July 18, 2025

BID Fest Event Recap

Wow! BID Fest was a huge success!

Across the two days, we welcomed over 150 guests through the doors of our Deaf Cultural Centre in Birmingham. Temperatures reached over 30°C and we were very grateful to the Signing Tree Venue team who kept us stocked up with plenty of cool refreshments and fans!

Before we dive into the details of each day, we wanted to acknowledge the hard work from our Community Coordinator, Kim and some people from our marketing team who planned and lead the event! Also a big thank you to the staff and British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters and volunteers – we couldn’t have done it without them.

Grey brick building with wide floor to ceiling windows. On the railing outside is a large rectangular banner with information about the BID Fest activities and timings.

Friday 20th June

Our doors opened at 10am, allowing guests plenty of time to arrive, grab a refreshments and chat with our services before the presentations started. We were joined by students from local Deaf schools, local professionals and families & friends of individuals who are either already accessing our services, or who wanted to learn more about them.

The first presentation, all about our Birmingham Employment Service, was delivered by Andy and Jock who explained the various ways they can support D/deaf, hard of hearing, sight impaired and pan disabled individuals to find work, training courses and support with Access to Work (ATW).

This was soon followed by an introduction to our Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) service, presented by Afia and Safina, to share how we can support with benefits, housing issues and more. You can learn about this service (available across all of our regions) on our website!

One of the highlights of the event was our chat with D/deaf role models. Six men and women came in to share their unique experiences of growing up D/deaf and how this impacted them within their family life, education, work place and beyond.

While they shared some of the struggles they faced, the main focus of their talk was sharing their own achievements and to inspire people – particularly the younger generations – to not be held back by a disability, but to embrace it and recognise the value and different perspectives they have to offer. There was emphasis on ensuring people understood how important it was to advocate for themselves in terms of their rights to communication support and Access to Work.

3 women are stood and in conversation using British Sign Language. They are all smiling, mid laugh.

2 white females are seated behind their stall for SEND Birmingham. They're both smiling towards the camera.

A tray of desserts laid out on silver and black trays. On the left are slices of a fruity cheesecake. In the centre are 3 alternating rows of pink and white chocolate & dark chocolate glazed donuts. To the right are blueberry and plain muffins.

A delicious hot lunch was catered by Signing Tree Venue, followed by an array of desserts including cheesecakes, donuts and cakes!

2 men are stood and in conversation in British sign Language, stood by an employment service stall.

An Asian man is stood by a large TV screen, delivering a presentation for deaf awareness training.

The final presentation of the day about Visual Impairment (VI) awareness was delivered by Alex. He talked about his own experience of growing up sight impaired, debunked some common myths about blindness, shared useful communication tips with people who are VI and important information about guide dogs.

We had originally allocated 20 minutes for his presentation, including time for Q&A. We didn’t anticipate such a response from the audience (if you know, you know) and we ended up running over by an additional 20 minutes!

Want to learn a little more about Guide Dogs? View our blog post.

Saturday 21st June (11am – 4pm)

We invited our local Deaf Community to join us for a fun packed day! We ran arts & crafts activities, face painting, chess tournaments, carnival games, snooker, table tennis and more.

Our partners from British Deaf Association (BDA), Deaf World, Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD), SignVideo and Birmingham Deaf FC were also in attendance – it was brilliant to catch up with them all!

A large room bright room with BID's partner stalls around the outside. In the centre of the room are 10+ people chatting among themselves.

An Asian man representing Deaf World is seated by his stall. He is using British Sign Language to communicate with a man stood opposite him.

As Asian woman is stood behind her stall of homemade goods. She is in conversation with a potential customer. There is a blonde woman on the right looking through individual letter key chains.

Lunch was served by Paul’s BBQ and Buffet and it was absolutely delicious! They offered fresh pulled pork or beef burgers, hot dogs and chicken tikka flatbreads. The team were super friendly and communicated really well with our guests. We highly recommend them!

After lunch – and before everyone ran to the ice cream van – we made the exciting announcement for our Deaf community! From July, our community will get to enjoy:

Two monthly social evenings (previously one).
Free evening room hire once a week – the community is welcome to start their own club or invite external organisations to lead a session in sports, crafts or whatever else they would like!
Reverting back to extended cafe opening hours on a Friday.

Make sure you keep an eye on social media pages for information about our community activities (find the links at the bottom of this blog).

A special thank you to our volunteers!

As with many of our social groups and day-to-day activities within the charity, this event would not have been such a success without the support from our brilliant team of volunteers! Despite the scorching temperatures we experienced over the weekend, they ensured all attendees were well cared for and activities were running smoothly from start to finish!