Richard Charon speaks at The Dentistry Show 2014. Dental Nurse Forum.

Talking over a video of patient treatment under

Inhalation Sedation, using The Wand

for local anaesthesia in all four quadrants.

So now I turn to thanking many people for their help in many ways

A special day today for me as I had the privilege of presenting on Inhalation Sedation to the Dental Nurses Forum at The Dentistry Show, held at the NEC. I would guess we had about 100 but those numbers would need confirming from the organisers. Still awaiting official feedback but it all seemed to go very well.

There was a last minute audio hitch (no sound from the speakers .. help!) which delayed the start. This gave time for a few moments reflection but no option but to crack on as best I could at full vocal volume without a mic. for the first minute or two, without being introduced, as the audience had been kept waiting outside the hall long enough. The show had to go on!

Awaiting the audience

Last second A-V tinkering with tech. I was fine. He had some issues!

After a minute or so the speakers burst back into life and the rest seemed to go pretty well. Others must be the judge. I'll await feedback from Peter Black of the Mark Allen Group, publishers of Dental Nursing Magazine who invited me to speak and sponsored me today. Peter seemed to enjoy the presentation and seemed happy with the outcome.

Scanning the audience, I could tell as I presented (an almost out of body experience) that they were very engaged with the mix of video, photo-images, animated PowerPoint slides and Videoscibe (drawn animations) together the simple reading of a top-drawer testimonial we received just 2 days before. I'll publish that soon.

Engaging the audience

Watch that toothbrush Richard !!

To two inspirational people. First Chris Barrow who set me on the road to the courses I run and subsequently to these national speaking platforms, about 14 years ago and Ashley Latter for helping me to hone my presentation skills. Still more to do naturally but Chris Charon says she noticed the difference after that second session with Ashley a few weeks ago. Thank you guys.

Thanks go to Vanda Vokes and her hard working team at CloserStill MediaHealthcare in coordinating and liasing every minute detail of the speakers' requirements and looking after us in the VIP speaker's lounge. 

Given Chris Charon has recently retired from a lifetime's work dentistry, first as a dental nurse then moving to a receptionist role, at which she truly excelled and in recent years to manage my practice, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to publicly thank her for her huge efforts over the years. So many people are so grateful to her. Very many saying that they had only decided to come to our practice because of the nice lady that spoke to her on the phone. She has been a second mum to many dental nurses we have trained and mentored and we have had a 100% pass rate with them in their national certificate exams.

So with military precision, I engineered a complete surprise to arrange a presentation of 24 red roses to her, just before the finale slide of my lecture. The floral presentation was facilitated by the BADN (British Association of Dental Nurses) president, Fiona Ellwood and my thanks to her for stepping in at (almost) the last minute and agreeing to do so. 

Here they are back at home ...

The flowers were presented to Chris, in front of the assembled dental nurses (with a few DH&Ts and dentists thrown in). It looked like about 100 who gave her a standing ovation to celebrate her retirement having entered Manchester Dental Hospital to train as a dental nurse at the age of 17. Then via Community, NHS & private practice nursing, attaining her cert. in Sedation dental nursing and our in-house DN trainer/mentor (100% success rate over 20 years), receptionist extraordinaire and practice manager for the last 20+ years. Then overseeing the simultaneous sale of our practice, hand-over for a year to the new owner & pretty much single-handedly taking the whole team through CQC with flying colours. A real star. Well I think so but I am biased.

Next go much thanks to Brian and Melanie Jackson of The Wand- DPS, Stand L27, who happily agreed to hide and look after said flowers on the their stand overnight and deliver them by stealth to the Dental Nurse Forum ready to spring the presentation surprise on Chris Charon. 

They also kindly gave me a temporary home to help promote my courses. I've been a Wand user for almost 10 years. It is the only method I use for local anaesthesia and is another practice builder. ( Happy to discuss if anyone is interested)

Additional and special thanks go to Dental Technician, John Davies of Newbury who couriered the said floral tribute to the NEC and secreted them as per instructions on Stand L27 even though he was preparing for his own presentation.

Overall a very successful day from our point of view. I now await to hear the official verdict with interest.