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The Healing Journey
Don’t miss Celebrity Cash in the Attic featuring Susannah York on BBC2 on Monday 8th February at 4.30pm.
Susannah, a Patron of the Centre for many years, nominated us to benefit from some of the auction items she donated. The programme is expected to include footage about the Centre's work and we are extremely grateful to Susannah for her wonderful support, all the staff who were involved with organising the filming and to all the fantastic service users and volunteers who took part in the filming for us.
The 1975 Putney String Orchestra is hosting a Knitting Concert on Sunday 28th February from 7pm – 8pm with a retiring collection in support of the Centre.
The concert will take place at All Saints Church in Putney featuring music from Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi. The concert lasts one hour, entrance is free and there is free wine or juice.
All Saints Church is on Putney Common and is a beautiful church with its William Morris ceiling and Edward Burne-Jones stained glass windows.
Audiences are invited to bring something quiet to do whilst they listen if they want to - so if you would like to read, draw, knit, finish the crossword please do so. Children are welcome.
This should be a lovely evening so please invite all your friends to offer their support.
[Cars can be parked on Lower Common South, Egliston Road. Sefton Street and Pentlow Street, all less than a 5 minute walk to the church.]
Whole
Foods kindly agreed to host a 5% day at their Clapham Junction Store on Saturday
16th January, which means they donated 5% of their days takings
on the day to us.
Despite fears of a quiet day due to the weather, the event was a great success, providing a fantastic opportunity for our wonderful volunteers to engage with customers about our work.
We would like to thank Whole Foods, their staff and customers for their generous support and enthusiasm for our work with this event and to all the Centre volunteers and staff members who took part.
Our Qigong class will operate in a different way from January 2010. The first hour - from 10.30-11.30am - will be a general class for all levels, and all will be welcome in the usual way.
The second hour - from 11.35am-12.30 pm - will be a more advanced class, with the emphasis on developing forms that can be practiced at home including aspects of tai chi. It will focus on standing positions and the Five Animal Frolics, a pleasurable set of exercises with many health benefits.
The second half will be bookable and payable on a six–week basis. The cost for this will be: £30 (with a concessionary rate of £15). Please speak to one of our Support Officers on 020 7924 3924 to register your interest for the course programme.
We were very pleased to put on a Made for Life event at the Centre on 11th December.
It was organised in conjunction with Spiezia Organics from Cornwall and the Made for Life Foundation, and provided women who have been diagnosed or are recovering from cancer with an afternoon of complementary treatments, makeovers, hair and wig styling and medical tattooing advice.
There were four types of mini-treatments:
It was a relaxing and friendly afternoon, and everyone had a very enjoyable time.
We put on our first Meditation and Mindfulness course in November 2009. Mindfulness meditation can be a very effective way for people with cancer and their family members to deal with stress and feel more in control of their life.
Some of the benefits that mindfulness meditators report include:
This special course allowed participants to learn meditation and mindfulness with a smaller time commitment than the usual eight-week format typically taught.
The course leaders were Gary Born and Sud Ubayasiri, who are both experienced meditators as well as qualified meditation teachers.
For more information about mindfulness and the course, please read this article.
Please sign up to our newsletter to be notified of future courses.
The Centre was very grateful to have received £10,000 as a joint beneficiary of the 2009 Hacks vs Flaks Cricket Match.
Hacks vs Flaks raises money for charitable causes by organising ‘friendly’ sporting events between business journalists (hacks) and financial PR consultants (flaks). Since its foundation in 2005, the organisation has raised over £168,000 for a number of worthwhile charities.
The match was held on 13th September in the stunning surroundings of Burton’s Court Cricket Ground in Chelsea. There will be a raffle and a former Test player will present the prizes at the end of the day.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the day and to Nick Clark of The Independent for putting our name forward.
On
19th November 2008, the Centre held a fundraising concert
at St. James's Church, Piccadilly to celebrate both the Centre's 25th
Anniversary and the life of Heather Christie Smith, who worked at the
Centre for many years.
Joanna MacGregor, the world-renowned pianist, played Bach and Shostakovich in the first half and was joined in the second half by the much-respected tabla player and percussionist Kuljit Bhamra.
The programme notes and musician biographies can be read here.
The quality of the musicians was stunning and everyone who went has been saying what a magical evening it was.
The evening was hosted by Professor Karol Sikora, our President, and Comfort Mante, a Centre client, gave a very moving speech during the interval.
We received over £10,000 through ticket sales and concert donations.
Our very grateful thanks to Joanna MacGregor and Kuljit Bhamra, and to everyone who helped to organise the concert.
Robert Maycock from The Independent reviewed the concert and his
review appears here.
In November 2008 we produced a film about the Centre to introduce our work to potential clients and others, helped by the Media Trust charity
It features interviews with Centre clients about the benefits they've gained from the Centre. It also has interviews with Honor, one of our Support Officers; Stephan, our Shiatsu practitioner; Gillian, a Home Visiting volunteer; and Professor Karol Sikora, the Centre's President.
(To view the video, you will need to have Flash Player installed on your browser. Click here to download it. You can also see the video on the YouTube website.)
The
Centre was officially renamed the Paul D’Auria Cancer
Support Centre on Monday 29th September 2008 to coincide with
our official 25th anniversary.
We are naming the Centre after Paul D’Auria, a long standing and greatly loved Centre member who died in 2006 and intend the Centre’s new name to symbolise Paul’s courage, determination and support for others which inspired and amazed colleagues, friends and medical professionals.
When Paul learnt in 1991 that his thymona was incurable, he explored every possible avenue for staying well, and defied all expectations to live for another 15 years.
Professor Ian Smith (Medical Oncologist, the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust) said:
"Again and again in the notes recorded by different doctors, you would see the words ‘extraordinary’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘delightful’.
"He taught a whole generation of younger doctors to listen to what the patient thinks. Of all the patients I’ve known, there are one or two I’ll never forget – and Paul is one of those."
We are honoured that Caroline, Charlie and Rowan D’Auria have agreed to our renaming the Centre after Paul.
Caroline said: "It’s a fantastic tribute to a very brave man. ‘Keep pedalling’ was his motto, and he did."
The
African Caribbean Support group organised an outing for members and
supporters to
a new play by playwright, novelist and poet, Benjamin Zephaniah,
specially commissioned by The Prostate Cancer Charity to raise awareness
of prostate cancer within the African Caribbean community.
Launched on 5th March at the Hackney Empire, De Botty Business, so called after the rectal examination used to investigate prostate enlargement, is a hilarious comedy set in a barber's shop. It’s about a man facing the possibility of being tested for prostate cancer and tries to dispel cultural fears, myths and taboos about the disease.
African Caribbean men are three times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men and Benjamin Zephaniah, speaking after the performance said: “The most important thing I’ve learned about prostate cancer is not to remain ignorant about it.”
On 31st July 2007, the Guardian published an article by our Director, Petra Griffiths, which discussed the benefits that self-help can give to people with cancer. It was written in response to an article by Barbara Ehrenreich which had dismissed self-help methods.
The research that Petra quotes in her article comes from the Healing Journey programme, an exciting Canadian project for people with cancer that the Centre has introduced to the UK.
Petra Griffiths, the Centre Director, gave a talk to the National Conference of Cancer Self-Help Groups on the key to quality of life, based on the experience of our members and the reflections of our practitioners.
Addressing the 21st anniversary conference theme of 'the key', Petra observed that "the key is a process with many interconnected levels that each person journeys through at their own pace and in their idiosyncratic way, rather than a magic bullet that opens the door to quality of life for all."
She illustrated nine themes representing approaches that people may find contributes to their wellbeing, including 'Addressing Stressors', 'Human Beings not Human Doings', 'Listening to Ourselves', 'Taking Responsibility' and 'Giving Something Back'.
Petra’s talk was well received and can be viewed in full at www.pauldauriacentre.org.uk/pgspeech.html.
If you use the internet, why not make www.everyclick.org.uk your homepage.
Every time you do an internet search from the site, you will be generating a donation to the Centre at no cost to yourself.
What could be easier?