President’s message 2018

Dear Members

I can hardly believe that I am writing this letter to you to wish you a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year, as it seems like only yesterday I was writing one at the end of 2017.

For Cancer Support Haute-Vienne, it has been a much quieter year than we have experienced before. We have had a number of enquiries and most of them have been quite complicated but we have not had the volume we have had in previous years.

The year started with an ITC shared with CS Duex Sevres and we gained two new Active Listeners. One of which has now left us as he has moved to Toulouse and we wish him every success in his new adventure.

At our AGM in March our treasurer told us our association was poor and needed to look at serious fund raising for 2018. People stepped up to the challenge and there were a number of events throughout the year for which the Bureau is very grateful to all involved.

We also embarked on our biggest fund raise – our calendars for 2019! With the support of etcetera magazine we ran a competition from January until the end of May of photos of rural France across the several departments the magazine covers.
A committee then selected the best dozen photos with one over all winner from the nearly 200 photos submitted, to go in the calendar. Richard did the design (with Gayle proof reading) and organised the printing of 500 copies with a printer in Devon. The result is super and I think everyone who bought one has been pleased. We have had a very positive feedback. As I write this email to you, we have covered our costs and are now into profit. So if you know anyone who has not bought the calendar, please point them to our website and persuade them to buy one or look in December’s etcetera for the outlets who are selling copies on our behalf and therefore not incur any postage costs.

As we look forward to 2019 we are planning our AGM for Wednesday 6 March. Our patron, Dr Cornelia Wilson is our guest speaker again, as there were travel disruptions this year and she never got to the hall for the last AGM.

I would like to thank you for the support that you give our association. I hope that you will all re-join for 2019 when Karen sends out your subscription renewals. Without your support we could not do what we do and so I wish you a very Happy Christmas and a very peaceful New Year. And look forward to seeing you at the various events for our association over the coming year.

With all good wishes

Sue

Sue Ware
President
Cancer Support Haute-Vienne

16 December 2018