November 2018

29 November Group Meeting – Report

Before the normal monthly meeting, those members who had shown interest in Arts as Wellbeing, a project sponsored by Winchester University, met with David Walters and Dr. Kit Tapson to brainstorm ideas on the direction of further project development. The two University representatives went away with the output from the meeting with the aim of reviewing, and co-ordinating, the input from the two groups. They would be looking, amongst other things, to see if there were any common themes. Those members involved look forward to future developments with interest.

In our main group meeting, Tony Siddall from Macmillan Cancer Support Benefits Advice Service gave a brief outline of the services that Macmillan could provide. A lot of his work helped people understand if they were entitled to benefits such as loss of earnings or disability living allowance. Part of his message was for members to check their own eligibility as there were a number of non-means tested allowances that might be available to them.

The meeting then split.  Emily Robson, and her colleague, Zoe, from Prostate Cancer UK (PCUK), talked separately with the ladies to hear, amongst other things, how well they felt some of the existing literature (such as ‘When you’re close to a man with prostate cancer’) dealt with the shock of a cancer diagnosis. Did the literature, for example, give enough guidance on how also to cope with the consequences of side effects etc on their men folk and on how both they and their partners felt?

It was interesting to hear that there had also been a PCUK internet survey to obtain women’s views. The survey had an unexpected very high response. This was clearly demonstrating that there were voices wanting to be heard.

There were sixty one  members present at the main meeting including three new members. A total of £91 was collected from the raffle.

The next Group meeting is scheduled for Thursday 31 January 2019. Further details will be announced in due course.