September 2016 Minutes

September’s Minutes

Due to our scheduled speaker not being available we held a discussion night, notifying of upcoming events and progress reports.

Sarah asked for recommendations for guest speakers for 2017, it was decided that a program similar to this years’ would be acceptable as things change and developments so a similar program of speakers with up to date information would be ideal.

Sarah will contact her network of speakers and start to formulate a program for next year.

We had previously spoken to Jo Baker one of the Newport DSN’s regarding the X-pert program, many of the group had said they had still not attended an X-pert course, Sarah will contact Jo and Olwyn -regarding the X-pert program waiting list.

In conjunction with this, at the “You said, we did” event members of the group attended in February, we spoke to the Health board network communications officer Ian Fido regarding weight management courses. Sarah has agreed to contact Ian to discuss this further.

Sarah has been attending the Newport Neighbourhood Cluster Network (NCN) meetings, this is a quarterly meeting held in North, West and East Newport of GP’s and practice managers and key workers from communities first, social services, and other healthcare workers. The reason for attending this is to raise awareness of the group being in existence, the idea to raise awareness of the group is to attend practice diabetes clinics with an information table in the waiting room with current information from Diabetes UK as well as leaflets and flyers from the group. This is in a hope to raise “bum’s on seats” at group meetings and to help raise awareness of diabetes in general.

A suggestion from the NCN’s was to increase awareness and build relationships with pharmacies in Newport due to the high number of patients who visit and talk with the pharmacist regularly. Sarah has already been contacted by the pharmacy manager of Superdrug in the City Centre asking if the group would be willing to help run a coffee morning or a series of coffee mornings to raise awareness of diabetes and the group. Sarah will put together a list of availability for coffee mornings. Members of the group have agreed to help with these coffee mornings.

8th October this year is the date of the 50+ Information day held by Newport City Council at the Newport Leisure Centre. The event runs between 10am – 3pm and we will be holding an information table at the event and would be grateful of any support manning the table the group could provide.

9th October this year is the Diabetes UK London Bridge Challenge, Steve, Sarah and Sarah’s daughters will be walking in Team Wales for this challenge, it’s a 10-mile walk crossing 13 London Bridges. Members of the group kindly sponsored Sarah and Steve, and we thank you for your generosity.

We collected at Tesco for the Bog Collection over the 16th and 17th September, Thank you for your time and help, we collected a whopping £341.82 for Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation. Well done everyone.

Finally, Christmas – yes we really did say the “Christmas” word, as a group we talked about having a Christmas meal, we decided that we would like to prolong Christmas and hold our Christmas meal on 19th January 2017, we also said we would like to eat at Vila Dino in Maindee, Newport, before the next group meeting Sarah will visit the restaurant and obtain some menus.

Our next group meeting is 20th October and our guest speaker will be Dai Williams – Director of Diabetes UK Cymru.

See you there :)