Next Meeting: Monday 17th September 2012 at 6.30pm

Our next Group meeting will be on Monday 17th September at The Oxford Golf Club (formerly Southfield Golf Club) adjacent to the Churchill, starting at 6.30pm for 7pm. Rose will also be at this meeting and there will be a talk given by Vicky Smith about the Sue Ryder Organisation. At least one of our members has been involved with them at Nettlebed and speaks very highly of them. The talk will be followed by the usual get together for a 'chat' and a cup of tea (or something from the Bar). There will also be the usual raffle to cover the cost of room hire etc.

A further meeting has been booked for Monday 29th October (subject to be decided - any suggestions?) and another skittles evening will be held in December. Mr Brewster has kindly agreed to come and talk to us in the New Year. At our last meeting it was suggested that any member, who wished to, could tell us their 'story' in five minutes - it turned out to be very successful - any volunteers?

Prostate Cancer UK
I mentioned in the last newsletter that there were changes under way in the organisation of The Prostate Cancer Charity - now called Prostate Cancer UK. This is the principal Prostate Cancer Group in the UK with funds running into several millions of pounds. The vast majority of money raised for 'Prostate Cancer' goes to them (London Marathon, Movember etc). At present, they do not fund our Federation - we do receive some funds from Prostate Action, but they have now been 'incorporated' into PCUK. As I mentioned last time, there will be more to come on this.

We are also revising most of our posters and literature necessitated by the above changes and also to put emphasis on help as well as awareness. We continue to get more members, mainly by information they receive from Rose and Jane and we are making some improvements to this.

Awareness Events
We have had a very busy time during the "summer", particularly in the last few weeks. We have had awareness events at various Point to Point meetings, Uffington Show, Finmere Show and Oxford United Fun Day. We also had a fund raising day at Oxford United and raised money with a 'Guess the weight of the boat' (a radio controlled boat - not a cruiser). All of these were organised by John Goldsmith with the help of several member volunteers - thank you to all of them. A novel fund raising idea from John's brother in law was on his 'special' birthday he asked for donations to our Group rather than presents with an excellent result.

We have applied for registration as a Charity and have contacted HMRC regarding our funding as required by law. We are in the process of setting up a 'Help Line' for anyone who wishes to contact us.

I look forward to seeing you on the 17th September.

George Goldsmith
Secretary
Oxfordshire Prostate Cancer Support Group