| |  | | | | | | David and (inset) daughter Jade. | | | | David Axtell has been a Trustee of the Foundation since the Stratford conference in 1997. Initially drafted onto the conference committee, he then volunteered to join the inaugural Board of Trustees. David has two daughters; Dayna (13) and Jade (9) who has CdLS. “It was sheer luck that Jade was correctly diagnosed within a week of birth. “A regional geneticist happened to be in town and correctly identified the Syndrome,” he says. In an effort to find out more about a syndrome even the geneticist knew little about, he got in touch with the Foundation. Running his own graphic design company, it seemed obvious that he could lend his skills to helping raise public consciousness of CdLS. He says: “design is about communication, so I want to do what I can to help raise awareness.” David has been responsible for the design of both versions of the UK Foundation’s information booklets as well as the Stratford and Chester conference themes, logos and merchandising. The conferences have been so rewarding but have yielded some hairy moments. One was having to ‘sneak’ a TV set out of a workshop at Stratford, after it had started. “The most embarrassing was dropping all of Ken Nischal’s slides, seconds before he was due to start his address,” he recalls. “CdLS has been a steep learning curve for all of us. I’ve nearly lost Jade twice. “Once when she went into respiratory arrest while having a mould taken of her cleft palate and again when she suffered a malrotation of the bowel. It just makes them that extra bit more precious,”says David. He lives in rural Suffolk and is an avid music fan and guitarist. He even revived his rock band from his youth to raise money for CdLS. | 
