St David's Hospice Newsletter 2012 Spring/Summer

The work begins…

sPring/sUMMer 2012 NEWSLETTERST DaviD’S HoSpicE

Dear Friends2012 has brought with it exciting times for St David’s Hospice, with the arrival on site of builders, Wynne construction

The plans to extend the building and enhance services are now becoming a reality, thanks to your on-going and loyal support.

We have planned for limited disruption to our services during the building phase of the development and will be maintaining both our day unit service and 10 operational beds in our inpatient unit.

our clinical services already come at a cost of £1.6 million per year, and with the addition of three extra beds and improved facilities this figure will steadily

rise and will have to be met through fundraising. We hope that you will continue to support us, as you have done over the last 12 years, by visiting our charity shops, joining our lottery or continuing with your magnificent and varied fundraising activities.

We named our development appeal ‘Helping Hands’ to reflect our commitment to care. You can still donate to it, if you would like to, and help us NoW. please Text hand 11 £5 to 70070 and your donation will go directly to caring for the people of North West Wales who need our help at a distressing time in their lives.Your pledge can make a real difference.That is our pledge to you.

Thank youGladys Harrison, Chairman

justgiving.com/helpinghands2012

www.stdavidshospice.org.uk

• Three additional bedrooms• All single-bedroom accommodation• enhanced education and training facilities

Please remember St David’s Hospice in your Will.Help the work live on …For further information, speak to your local solicitor or contact us. St David’s Hospice Legacy Giving leaflet is now available in hard copy or to download from our website.

in July last year, we were lucky enough to welcome astrologer and showbiz personality Russell Grant to our Summer Fete.

Russell proved to be a big hit with staff, volunteers and visitors at the Fete, where he opened the event, visited the various stalls and drew the raffle tickets. He was later whisked away to take part in Strictly come Dancing and is now performing in the West End show, the Wizard of oz.

Not having forgotten his visit to abbey Road, Llandudno, we are delighted that he has taken up the post as our newest charity patron.

Russell said: “i am proud to become a patron at St David’s. The Hospice movement in general and St David’s in particular, is

a cause very close to my heart. Living in Gwynedd and having visited the Hospice and seen first-hand the wonderful work St David’s does supporting patients and their families, i believe we need to give them all the help and support we can.” “Nobody knows when they might need the care of their local Hospice and i would encourage everybody to get behind it, get involved in whatever way you feel you can and keep it running. This way we can all support our community for many, many years to come.”

Middlesex-born stargazer Russell, 61, now lives in a country estate in Maentwrog, in the Snowdonian Hills and we look forward to welcoming him back to the Hospice in the future.

Our network of 10 charity shops, across North West Wales holds lots of delights for shoppers, at reasonable prices. Whether you need to pick up a quality piece of furniture, an ornament or some baby clothes, there is something to suit everyone.

Each purchase helps make a vital contribution to the running costs of your local adult Hospice. At our Upper Bangor shop, you can pick up an entire outfit for only £7 (tops £2, trousers £2 and jackets £3), including designer items so you can look good and feel good. Our volunteers, Bangor University students, Jermone, James and Lewis recently modelled some of the latest bargain designs available at the shop and what’s more, if you have a valid NUS student card, you can get an extra 10% off.

All of our shops are stocked thanks to your generous, good quality donations, so please keep them coming!

The Upper Bangor shop at 14 Holyhead Road is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10am until 4pm and Tuesday’s 10.30am until 4pm. Call 01248 355040 for further details.

To learn more about our shops, donating goods or volunteering your time, visit www.stdavidshospice.org.uk.

A WORD FROM RUSSELL GRANT

AT OUR HOSPiCE SHOPSDR£SS FOR L£SS

St David’s Hospice Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2012 St David’s Hospice Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2012

our fundraisers do great things for st David’s hospice including some gruelling challenges.

here are just three examples…n Sunday, May 27th

Open GardenBryn Eisteddfod, Glan conwy. 2- 5pm. plants, Teas & refreshments. adults £2.50 children 50p

n Monday, May 28th - Tuesday, June 5thJubilee – Wear a crown for a pound The local community is encouraged to wear a hospice jubilee crown whilst at work, in school to start off the Jubilee celebration weekend in style!

n Sunday, June 3rdBig Jubilee LunchJoin in the nation’s diamond jubilee celebrations and hold a lunch - Sunday roast, street party or picnic during the day designated as the Big Lunch. Holding a big lunch is a great way to bring your neighbours together for an afternoon of food, friendship and fun and to raise money for St David’s Hospice.

n Tuesday, June 4th ‘Jolly Jubilee Party’including a Jazz band on Llandudno pier

n Tuesday, June 12thCommunity Cinema - Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kidcraig y Don community centre, Queen’s Rd, Llandudno 2pm

n Saturday, June 30th Hospice Hoedown & Hog RoastMarl Farm, Llandudno Junction 7.30pm -12am. come along, dance, eat and have a foot tapping good night out! Entrance by advance ticket only £20.

n Tuesday, July 3rdCommunity Cinema - Singing in The Raincraig y Don community centre, Queen’s Rd, Llandudno 2pm

n Saturday, July 21st Summer Fete1pm – 4pm Fun for all the family. Stalls to include: bric-a-brac, books, cakes, home produce, toys, jigsaws, raffles, plants, costume jewellery, plus many more!

n Sunday, August 19thDawn Walkour ladies only, sponsored nine mile walk from conwy to Llandudno (return) starting at first light. Registration £15. choose to walk in memory of a loved one, or simply to show your support for the hospice.

n Saturday, August 25th -Duck Race, Conwy

n Friday, September 14th – 16th 2012’Giddy Goat’ Comedy Festival, Venue Cymru Big names in the world of comedy perform in aid of St David’s Hospice. See press, www.venuecymru.co.uk and www.giddygoat.org for details.

To learn more about these events visitwww.stdavidshospice.org.uk. To organise

your own event in the community, call the Fundraising Department on (01492) 873665.

FUnDrAising eVenTs 2012Inspired inspiring...&

Skydiving is a great challenge for all thrill seekers and Llandudno lady paula Jones took to the skies in memory of her mother, known fondly to friends at St David’s as the Butterfly Lady.

paula raised £900 for the Hospice, through the sky dive, and chose to fundraise after the care shown to her mother pamela Williams, who passed away last May at the Hospice with an aggressive form of Motor Neurone Disease.

Some people never walk the highest mountain in Wales…Snowdon, let alone run it. Geoff Fielding decided to go a step further still and run it an incredible 68 times in his 68th year! He has already completed a quarter of the runs, with his fastest in just 1 hour 52 minutes. Geoff, an experienced fell runner from Deganwy, has encountered heavy rain, snow and sunshine on his challenges so far and hopes to raise lots of money for St David’s.

www.justgiving.com/Geoff-Fielding

Dave Jones and alwyn Samuel volunteer at Llandudno radio station, Tudno FM. This March, they set a Guinness World Record for the longest live radio broadcast…80 hours of live radio, in aid of St David’s.

Dave tells his story…

“alwyn and myself met towards the end of September. after sitting in on a number of shows together at Tudno, we were talking about chris Moyles and his influences and alwyn mentioned he would love to have a go at the World Record (which Moyles broke in 2011). at this point i said “let’s do it” and before we knew it we’d applied, been accepted and cleared everything with oFcoM and insurance companies. St David’s Hospice is a charity that is well known throughout Llandudno and the surrounding areas and because it is such a great cause there was never any doubt that we would look to support St David’s. i also had another reason to support the Hospice as my friend passed away earlier this year and she was treated there.

Both alwyn and i felt the effects of no sleep. it is a crazy feeling, almost as if your mind shuts down for brief moments in time and you lose track of what you’re saying and doing. We both felt sick, delusional and had sore throats!

i think it is safe to say we both felt very emotional once it was completed, i think it was more to do with the fact that we were able to keep a live update on how much money we had raised for St David’s. To see we had gone past £1,000 when we were only expecting £100 was just a massive shock.”


i would like to join the hospice Lottery game.

q Send me a Standing order form.q Here is a cheque for £ ..........................q i want to pay cash at the door. Here is £4.

(certain areas only)q i pay £52 in one sum by Standing order -

send my Dewina to me.q i am paying £52 today - send my Dewina to me

Name: .........................................................................................

address: ....................................................................................

............................................. postcode: ....................................

Tel: ..............................................................................................

Email: ........................................................................................

The Health Lottery, owned by the media tycoon Richard Desmond, started its operations in October 2011 but it is important to point out that only 20.34p in every £1 is donated to good causes. This compares with 28p in the £1 from the National Lottery, and around 60p in the £1 from our Hospice Lottery.

Also, each of the 51 society lotteries which make up the Health Lottery is likely to be the recipient of funds for allocation of projects in their area only once or twice a year. At the time of writing (March 2012) no projects anywhere in North Wales have been funded by the Health Lottery!

Personally, i like to know exactly where my £1 is going, and how much of it actually ends up supporting my chosen local charity. 20p in the £ is just not good enough for me. if you’d like to join us for the first time, just complete the cut-out on this page. if you are already a player and would like to take out a second number, we would love to hear from you too!

Tom Williams, Lottery Co-ordinator

90 YeArs YoUngCafé Dewi was delighted to play host to a special birthday party a

few weeks ago. Regular visitor Mrs Patricia Jones celebrated her 90th

birthday with a gathering organised by long-time hospice supporter

Mrs Betty Mills, who was also 90 earlier this year.

The café is becoming more popular every day, with a wide variety of

freshly made sandwiches, cakes and hot food available – alongside

some of the finest coffee in town! All are welcome, but if you’re

bringing a large group, it’d be helpful if you let us know in advance.

Café Dewi is open Monday to Friday 10.00 – 4.00.

As well as being a warm and friendly place for friends of the hospice to meet, the café is now making

a real difference to our finances, with a profit of approximately £36 000, in 2011; 30% up on 2010.

YoU make our lottery the success that it is.

one day in 4 is paid for by lottery profits - let’s keep it that way

Many thanks to everyone who plays St David’s Hospice Lottery. it’s been a success story ever since our first draw in November 1997, and to date we have been able to pay over £5M to your Hospice. Last year was our best year ever, when we gave over £400,000 to the Hospice, money which is sorely needed as we offer outstanding end of life care to the people of North West Wales, free of all charges.

Since we started, the Lottery marketplace has become ever more crowded, and we are well used to fair competition from others.

One of the reasons we have recently written to many of our loyal members asking if you feel able to take out a second game number is that we are seeing a greater than usual level of cancellations and more and more are citing the economic climate as their reason for cancelling.

Society lotteries like ours cannot be run for private profit. Every penny of surplus raised by our Lottery goes straight to St David’s. We spend as little as possible on administration and prizes, and around 60p of every £1 raised is passed to the Hospice.


Amanda Dodd tells of the care her partner Nick received at St David’s and how the charity helped her and family come to terms with his illness.

“Nick was a weekly day care patient at St David’s after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. The hospice was somewhere Nick could ask questions about anything. The staff at the hospice are amazing people…caring, compassionate and understanding. They just know how you are feeling and give you that little smile as if to say ‘are you ok?’ i have to say, without their help i could not have got through that awful time.

i worked very long shifts but was always made welcome at the hospice. Nick was in and out for some time and there was always a smile to greet us. Nick didn’t like being alone at night and there was a bed available for me to stay over, which meant a lot.

To know a loved one is going to die is an awful situation and hard for many family members to take in. You always try and hold on to one last hope. i remember one night crying like i had never cried before and that was when it finally hit me that Nick was dying. A member of staff at the Hospice was there and just talked me through it and spoke to me like a friend. i will never forget that.

The word ‘hospice’ is a word i had never come across before my Nick was diagnosed with terminal cancer. All i wanted was for him to be pain free and die with his dignity, pride and respect. The staff at the Hospice helped make that happen.

Nick was in the hospice for a few months. He was really poorly and had to have surgery. The hospice worked closely with the hospital and always kept us updated.

Towards the end, Nick decided he wanted to go home for the final weeks of his life and to die in his own bed. Without the hospice, i would not have been able to do this. They sorted all his care needs out. My Nick died surrounded by his family on October 27th 2011. it was not an easy time for us and we all coped in our own way.

Since his death, as a family, we have done many fundraising events for St David’s and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Our Nick may not be around but without the help and support of the lovely people at the Hospice, we would never have come to terms with his illness. They need as much awareness and donations as possible to continue to do an amazing job for families like mine.”

A small group of loyal volunteers have worked tirelessly for over a decade and raised £40,000 for the Hospice through a weekly raffle.

The raffle takes place at the Queen’s Hotel every Wednesday from 8.30am, thanks to the kindness of management and staff at the venue on Llandudno Promenade.

in 2011 alone they have raised nearly £5000.

Two volunteers currently run the weekly fundraiser, Margaret Darling and Brenda Williams (who is also a volunteer at the Conwy shop).

Prizes are donated by items left over from the fetes/fairs, hospice shop items and also Margaret has been known to donate items herself.

THERE WAS ALWAYS A SMiLE


“i was invited to join the Board last year and was delighted to be of use! i am interested in our volunteers, who are an invaluable part of the community at the Hospice, and am looking forward to taking some role in that way. i am also on the income Generation Committee, so have become very aware of the fundraising we need to undertake. i am looking forward to seeing the building work completed.

i ran the Royal Cambrian Academy in Conwy for many years and before that, my own art gallery. i have been a Conwy town councillor for 17 years and was Mayor of Conwy when i came on to the Board. i have been involved in the Hospice since its early days, on a fundraising committee some years before the building was built.”

Vicky qualified as a teacher before taking a Sociology degree and postgraduate degree in History of Art. This saw her set up her own gallery and later become Curator at the Royal Cambrian. She has been a councillor for years and enjoys playing bridge, going to the gym and taking art classes in her spare time. She has always lived in Deganwy and went to school at St Winifred’s in Llanfairfechan. Vicky has two children, Martin and Rosy.

Trustee SpotlightVicky Macdonald

in this edition of the hospice newsletter, we meet our latest addition to the board of Trustees, Vicky Macdonald.

Dying Matters is a national coalition of more than 15,000 members, which aims to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards death, dying and bereavement.

This year, May 14-20th was Dying Matters Awareness Week and the aim was to encourage people to talk openly about death and dying, so that ‘living and dying well’ becomes the norm and there is open discussion about the natural part of everybody’s life cycle.

in 2009, the National Council for Palliative Care (NCPC) set up the Dying Matters Coalition. Our lack of openness about death has affected the quality and range of support and care services available to patients and families. it has also affected our ability to die where or how we would wish.

St David’s Hospice plays its part in the movement to encourage people to talk about their wishes towards the end of their lives and raise awareness about what the Hospice can offer to patients with a life-limiting illness.

The Dying Matters website also helps start conversation about where people want to die and their funeral plans with friends, family and loved ones.

For information about the Dying Matters campaign,visit www.dyingmatters.org.

To learn more about the clinical services available at st David’s,call (01492) 879058 or speak to your gP.

L3/10.10/WEB

1

Someone close to you has been bereavedA parent, brother, sister or other relation, or a friend perhaps. You may have been close to the person who has died too, but you’re aware that the loss has hit the other person hard. What do you do and say? It’s sometimes hard to know - people who have been bereaved often don’t cry out for help, even if they sometimes feel like it.

#3How to help someone close to you who has been bereaved

I could

do with

a chat...To find out how to get more help visit: www.dyingmatters.orgor call freephone 08000 21 44 66

The National Council for Palliative Care (NCPC) is the umbrella charity for all those who are involved in providing, commissioning and using palliative care and hospice services in England, Wales & Northern Ireland.

Registered Charity no.1005671

This is number three in a series of leaflets focusing on dying, death and bereavement produced by Dying Matters.

“I didn’t know what to think when

my partner died. I couldn’t make

sense of anything. But when

people wanted to be with me,

or listened to me, at least I didn’t

feel I was going mad”

SMALL ACTiONS, BiG DiFFERENCE

DATA ProTecTion PoLicYSt David’s Hospice and its lottery company St David’s promotions Ltd. are registered under the Data protection act 1998. The Hospice does not pass personal data to any other organisations but may wish to keep you informed of Hospice news and activities.

Become a fan of St David’s on Facebook:

Facebook.com/hosbisdewisant

Follow us on:twitter.com/StDavidsHospice

www.everyclick.com/stdavidshospice Use everyclick as your search engine

to raise funds for St David’s

visit our website www.stdavidshospice.org.uk

for all the latest news.

if you do not wish to receive this information, contact:St David’s Hospice. abbey Road, Llandudno, conwy LL30 2EN.

Email: [email protected] www.stdavidshospice.org.ukTelephone: 01492 879058 Fax: 01492 872081

Registered Charity No. 1038543

St David’s Hospice Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2012

St David's Hospice Newsletter 2012 Spring/Summer

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Transcript of St David's Hospice Newsletter 2012 Spring/Summer