AuKids Does The Apprentice

So there we are - Tim, Tori and I, the AuKids magazine gang, chatting away in the very salubrious setting of the coffee lounge at Bredbury Hall, awaiting the hoards of conference-goers, as you do... We're here for the Greater Manchester Autism Consortium conference, which hosts professionals from all over the area. We've got special permission from the organisers to have an AuKids stand here, which is very nice of them. Only, noone's here. In fact, they're all walking straight past us. The one or two that drift towards us then suddenly realise that they're lost.

It's a bit like being in a Spinal Tap film. "Shall we move the stuff?" suggests Tim, rather obviously. I look at my careful fan-like array of AuKids pens. Tim may be the autistic one, but I'm distinctly inflexible when it comes to shifting my Biro collage. "Nah, I don't want to move it," I say, ignoring the very obvious fact that we are here for the lunch hour and we have no punters.

Tim and I go to investigate, whilst Tori mans the empty stall "Just in case," she points out, eyeing the empty room.

There's a mile long queue for lunch and then the destination - a very busy dining room. Nowhere does the coffee lounge feature for the conference traffic. We head back to base, and quickly decide that if this were The Apprentice, we'd have to act bloody quick not to find ourselves facing a very angry Lord Sugar saying 'Well whose stupid idea was it to pitch there?!' (Tori's actually, but she said she based it on good advice).

There's one thing we've learnt during the last four years and it's that shyness gets you nowhere. So Tim and I head down the queue of lunch-goers handing out magazines and leaflets (this is an awareness campaign for professionals so that they can advise parents about us). When we get towards the bit where lunch is served, we decide that it looks a rather nice buffet. Tim and Tori are there for the whole day, I'm merely gate-crashing for the middle bit, so we sit ourselves on an ornate sofa near the lunch queue, decorate a table with our AuKids wares and - after I've perfected the Biro collage - settle down to scoff.

The stand is not exactly a triumph, mainly because the nosh is so good that everyone keeps going back for seconds, they're among friends and colleagues and noone is nearly bored enough to approach us. We agree that the creme brulee is highly recommended, though.

But, the great thing about spreading the word, is that you never quite know where AuKids will land. One shy member of staff approached us asking for some information for her aunt, as her cousin is autistic. So she walked away happy. And if we make a difference to ONE person at any one event, then we're happy.

Especially if the lunch is good.