Quiz Night 2014

We had a very lively and successful Quiz Night in September, including a nail-biting tie break question. We made a profit of £345 and had a lot of fun in the process.

Raising Awareness

We ran a couple of Awareness Stands this summer. The first was on Tankerton Slopes as a part of the Fun Day - and it was a fun day! We were very fortunate with the weather that day, in fact I ended up slightly sunburned! We had lots of plants and some books and bric-a-brac to sell. The plants attracted plenty of attention and raised us a fair bit of money.

We were helped tremendously on the raising awareness front by Sheilagh McCrossan and two of her fellow Respiratory Nurses, Becca and Mel, who came along to offer Spirometry testing. They did a grand job of selling our group too, signing up a number of people to our newsletter mailing list and encouraging people to come to our meetings. We were very grateful for their help and it was a real boost to have them there. Between the books, plants and donations we made a profit of £168 and had a good day in the bargain.

We held another Awareness Day at the end of August at Asda in Canterbury - and thanks to everyone who took a turn helping including the Respiratory Nurses. It was very successful, with us giving away something like 150 balloons to the many children who came through the doors and collecting £264 in the process. It was well worth it.

Strawberry Tea 2014

There was a lot of laughter and chatter at our Strawberry Tea. The table was beautifully decorated with pretty posies and piled high with strawberries, scones, jam and lots of cream. The weather was lovely and we all tucked into the food with gusto. We had quite a few of guests to swell the numbers, including a couple of new members, some family and friends, members of the choir and three of the Specialist Respiratory Nurses – and everyone seemed to have a good time.

When everyone had had their fill we had a couple of games to keep the fun going. Linda had prepared a dice throwing game and Jim had brought along a big plastic skittles game which caused quite a riot and a lot of giggles. We were quite glad there were a few younger people present to keep picking up the fallen skittles though! Jim and Linda kindly provided prizes for the winners but the joy was very much in the playing rather than the winning.

The Summer Bonnet competition was won by Val Hicks who had covered her bonnet with an abundance of pretty flowers. We also had a raffle with plenty of donated prizes, and that along with the charge for the Tea brought us a profit of £100 for the event – our most profitable Strawberry Tea to date!

Coach to Brogdale

We were very fortunate with our coach outing to Brogdale in Faversham. The sun shone the whole time and we pottered around the craft shop, the butchers, the cheese and pie shop (a particular favourite) as well as the craft shop and the garden centre. Quite a number of us were quite laden down by the end of the afternoon – and I’ve already been back with my other half!

The cream tea was delicious, they gave us a mixture of plain and fruity scones and some extra fresh strawberries too.

Breathe of Life Choir

We had a terrific time when the Breathe of Life choir c

ame to sing to and with us. After an initial half an hour performance we took an extended break to socialise, have tea and consume the lots of lovely homemade cakes which were made for the occasion. We also had a raffle run by Jim, a competition run by Linda, a ‘guess the number of eggs in the jar’ from me. All that and the ever popular Bring and Buy raised a total of £80 for the meeting, which was brilliant. After the break the choir mingled with the rest of us and we all sang some well known songs like ‘She’ll be coming round the Mountain.’ Everyone who came said they’d had a lovely time and I must thank everyone who contributed to the afternoon and made it such a success.

Air Ambulance

We had a presentation in February from a volunteer with the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance. We were fascinated to hear all the details of what it takes to keep the two helicopters, all the equipment, the onboard doctors and the paramedics flying an average of 5 missions every day – a staggering £5 million per year. The only help they get from the government is the loan of the paramedics, all the rest has to come from fund raising. We learned the benefits of being able to effectively bring an A&E to a crash site, with them being able to get to most scenes within half-an-hour – they’ve even done emergency surgery at the roadside in dire circumstances! The group officially gave the Air Ambulance a donation of £25 and a tin was passed around for members to put money in if they wished. We have since received a Thank You letter from the trust, they are very grateful because in all we raised over £90 for them. Proof, I think, of how important we all consider the service to be.

Hypnotherapy

The group started the year well, in spite of all the rain, with a talk from Michelle Wakerell, a local clinical hypnotherapist. Michelle spent much of the meeting de-bunking the myths about hypnotherapy and reassuring us that hypnosis can’t make you do things you don’t want to do. Michelle explained that, although she is also a registered psychotherapist, she finds great success using hypnotherapy for ‘fixing’ behaviours that are detrimental to us. Particularly successful examples are smoking cessation, weight loss and panic attacks. Michelle described being hypnotised as being in an altered state of consciousness, a bit like when you’re nodding off in an armchair or concentrating so hard on something you block out all other noises or things around you. She assured us that there is nothing to fear and that the client is aware of what is going on at all times. Many behaviours like nail biting or smoking are as a result of unconscious thoughts or feelings, often formed when we are children, and the beauty of hypnotherapy is that it speaks directly to the unconscious. The other good thing is that, unlike traditional counselling, hypnotherapy can help in a short number of treatments. Michelle said that smoking cessation can sometimes be successful after just one session and something like weight loss could take 5 or 6 sessions. The key thing though is that the person has to really want it otherwise it won’t be effective. The group seemed really interested and asked lots of questions, including whether it is available on the NHS – at the moment it isn’t although another short-term form of therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (also good for things like anxiety and panic attacks) is.