Welcome to our first monthly briefing of 2023. I trust you enjoyed some well-deserved relaxation with your family and friends over the Festive Season.
The information in this newsletter has been customised for you, our key group contacts, to use in your own newsletters and communications with your group members. We hope you find it helpful.
We are excited about the year ahead and the opportunities it will bring. We are looking forward to all coming together with you at our conference in Birmingham on March 16th. The last time we had a face-to-face conference was 2019, so much has changed in the intervening years, and as Steve said in his message to you, “We firmly believe Tackle is currently in a stronger, more vibrant and more relevant position, and we are well placed to meet the needs of all people living with and affected by Prostate Cancer”.
Our diaries are starting to fill up with invitations to come and talk to your group members about our work. If you would like me or one of our Trustees to come and talk to you, then please let me know.
We are also keen to replicate the Regional Networking Events we did last year. We have funding available to bring local groups together to share ideas, collaborate and learn from each other. If you would like to help us to run an event in your area, it would be good to hear your ideas.
Could you be one of our new Trustees? Call for nominations
As you are all probably aware we have a number of vacancies amongst the seven elected trustee positions on the Tackle Board.
We will be holding elections for these vacancies at the AGM on 16th March 2023 so we need all nominations to be submitted on the completed Nomination Form by 23rd February so they can be consolidated for the AGM agenda and proxy paperwork.
We have produced a recruitment pack for anyone interested in becoming a trustee and would ask you to have a look at this yourselves and also to distribute this amongst your members
January Support Group Leaders Meeting
Our first Support Group Leaders meeting of 2023 took place on the evening of January 3rd.
We welcomed some first-time attendees, plus a new group from Bradford. We are trialling evening meetings every couple of months to ensure those of you who have daytime commitments are able to attend.
January’s meeting included some top tips for dealing with print and broadcast media requests. We thought about key messages we would want to get across around the value of support groups, the importance of early diagnosis, and raising awareness of risks around Prostate Cancer.
Click here to find the slide set.
Please do let us know if you have any ideas for future meetings, would like us to explore certain topics, or would like to share anything with other Group Leaders.
Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 7th, from 11.00-12.30 pm. We will be talking about ways in which Group Leaders and volunteers can use local charities, voluntary groups and other local organisations to promote their services.
Hot Topics
One of the outputs from the Support Group Leaders meetings that you told us that you find helpful is our regular Hot Topics section. This slide set can be directly shared with your group members. This month’s Hot Topics can be found by clicking here
General Meeting on February 6th at 7.00 pm
An official notice went out to all Lead Contacts on December 15th informing of a consultation and subsequent General Meeting to vote for a change in our Articles of Association. At our last AGM and subsequent General Meeting, it became apparent that the Articles of Association under which Tackle was then working no longer served our purposes sufficiently as they should. The membership then tasked the new Board with reviewing those Articles in order to bring our working practices up to date.
A small team of Board members, headed by Roshani Perera and with appropriate input from our legal advisers, have produced a revised set of Articles. Much of the original substance of the Articles has been retained, some have been rewritten using simpler language, and some changes have been made. The result is proposed Articles which are now more concise than the original but without losing any of the original objectives and direction that Tackle was founded upon.
The consultation closes on Monday , if you are your groups Lead Contact, received the consultation document and would like to comment ahead of the vote on February 6th, please contact Roshani Perera.
A Zoom link to the meeting will be sent to Lead Contacts early next week.
Prostate Matters, Winter Edition – Now Available!
Welcome to the latest edition of Prostate Matters. You can view it on our website and download a copy here. Please share with your members in your own communications.
It is now widely recognised that the treatment of prostate cancer is not just treating the physical disease. So many other factors are important: ‘Well-being and Health’ and ‘Wholeness and Healing’ are phrases that are often used. But what do they actually mean?
In this issue, we hear from members in and outside of our Tackle team about what activities we can look to intertwine into our daily routine to aid our mental well-being, such as articles on how to tackle the psychological hurdles that come with completing physical activity. We also share details about an upcoming campaign we’re working on, which aims to support men with incontinence issues when in public.
We look forward to hearing what you think of this issue and hope it helps you in some way, whether you’re living with or affected by prostate cancer.
Prostate Matters is produced both for your own group members and also to hand out at various locations where people living with or affected by prostate cancer may visit, such as GP surgeries, NHS clinics, and Faith and Community Centres.
If you would like us to send you some printed copies, please let us know by 18th January – click on the link below.
