Welcome to our Monthly Briefing for June 2024. You are receiving this as you are listed as a Support Group Leader or organiser of one of our member groups. The information within this briefing is designed to inform you and support you in your role. It also contains our monthly Hot Topics slides, which is information that we would kindly ask that you forward to your group members. 

We trust that this email finds you well and enjoying some sunshine at last.

Apologies if you have been waiting longer than usual for this Monthly Briefing. We wanted to send it after our AGM on Monday evening so we could inform you of the names of our new Trustees.  The excitement and positivity of newly elected Trustees bring with it some slight sadness as we say goodbye to some of our old Trustees.

Angela Jones, who has been our Finance Director and is one of our appointed positions, has stood down, as has Steve Allen and Aidan Adkins. All have stood down for personal reasons. Both Steve and Aidan will continue to work with us, Steve in his role representing your voices at various groups and bodies, such as NICE, and Aidan will support us with the Peer Coaching/Navigation programme. We are indebted to all three of our Trustees, who have recently stepped down, and to Simon Faulkner, who stepped down in January. We thank them for their contributions to Tackle and for their service. 

We were fortunate to receive four nominations from across our member groups: Paul Davies from Solihull PCSG, Gary Eloket from Purley PCSG, Donald Schloss from Black Prostate Cancer Network, and Dave Wardell from Out with Prostate Cancer.

We are pleased to announce our new Trustees who received the most votes and have been duly elected Trustees are:-

• Dave Wardell
• Gary Eloket
• Paul Davies

The new trustees will receive their induction and onboarding over the next month or so, and we look forward to introducing them to you at a Support Group Leaders meeting soon. 

At our Board Meeting last week, Roshani was elected as Chair, and Tony was elected as Finance Director. Both Roshani and Tony will take up these roles with immediate effect. Finally,  Sarah has been promoted to the new role of Director of Operations and National Programmes in recognition of her hard work over the past four years.  

As well as key dates for upcoming meetings, information on trials, etc; this month, the Hot Topics contains a plea from PCUK for you and your Group Members to contact prospective General Election candidates. 
They are asking that we demand to reduce health inequalities and late-stage diagnosis by proactively informing the highest-risk men (men over 50, Black men, and men with a known family history)  about the PSA blood test and updating NHS guidelines to improve access to testing. It takes two minutes and is a simple way to get your voice heard.

Download this month’s Hot Topics here.

At our conference in April,  West Suffolk PCSG, Group Leader Henry Andrews talked about how he facilitates his group to support each other with all aspects of living with prostate cancer. He talked briefly about some tips to get people to support each other in an honest and open way. In the feedback, many of you suggested that it would be valuable to hear more from Henry. Therefore,  Henry has kindly agreed to deliver a short session at our July Support Group Leader Meeting. This will be an interactive and supportive session, paving the way for future more in depth face to face training for group leaders and organisers in late September. The Support Group Leaders meeting will take place on July 2nd from 7.00 pm – 8.30 pm. As always, we shall be covering our Hot topics and hearing from you. If you have anything you would like to raise with the group, please get in touch. 

At our June Support Group Leader Meeting , we heard from Dr Sam Merrell , an academic GP who sits on the TRANSFORM research group. You can find a copy of the presentation on the Members Portal.  We know that the full details of the trial are not yet out so we have been asked that you do not share the presentation publicly.  

Group leaders and organisers can login to the Members Portal and watch a recording of the TRANSFORM presentation.

The Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Prostate Matters is coming soon! 👏
You will receive a downloadable link for the online version, but if you would like hard copies to share with your members and within your community, please click here to request copies for your group.

Our Peer Support Coordinator, Mark, has recently been looking at ways Group Leaders can promote their groups.

We know that many of you already use the Cancer Care Map, and if you don’t, we thought it might be useful for you to add the details of your group. As a nationally recognised resource, the Cancer Care Map can offer numerous benefits. It increases your visibility, making it easier for people living with and affected by Prostate Cancer to discover and access your support groups and services. To add details about your group, visit the Cancer Care Map website.

If you don’t have your own logo, then feel free to use our Tackle Logo. You can get this from the Members Portal under promotional resources. If you need any help, please do get in touch with Mark who would be happy to help you set up your entry. 

Shining a spotlight on Burton and District Prostate Cancer Support Group

As well as running a super supportive and successful peer support group, the hard-working committee and supporters led by their brilliant chair, John Staley, also carry out a large number of awareness-raising events and activities. In the past few months, Burton PCSG, as well as their regular monthly support group meetings, have been out and about giving our awareness presentations and trying to highlight the benefits of checks and early diagnosis of prostate cancer. They have visited:

• Chase Sailing Club, Norton Canes.
• B&Q Wincanton Logistics – this was similar to the talks they gave at another Wincton company, Screwfix, in December last year. They gave three presentations throughout the day – one to the morning shift, the second to the afternoon shift and then they returned in the evening to speak to the permanent night shift at 22.00 pm
• During the last week of May, they visited the Burton Fire Service to give four presentations over two days covering all of their watches. Luckily, there were no callouts while they were there!

In the coming weeks, they will be just as busy attending a Health Fair at a local GP patient group and making two more presentations to local Women’s Institute groups and a local U3A group.

John said ‘We hope that by doing this, we will persuade men to be aware of the symptoms and benefits of early diagnosis’ 

John and team, this is a huge achievement, and we have no doubt that many men will be diagnosed in a timely way because of your hard work and dedication to informing men of their risks. 

If you would like us to showcase any of the work you do around our three aims of Support, Awareness or Campaigning, then please let us know. We love to shout about the great work you all do.