1. Welcome to the third Supporting Deaf People online conference. I’m Judith Mole and this is Geoff Minshull.

2. This year we have a few new things we’ve never had at such conferences before. For example, we have a paper presented in sign language and translated into English. And an interactive workshop where we can collectively create a document for everyone to take away from the conference.

3. We’ve also improved the social areas of the conference. You can now see who is online at the same time as you and you can send instant messages to each other. You can also post messages in the social area, resource area and all the other discussions in the conference. And of course, there’s live chat. Anyone for a chat?

4. As ever, we hope the conference will be informative, useful, but above all fu n ! I’m having fu n already!

5. This year, because there’s so many brilliant papers and resources posted in the conference, we’ve got each of you a special conference bag to keep all your bits and pieces together!

6. Happy conferencing!