News
January 2012:
SCKPA Spring Meeting has been organised for Sunday 11th March at Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel. 2:45 for 3pm start. Professor Peter Friend will give an update on the Renal Ward and other matters of interest to attendees.
If you would like to attend please let John know by Monday 5th March.
January 2012:
Music and Poetry for World Kidney Day - All proceeds go to SCKPA
A light-hearted and entertaining evening from Mozart to Mancini
Friday March 9th at 7:30pm at Pangbourne Village Hall, RG8 7AN.
Martin Jones - Piano
Frances Jones - Woodwind
Catherine Side - Double bass
Poems - Robert Baker-Glenn
Tickets including refreshments; £10, £8 students, seniors, unemployed; £2 under 18s
Sponsored by Cuisine for Me (kidney-friendly foods) and Green's of Pangbourne
September 2011:
At the AGM on 18th September Richard Zacharzewski was elected Vice Chairman of the SCKPA. His contact details are available on the Committee webpage.
August 2011:
Six Counties Kidney Patients Association now has a Facebook page. I hope it will be used for advertising fundraising events, get-togethers and general interest information for patients and their families. We'd love to see more photos of the events patients and associations get up to and Facebook is a good place to share!
May 2011:
It is now possible to make donations to the SCKPA via phone texting at absolutely no cost to the SCKPA. It is free because it is sponsored by JustGiving and Vodafone, but you can text from ANY network.
All you have to do is:
Text“SCKP12”, then the amount in pounds with a pound sign “£xx” to 70070.
Apparently many charities have raised millions like this! Please let you friends an relatives know.
The money is collected by JustGiving and passed to us monthly. The donation is added to monthly bill or debited from your Pay As You Go funds.
May 2011:
To date over £120 has been raised through EasyFundraising - don't forget to register and make all your online purchases through EasyFundraising.
February 2011:
The SCKPA Spring meeting will be held on Sunday 13th March 2011 at Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel, Abingdon Road, Oxford.
Prof Colin Baigent, Chief Investigator, Study of Heart and Renal Protection, Oxford will talk about the SHARP findings.
Please contact John Champion by 7th March if you are going to attend.
August 2010:
The SCKPA Annual General Meeting is to be held on Sunday 19th September at Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel, Abingdon Road, Oxford.
Please contact John Champion by 8th September if you are going to attend.
The guest speaker will be announced closer to the date.
August 2010:
Sources and Distribution of Finances - year ending 30th June 2010.
February 2010:
The SCKPA Spring Meeting is on Sunday 21st March - arrival 2:45 for 3:00pm. It will be held at the Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel, Abingdon Road, Oxford.
Following the meeting Dr Paul Harden FRCP and Dan Lonsdale (Voluntary Youth Support Worker) will talk about improving services for teenagers and young adults with kidney failure.
Refreshments and a raffle will be available free of charge.
Please contact John Champion by 10th March to confirm your attendance.
December 2009:
Book your place at this years SCKPA Christmas lunch at the Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel on 13th December. See the menu and booking form.
Everyone is welcome to attend the meal and the General Meeting.
29 November 2009:
Several flyers have been created for the kidney units to encourage patients, relatives and friends to join the Association. See what is available at a glance here.
November 2009:
Sources and Distribution of Finances - year ending 30th June 2009.
November 2009:
Dr Phil Mason has taken over from Dr Chris Winearls as the Clinical Director, Oxford Renal Unit.
20 September 2009:
Annual subscriptions are now due for renewal and it is now possible to set up a standing order. Payments by standing order reduce the workload on our secretary and are most welcome. Standing Order mandates must be for at least £5.00. If you prefer to pay annually please complete this form and send along with your payment.
The membership fee remains at just £1, however we do hope that people will contribute more than this. The cost of printing Viva! quarterly costs more than £5.
21 July 2009:
With all the news about the swine flu pandemic you may be concerned about how it affects you as a kidney patient.
Here are two pdf documents:
one for dialysis patients and one for transplant patients.
If you have any further concerns you should contact your GP or the Churchill.
16 May 2009:
Places can now be booked at the SCKPA Summer Lunch and General Meeting. To be held on 14th June at the Oxford Spires Four Pillars Hotel in Oxford, the meeting will include a talk by Dr Chris Winnearls "Looking Back and Looking Forward".
The lunch costs £11.00 per person and to guarantee a place you should book by 5th June. A booking form is available in the latest (Summer 2009) issue of Viva! - your local branch should have a copy if you need to photocopy the form.
All are welcome and we look forward to seeing you!
4 May 2009:
As from midnight tonight the barrier-controlled patient car parks1 & 2 at the Churchill Hospital site will come into operation. Barrier-controlled means that patients and visitors pay when they are ready to leave and for the time they have been parked, rather than in advance.
6 March 2009:
You can now donate (and encourage others to do the same!) at Just Giving. It is very easy. Just click on the link below or on our Donating webpage.
Just one thing – please do NOT use this for your annual subscription or lottery subscription, as we shall lose track of your membership if you do.
Please continue to deal with these in the usual way - details on the website or in Viva!
12 January 2009:
The SCKPA lottery has been running since March 2008 and has so far raised a total of £552.50 for the SCKPA. Up to the end of December there had been three individual winners winning approximately £100 each.
There are currently about 30 people playing weekly. The more people who play the bigger the donation to SCKPA (and the prize fund!), so please do encourage your friends and relatives to buy a line a week for £1 - payments can be made by standing order and if you are making one payment on behalf of several people why not get them to save their £1 coins (and any other loose change) in a SCKPA change box.
Lottery tickets to complete plus the standing order form are available on the lottery page or printed in every copy of Viva!
12 November 2008: A book produced by Muriel Crecraft and Ian Mathie to raise funds for the SCKPA.
Available at SCKPA General and Branch meetings or from Committee members for £5.
Or by post for £5 (+70p postage) from:
Muriel Crecraft
4 Churchfield Lane,
Benson,
Oxon,
OX10 6SH
You can print a poster from here.
1 November 2008: Buying Christmas presents online?
Don't forget to do all your online Christmas shopping through EasyFundraising where a percentage of all your purchases can go to the SCKPA - you need to register with EasyFundraising, add Six Counties KPA as your chosen charity and go to your chosen retailer via the EasyFundraising webpage rather than going directly from a search engine or Favourites entry - full details:
http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/sixcountieskidneypa
10 October 2008: Pay for your lottery by standing order
A Standing Order Mandate is now available from the lottery page so that you don't forget to renew your entries and miss out on the chance of a win! And don't forget that the SCKPA wins every time by getting half of all ticket sales!
3 September 2008: Kidney Transplant feature on Meridian TV
A feature on Meridian's Thames Valley Tonight was about the first paired donor transplant to be carried out at the Churchill. There is also a short interview with Dr Harden.
To view the report visit here. The report should remain online for 3 months.
30 August 2008: 2008/2009 Subscription due.
Please complete the form in the back of Viva! or print and complete this form to subscribe to the SCKPA from September 2008 to August 2009. Membership costs just £1 for the year, but donations are very welcome! £5 covers the publication cost of 4 issues of VIVA!
plus NKF dues + Kidney Life Magazine.
11 August 2008: NKF Press Release
"The NKF is incensed by the decision of NICE to turn down the Kidney Cancer drugs. A campaign to fight this has
begun and NKF will be demanding an appeal in order to argue against the NICE decision.
Please approach your own MP about this dreadful decision. We are also requesting all interested parties to write to NICE immediately.
Our website www.kidney.org.uk seen by 200,000 people each year, now has this banner message scrolling across its homepage in pride of place - it says :
"NICE ( National Institute for Clinical Excellence ) have announced that they will not agree to the NHS funding the four latest drugs to those patients suffering Cancer of the Kidney (Bevacizumab, sorafenib, sunitinib and temsirolimus). THE NKF made a submission to NICE arguing that these drugs should be available - and will appeal against this decision. The NKF asks you to let NICE know your own views on this matter - please do this now. Write to "Renal Cell Carcinoma Appraisal", NICE, MidCity Place, 71 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6NA."
The National Kidney Federation represents 40,000 patients with End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF), and a further 3 million with some form of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). All these people have reason to fear for their future. This decision by NICE is barbaric, damaging and unacceptable – it is as if NICE have no regard for their lives. If the NHS looks to bank balances before treating patients then it has truly lost its way.
The NKF is mustering its troops.
Ray Mackey
Chairman – National Kidney Federation"
9 July 2008: SCKPA Lottery goes live!
Details of the newly announced SCKPA lottery are now available online and details will be in the next edition of Viva! with updates being put in the guestbook. Please check back weekly to see how your entries are doing!
8 July 2008: New easy ways to raise funds for SCKPA!
Shop Online and Raise Funds
easyfundraising is a shopping directory listing some of your favourite online stores including Amazon, NEXT, Debenhams, John Lewis, Toys R Us, HMV and over 500 others. Just use the links on the easyfundraising site whenever you shop online and, at no extra cost to you, we'll receive a free donation of up to 15% from every purchase you make. It really is that simple!
It’s completely FREE to register and you won’t pay a penny more for your shopping when you use the easyfundraising site. If you shop online anyway then why not raise valuable extra funds for us by using this fantastic scheme. All you need to do is visit http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/sixcountieskidneypa and when you register, select Six Counties Kidney Patients Association as the organisation you wish to support.
Search the Web and Raise Funds
When you search the Web with easysearch, you’ll raise funds for us with every search you make! It’s completely free to use and if you make just 10 searches a day, you could raise £20-£25 a year - or more - for us, just by switching to easysearch. Easysearch combines the strengths of several search providers together - Yahoo!, MSN Live Search, Ask.com and many more.
Check out our unique easysearch page at http://sixcountieskidneypa.easysearch.org.uk and use it every time you search the Web OR make the SCKPA frontpage your home page and use the search box on there so that you can keep up to date with SCKPA news too!
3 July 2008: Churchill Kidney Transplants covered by Thames Valley Tonight
As part of the NHS at 60 series, Meridian TV's Thames Valley Tonight covers the stories of two families who have been involved in living donor kidney transplants recently at The Churchill.
View the reports online (for 3 months): Part 1 & Part 2 . You may need to change the setting to suit your network connection.
19 June 2008: Six Counties website is launched!
Any additions, comments, suggestions are appreciated. These may be for the main SCKPA website or for any of the branch association sites. Submissions can be passed to your local branch representative or given directly to the webmaster, Belinda Robinson, who attends Swindon Unit for regular clinics.
Emailed content direct to Belinda is always welcome!
Any submissions may also be added to Viva!
10 Jan 2008: If you forgot to renew your subscription using the form in the last issue of VIVA! please renew or join us using this form. This membership will cover you to August 2008.
Membership costs just £1 but a donation of £5 covers the publication of 4 issues of VIVA!
plus NKF dues + Kidney Life Magazine.