NEWS & REPORTS

Fundraising News

Supermarket collections  have raised the following:

Morrisons, Hillsborough, 19-21 February: £835.93

Morrisons, Meadowhead, 4 May: £189.43

Morrisons, Catcliffe, 28-30 May: £722.99

Morrisons, Ecclesfield 5-6 June: £247.99

Sales of second hand books have been going very well, both via the Amazon website and at events.

We sent £400 to the Diabetes Team at Sheffield Childrens Hospital to help towards taking a group of 11 to 15 year olds on an adventure weekend at Edale to help them learn how to manage their diabetes themselves.

Recent Events

Dore Male Voice Choir Diabetes UK 75th Anniversary Concert On Friday 26 June, Dore Male Voice Choir performed at a Concert at St Johns Church, Ranmoor to mark the 75th Anniversary of Diabetes UK.  The Concert was well attended and everyone enjoyed a splendid evening's entertainment.

We have been out and about with our Diabetes UK Marquee, including the following events;

WALK THE EXTRA MILE, NORFOLK HERITAGE PARK, SUNDAY 28 JUNE

This was our annual fundraising walk and once again we were lucky with the weather. Over 70 walkers did the circuit of the Park, some of them meeting the challenge of doing several laps. Side stalls included a tombola, booksale, plant stall, childrens tombola and jewellery stall. The pictures below show the range of ages taking part. On the left is one of our older walkers being presented with her medal on completion of the circuit, and on the right is the winner of the star prize in the childrens tombola.

HEELEY FESTIVAL

On 20 June some of us took a stall to the popular Heeley Festival.  We raised £111 by selling second hand books, and gave out information leaflets about diabetes and the Sheffield Group.

OPEN DAYS AT ABBEYDALE MINIATURE RAILWAY
 

Our volunteers enjoyed a gloriously sunny Spring Bank Holiday weekend at Abbeydale Miniature Railway. Lots of families came along to ride on the trains in the beautiful setting of Ecclesall Woods during the 2 afternoons. In the Diabetes UK Marquee we ran an Information Stall and a Tombola and sold second hand books and hand crafted jewellery, raising a total of over £340. Thanks very much to everyone who helped.

On Saturday 14 February, there was a Concert featuring the Ian McMillan Orchestra, at the Pennine Theatre, Sheffield Hallam University. This was the finale of a poetry competition run by the Star in conjunction with Diabetes UK Northern & Yorkshire Office.

Chloe Hibberd, aged 12, and Glynis Beattie were the winners and recited their poems accompanied by the Orchestra.

GROUP MEETINGS

THE WORK OF DIABETES UK

At our May Group meeting Linda Wood, Regional Manager for Diabetes UK Northern & Yorkshire Region, gave us an update on the work of our charity. Besides the offices in Scotland and Wales, there are 8 English regional offices. The Northern & Yorkshire Region is well served with 4 fundraising workers and a newly appointed Volunteer Development Officer.
Part of the work of the Office involves organising educational events such as "Living with diabetes" days and Family Days. They also support and publicise research. The target for 2009 is to raise £8 million and there is also an appeal towards funding a Chair of Diabetes to help raise the profile, for which £3.5 million is needed.
Another aspect is campaigning and, at the moment, there is a lot of work to do around issues involving children and schools. Many children with diabetes are treated unfairly e.g. by being excluded from some activities. There was a Lobby of Parliament last November and some progress is being made.
Of course a very important part of the Region's work is fundraising. The overall target is to raise £37 million for Diabetes UK in it's 75th. Anniversary Year, with £600,000 of this coming from our Region. The Great North events generate a lot of income. Almost 750 people have so far registered their support by doing the Great North Run and there are still places available. Recent events have included the Well Walk in Leeds with 400 people taking part, the Poetry Evening in Sheffield and Golf Days.
Linda also spoke about the new type of membership for Diabetes UK. There are presently around 170,000 members but they are by no means representative of the whole community, and so changes have been made. People are now invited to become Supporting Members. They receive extra benefits and have the ability to pay by instalments.

At our meeting on 19 February, Joanne Thompson, a Research Fellow from the University of Sheffield, spoke to us about her research into Managing overweight patients.

She explained how she had conducted interviews with patients from 5 practices. They were of different ages, backgrounds etc. and had varying levels of obesity and they were asked about the levels of support they expected in managing their weight. Most of them preferred to be offered intensive long term support. It emerged that there could be communication problems, that people worried about negative stereotyping of overweight people, that some people don't understand that excess weight causes health problems and that some people blame themselves for their problems.

She had then gone on to survey nurses, including District nurses, Practice nurses and health visitors and found that their own BMI (body mass index) could influence how they reacted to overweight patients. Many regularly referred patients to dietitians and /or recommended exercise regimes.

We held our ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING on 15 January and elected a new Committee.

Glynis Beattie, gave the following report Chair's Report:

Overall, 2008 was a very successful year for Diabetes UK Sheffield Group.

Monthly meetings were consistently well attended, and we are grateful to the speakers who gave their time free of charge and who all gave interesting and informative presentations.

We continued to produce a bi-monthly Newsletter with a shorter update for the months in between. The Group's website received an average of 2 visits each day.

On the fundraising side we carried out a number of activities. More details about facts and figures appear in the Treasurer's report. Supermarket collections continued to raise substantial amounts of money. We held raffles at our meetings and ran tombolas at events. Sales of second hand books went very well, both via the Amazon website and at book sales. We sold a total of 557 books through Amazon and we held a series of book sales at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital as well as taking stalls to various local shows and carnivals.
At the Volunteering Conference we handed over a cheque for £12,000 to the Diabetes UK Research Fund. Our annual Walk in the Park was again successful raising good totals in sponsorship and through the side stalls. We also used some of the money raised to buy a purpose built marquee complete with Diabetes UK logos which we will use for outdoor events.

An important aspect of the work of Diabetes UK is awareness raising and, to this end, members of the Group took displays and information stands to several local events including Health Days, some of which were aimed at specific sections of the Community. In June Diabetes Week provided the opportunity to run city centre stalls and to put on a display in Sheffield Central Library, and we also held an event in conjunction with BBC Radio Sheffield which involved both live and pre-recorded broadcasts and a drop in morning at their Open Centre. Whenever possible we tried to include awareness raising alongside our fundraising activities and we ran information stalls at some of the Supermarkets and at events such as Sheffield Fayre.

The Diabetes for Beginners scheme continued with the support of the Talbot Trusts, enabling people in Sheffield newly diagnosed to receive a free copy of the "Diabetes for Beginners" magazine. Almost 500 copies were sent out to individuals and we supplied copies to the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General Hospitals. In February, the total number of people benefiting since we started the scheme reached 3000 and we marked this by holding a presentation at Baldwin's Omega. This was featured in Balance magazine.

The work of the old Sheffield Diabetes Network User Group was carried on by Diabetes Voices in Sheffield which members of our Group attended.

The highlight of the year was at the presentation of the annual Diabetes UK Volunteer Achievement Awards at the Volunteering Conference at the Leeds Hilton in October, when the Sheffield Group was presented with the Communications Award. We are extremely proud to have received this accolade.

All of this work has been possible because of the commitment and skills of a team of volunteers and I must thank everyone who has helped in any way. Particular mention must go to the Committee members, who all had an excellent attendance record at monthly meetings. I would therefore like to thank the following:
Mollie Hickman, our Secretary and Vice Chair, who, besides keeping up with all the admin work for the Group, also does an excellent job in the local community.
Phil Beattie, whose official job is Treasurer but who also does a lot of work on awareness stalls and works alongside me to help run the Group.
Mick Taylor who I think has one of the most thankless tasks of all, that of finding volunteers to collect at supermarkets and also trying to get sponsorship money from businesses.
Mary MacKinnon, who does a lot of work at national and regional level for Diabetes UK but still finds the time to be active in the Sheffield Group. Amongst her many other roles, she organises our monthly speakers.
Lesley Waller who carries out many tasks, including running the Diabetes for Beginners Scheme, selling books on Amazon and at book sales, co-ordinating Walk in the Park and opening up and preparing the meeting room each month. She fits in all this on top of her very busy full time job.
Nigel Sayles, who manages to fit in his contribution to the Group along with working shifts. He takes on many tasks during the year and seems to come up with an endless supply of prizes for our raffles and tombolas.
and Kitty Caudwell, who finds the time to do her bit including organising very good tombolas, in spite of having kidney dialysis three times a week.

Thanks must also go to the Associate Members who have all contributed in various ways to the work of the Group. These are Charlotte Biggins, Michael Burgoyne, Susan Dunigan, Annette Setterfield and Jack Wallace, along with a posthumous thank you to George Setterfield.

I won't single out other volunteers by name but would just like to thank everyone else who has helped during the year, including collecting at Supermarkets, helping at awareness days and donating raffle prizes and second hand books.

I hope we can achieve even greater things in 2009, the 75 th. Anniversary of Diabetes UK.

The Treasurer's report by Phil Beattie included the following:

The Group's total income in 2008 was £24,284.  Main sources of income included:

    Supermarket Collections £4526                        Second hand book sales £2491 (£1728 in internet sales, £763 from book sales)

    Donations in memory of loved ones £6669        Other donations £1477

VOLUNTEERING CONFERENCE , LEEDS, OCTOBER 2008

We are delighted to announce that Diabetes UK Sheffield Group was chosen to receive the Communications Award for 2008. This is one of a series of Achievement Awards presented annually by Diabetes UK to recognise individuals and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the work of Diabetes UK.  The Award was presented to us by Richard Lane, OBE, Vice President of Diabetes UK at a ceremony at the Volunteering Conference.

At the Volunteering Conference we also presented a cheque for £12,000 to the Diabetes UK Research Fund. This is as a result of all our fundraising efforts throughout the year (supermarket collections, book sales, donations etc) and thanks must go to all of our volunteers who helped to raise this magnificent total. Pictured are Diabetes UK Sheffield Group members (Left to right): Mollie Hickman (Honorary Secretary/Vice Chair), Mary Mackinnon (Committee member), Glynis Beattie (Honorary Chair), Prof Simon Howell, Chair of Board of Trustees. Diabetes UK), Phil Beattie (Honorary Treasurer), Lesley Waller (Committee member)

WALK IN THE PARK 2008

This was on Sunday 13 July in Norfolk Heritage Park and raised over £2000 for Diabetes UK.

The various side stalls ) raised almost £370.

Click here  to see photos from the day.

SHEFFIELD FAYRE

We held an awareness stall and did some fundraising at the Sheffield Fayre over the August Bank Holiday in 2008. We raised a total of just over £320. Thanks to all who helped.

DIABETES WEEK 2008

The annual Diabetes Week gives us the opportunity to raise awareness locally. This year we held street stalls on Fargate and on the Moor and got coverage in the Sheffield Star.

The highlight of the week was on Wednesday 11 June when the Group hosted an Information Stall and Drop In Morning at BBC Radio Sheffield. Gareth Evans, the morning show presenter, conducted live interviews on air with Dr. Adrian Scott and Michelle Littlewood, a member of the Sheffield Group. Other Group members did pre-recorded interviews which were broadcast at a later date.

DIABETES FOR BEGINNERS REACHES 3000 In February 2008 Derek Mayer became the 3000th, person to receive the publication "Diabetes for Beginners". The scheme enables Sheffield G.P.'s to request a copy of this guide to be sent to their newly diagnosed patients. To mark the milestone we held a presentation at Baldwins Omega. David Baldwin presented Derek with a meal voucher and a bottle of champagne, and Lesley handed him his copy of "Diabetes for Beginners". We are grateful to the Talbot Trusts for providing funding for the scheme and to David Baldwin for donating the voucher and champagne. A short report appeared in the Sheffield Star. A photo and report also appeared in "Balance", the Diabetes UK lifestyle magazine.

2008 GROUP MEETINGS

Click here for reports on 2008 Group Meetings

The information presented on this site is for general use only and is not intended to provide personal medical advice or substitute for the advice of your physician. If you have questions or concerns about individual health matters or the management of your diabetes, please consult your diabetes care team.