At the usual venue: Royal British Legion, Longton. If you can bring any raffle prizes along on the night that’d be great. Please note, the next meeting after Christmas will be Wednesday 6th February as we skip January.
Her Majesty and Prince Philip have not confirmed yet but we are quietly confident they won’t be there. Expect the usual suspects….
We were recently contacted by forchaps.com who have put together some great articles on stress control. Their blog is mainly aimed at men, but the principles apply equally to women.
Stress is widely recognised as a damaging influence on our immune systems. A healthy immune system is better able to fight cancer in all its stages and better able to protect us from further problems in the future.
Their articles can be accessed directly via 15 ways to relieve stress and 15 ways to relieve work stress.
The group meal out in October at the Ash Bank was judged to be a great success. Thanks to everyone who attended. I feel there will be a larger turnout next time we arrange a get-together!
Instead of our usual venue, the October meeting will be held at the Ashbank Hotel, Werrington and we’ll be enjoying a group meal out. We’ll be meeting at 7.00 to eat at about 7.30pm. Hope to see all our members there!
The Ashbank
216 Ash Bank Road, Werrington, Stoke On Trent, Staffordshire
Our September meeting started off with a very special presentation by Diane Leopard, Clinical Complementary Therapist. Diane received recognition for her work in this field in the form of a prize, which she spent on a camera. Diane enrolled in some evening classes to enhance her photography skills and one of the assignments involved documenting a journey in the form of a series of photographs.
Diane opted to document her own journey. A journey through diagnosis, treatment and recovery from cancer. Despite an unusually noisy venue, Diane gave her very personal presentation and no-one in the group was unmoved. Photographs have a way of bypassing many words and directly evoking an emotion or a feeling.
I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this presentation, and the final thoughts came in a poem which we hope to publish here in due course.
Our thanks to Diane for a thought provoking, and courageous piece of work!
We were happy to hand over 460 new Restaurant Cards to Jackie at the meeting. These have been purchased out of funds raised by the group. The card is intended to be carried in the wallet or purse, and can be used to influence staff in restaurants to provide smaller meal sizes or additional gravy / sauce as appropriate.
Head and Neck cancer treatment brings with it a whole range of eating issues, and these cards can help ease folk in the recovery phase back into eating out with family and friends.
If you’d like one, please speak to any of the specialist nurses as the stock is largely held at the hospitals. Here’s what they look like back and front……..
Jackie informed the August meeting that a free Wellbeing Event is being held between 10.00am and 14.00pm on the above date. Several of our group have attended these before, all thought the session was time well spent.
This event covers moving on after treatment, diet tips and general wellbeing aspects. Please phone Jackie Miller on 01785 886083 for more details if you’d like to attend this event. It’s running at Northfield Centre, Magnolia Avenue, (Off Cooperative Street) Stafford. ST16 3DU
If using a SatNav, please use PostCode ST16 3BZ
Diane from Hands 4 Wellbeing is coming along to our September meeting on Wed 5th September at 7.30pm to demonstrate how Reflexology can become a useful part of your life, helping with a whole range of issues. Macmillan will also be in attendance, as they support Hands 4 Wellbeing
As a teaser, here are photos of the self-help guide, available from Hands 4 Wellbeing. Their webpage is http://hands4wellbeing.co.uk/
We had a small group [ 7 ] for the August meeting – holidays and so forth but it was great to meet two new friends. It’s always an effort to come along for the first time, especially having finished treatment so recently. I hope our new members become regulars, as there are always new ideas and possibilities being discussed.
We felt it was too small a group for a pop-up raffle but hoping a bigger group in September will allow us to get one in – the cash always goes directly to help patients directly or the Hospitals themselves.
Click the above logo to read some good tips aimed at helping you reduce stress in your life. A large amount of worldwide research has shown that even low levels of stress and anxiety can reduce the efficiency of the immune system. This can make you more prone to infections and promote problems like arthritis and cardiovascular illness.
“In life, there’s always a solution to a problem,” says Professor Cary Cooper, an occupational health expert at the University of Lancaster. “Not taking control of the situation and doing nothing will only make your problems worse.”
He says the keys to good stress management are building emotional strength, being in control of your situation, having a good social network and adopting a positive outlook.
