Dear friends and colleagues

I hope you and your families are all keeping well and safe. We have all gone through a difficult time in 2020 and the start of this year is showing little improvement. Last year I lost my mother, who was 100, but as the circle of life goes gained a granddaughter in November but not able to see her, we must continue to keep safe.

As a National Federation, Tackle only exists by virtue of our support groups across the country, representing some 9,000 members. Supporting people living with Prostate Cancer, raising awareness and campaigning on issues is where our focus remains as coronavirus disrupts every aspect of our lives and our community comes together remotely. In that spirit, we begin this year together apart.

I hope the vaccine will bring us to some normality so we can meet and assist our groups and families who are living with and beyond Prostate Cancer. I know that many of you have gone through hard times and my thoughts are with you all.

Last year Tackle welcomed two new Trustees, Jackie Manthorpe a nurse and Humanistic-Integrative Counsellor who has first-hand experience of being both a cancer carer and relative of someone with cancer and Roshani Perera who co-founded the healthcare consultancy, Wicked Minds  which offers strategic advice and bespoke tailored solutions to  a range of customers across  in health and social care.

From March, we will be sending out, a monthly communication email to group leads and committee members. The purpose of this briefing will be  to give information that help committee members support their members and to ask for feedback, case studies and ideas from them to campaign ensuring your voice and that of your members is front and centre of all our communications .

We have Siobhan Connor doing our PR who some of you have met at previous AGM’s. Siobhan will be taking over Prostate Matters so please do share your news, photos and stories as she wants to hear from you.

Sarah Gray our National Support and Development Manager has now been in post for four months. During her first few months, she has been learning about Tackle, has met with many of you and our partner organisations and stakeholders over Zoom and visited several groups. This learning has given her a good understanding of what you value about Tackle and how we can best improve the support given to groups so you can grow your membership. If you haven’t yet spoken with Sarah, then please get in touch with her.

We are determined to emerge from this challenge with a stronger and better federation and look forward to demonstrating this to you. I hope that you and your family remain safe and well in these difficult times.

Best regards

Ken Mastris

Chairman