1% of our turnover that we donate to these projects.
This includes Juno Women's Aid. If that is something which is close to your heart, it would be great if you could help them here.
The Children's Bereavement Centre in Newark is an extraordinary charity that looks after children who have been terribly bereaved. You can help them here.
Framework looks after people who don't have anywhere to live in the Nottinghamshire area in an extraordinary and fascinating way. You can help them here.
And The Canmore Trust, as I said above, suicide prevention and post-vention and research and all aspects of things that go along with that horrendous, horrendous circumstance.
Finally, and for a long time (with a slight break), we've worked with Bridge2Aid, the dental charity in Tanzania in East Africa, which is making extraordinary differences in many people's lives.
One of the things we are currently doing with Bridge2Aid is supporting Dr Chicco, a dentist running Bridge2Aid's operations in Mwanza. Bridge2Aid are very close to our hearts, having worked with them for such a long time. If you would like to help Bridge2Aid, the link is here.
In other news about our collaborations with Bridge2Aid, I will embark on a charity bike ride with them next February. There are many more details to come but watch this space.
For me, it seems like it will be the adventure of a lifetime, so if you would like to share that adventure by coming and riding a bike for 5 days somewhere else with some amazing people, let us know. It won't be too fast, there will be no alphas, it won't be a race, it will be an extraordinary experience and the ability to raise a huge amount of money for a wonderful, wonderful organisation.
Finally, the last thing, if you want to help yourself and help others at the same time, The Campbell Clinic charity ball will be on the 21st of November this year. I think it's our 9th ball (although I have genuinely lost count).
It's part of the process by which we've raised more than ½ million pounds. It will be kind of required for you to dress up in something to do with Christmas (Christmas starts at the TCC charity ball)
It will be amazing and wonderful, a fantastic night; bring your team, get a table, have your Christmas night out on the 22nd of November, and then just enjoy December and raise a sh*t tonne of money for all the charities that we work with listed above.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for helping.
We all get the society we deserve.
Blog Post Number - 4103