Last Meeting
At our March meeting we heard firstly from Pam Turner about the decision that she and Geoff have taken together to donate their brains for medical research and this has been a good lead in to Awareness Week, which is covered in the separate news item below. Pam's talk was followed by one given by Marian Pitt about her involvement with The Jersey Branch of The Tinnitus Society, coupled with her thoughts on the way in which our branch of the P.D.S. has developed.
Jersey Carers
We are enclosing a leaflet (except to those in nursing homes and a few other members not directly involved in this issue) produced by The Jersey Association of Carers Incorporated, as we thought this may interest some members. We have had no experience of the service provided by this Association and we would be pleased for any feedback information as to how helpful it may or may not be and we will include any useful remarks in a later newsletter.
Falls
Not surprisingly we have some members who regularly have falls and some we have heard about could have had serious consequences and one member we know has recently suffered a broken hip. We are therefore enclosing a useful leaflet supplied by the Health Promotion Unit and we urge all sufferers and carers to spend a minute or two reading this as it contains good advice which may help in avoiding accidents. There is now incidentally a new type of hip protector pants available, which are more Calvin Klein, rather than resembling incontinence pants as has previously been said! These can do much to help sufferers regain their confidence, feeling less vulnerable and therefore becoming more mobile again.
Awareness Week
This newsletter is going out during Awareness Week and therefore we do not yet know fully how successful our efforts have been, however we have had the first of our two supermarket collections and this was at the St Peters Co-op and here Peter Hobson's team of collectors raised £201.69. This was a good effort and thanks are due to Peter and all of his helpers. Another piece of good news this week is that we are to receive a donation of £100 from the short mat bowling group at St Andrews Church, partly because the bowlers here include three of our members, namely Nancy Le Brun and Joyce and Roger Marriott.
We have been fortunate to receive good media coverage during Awareness Week and we have focussed this on the decision by Pam and Geoff Turner to make their brains available for medical research. Early in the week Pam was interviewed on Radio Jersey, together with a representative from the London office of P.D.S. and this interview was repeated several times during the day and there was again a mention about it on Friday 11th April. As a result of the first broadcast Fiona Spurr of BBC television was in touch and Pam and Geoff were seen on our television screens. This was followed by an excellent article in the JEP complete with a photograph, making for almost a half page spread. The article was written by our own member Alasdair Crosby, whose father "Bing" will be fondly remembered by many of you. All in all we had perhaps better combined media coverage than we have had for some time and we know that it is the dearest wish of Pam and Geoff that other people will follow their example and make their brains available for research. We can send out information packs on how on death it is possible to bequeath your brain and already as a result of the JEP article we have had one member of the public who has volunteered to do this and it is hoped that members of Jersey branch will follow in this initiative. There is at present a great shortage of brains being donated and there is hardly anything better that people could do to help find the cause and a cure for P.D.