Our Latest 2nd Stammer ‘Bill Bottle’ Memorial Trophy Award on behalf of the Martin Coombs for people who stutter/stammer.

Martin put his speech first and after gaining total control of his stutter/stammer with no fear, he dedicated his time and effort to helping others on the programme. Martin would always be there to support members on the end of the phone and coach lots of members and instruct many courses in the UK and beyond. Martin sadly passed away a few years ago and left a huge hole in the programme.

The annual trophy is awarded to a member who has shown an incredible amount of dedication, hard work and commitment to themselves and the programme by facing their fear head-on and not letting their stutter/stammer prevent them from saying what they want when they want.

2020 winner Hannah Datama was awarded this prestigious trophy. Hannah worked hard and showed great focus in gaining control of her stutter/stammer while travelling around the world as a new graduate. She embraced all the techniques in order to change from someone who was totally held back by her stutter to refusing to let her speech get in the way of what she wanted in life. When the programme was struggling due to the effect of Covid, Hannah showed her dedication to the programme by creating the online/hybrid version which we now run successfully worldwide.

This year the award has been presented to Umarah Hussain. Umarah wanted to join the programme in December 2020 but sadly had to cancel at the last minute due to family commitments. She then managed to finally do her first course online in April 2021.

Umarah’s stutter was very overt and had a huge negative impact on her life. She wanted to be a school teacher but one huge thing was stopping her – the stutter/stammer!

She worked tirelessly on her first course by embracing all the techniques taught and slowly started to grow in confidence and reduce the fear of stuttering. It’s one thing to work hard on the course but Umarah continued to put time and effort into her speech AFTER the course. She followed all directions and used the support network by calling her coaches regularly and making great use of the phone list. In the few months after the course, Umarah had many job interviews and at first, she struggled with her speech and was turned down for role’s, however she always got back up and faced the next interview with a determination to succeed.

She used support from coaches before interviews and showed tremendous courage to be open and honest about her stutter which helped her to use the techniques in that environment, gradually taking more and more control over her speech.

Umarah was eventually offered a job which she accepted so she could fulfil her dream of being a school teacher. Some of her school challenges have been to successfully read the school register and read stories to the children. It’s not been a smooth journey for her and she still needs to use the support of the programme to keep moving forward and is learning all the time.

Umarah still makes time for the programme even with such a huge workload. She attends regular support groups, has played a part in other online courses, has met new students before their first course to encourage them to succeed and has played a part in many Webinars and online interviews. She has also run a school assembly on stuttering and has raised awareness of International Stuttering/Stammering Awareness Day. She is now proud of her stutter/stammer and has the intention of never letting it hold her back.

Wow, what an honour it is to be awarded the Bill Bottle Trophy. As someone who never spoke about my stammer to now talking about it so openly and proudly amazes me! It’s crazy thinking about the things I’ve achieved in only 8 months of joining the programme! Most things I thought were impossible so achieving them has been a mind-blowing experience. All of this wouldn’t have been possible without The McGuire Programme and the support of the amazing coaches who are always there cheering you on! It’s not been an easy journey, but I’ve loved every moment of it so far! I’m so excited to push myself further and see what else I can achieve

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Umarah is a great example to any member who might feel the battle is too big to win.

Following directions, being open and honest to others, putting in time and effort with the concepts and showing bags of bravery and courage – the key for any of us who want to win the battle against our stutter/stammer.