AGM and Tea Party for The Hypermobility Syndromes Association

On Monday 30th June we held our Annual General Meeting, and voted in our new Committee.

I am pleased to annouce the following new committee members:

Natalie Hicks as Chair

Julia Kennedy as Vice Chair

Sara Wall as Secretary

Paula Farrimond as Acting Treasurer

Marion Edwards as Treasurer once she is a full member

Christine Banks

Christine Gregg

Jennifer Livesey-Halliday

Jo Fisher

Lorrayne Moon

All as Committee Members

Paula made some beautiful flower arrangements and some sandwiches and Natalie and Sara made cakes and desserts for donations. We raised £30 in total for HMSA. Thank you ladies!

Chorley Carnival have named us, along with Blood Bikes NW, Cash for Kids and Legacy Rainbow House as the charities to benefit for Chorley Canrival 2014.

This has been an honour for us, and we were delighted to be named. To thank the Carnival for supporting us, and also to raise the profile of our group, we decided to have a float for the carnival.

Initally we were offered a vintage 1950s bus by a kind vintage vehicle owner, who also has wedding vehicles. Due to unforseen circumstances, the bus was not suitable, so Steve kindly drove us in his beautiful vintage Daimler Limousine, which was perfect for 7 of us. Unfortunately a few members could not join us.

The rain came down hard, but it did not stop the tenacious people of Chorley. The parade route was busy, and we had very sor wrists the next day from all of the waving!

Our patron also had a vehicle in the parade, and her family and friends also wore our sashes to show support for us.

We had a really fun time! We were dressed in 1950s clothes and we were kindly sponsored by Chorley Auto Volk and Creative Design, who paid for our banners.

Our Patron, Dani and her friends and family, all carried on collecting for us on the carnival field, by asking for donations for a photo with the Rhythmicaility minion.

As soon as we have the totals for the amounts raised by Dani and Rhythmicatlity, and Chorley Carnival, we will update this post.

On Saturday night, our fantastic Patron, Dani Smith arranged a Charity night, with our help, to raise money for us, and Kidneys for Life.

Jon Brindley played 2 wonderful sets, we had a huge raffle, spanning 3 nights, Rock n Roll Bingo, a sweet stall and candy floss, provided by www.sweetshop.eu, a cupcake stall, a huge auction, DJ - it was huge!

The total raised was £2,000 which was split between the 2 charities. We are currently waiting for £20 from www.sweetshop.eu as a donation to bring our group's total upto the £1,000 mark.

Prizes were provided by Chorley FC, Chelsea FC, Longchamps, Karen Berry Photography, Chorley Autovolk, Sala Hair, The Rose and Crown, www.sweetshop.eu and members of our group.

Welcome to our new look website!

It has taken us some time to finally get a more user-friendly website and we finally have one! Wayhay!

We have quite a bit of news since we last made a blog post - which was quite some time ago -

- we are now a HMSA support group, supporting people with hypermobility syndromes.

- we have been selected as one of the 2 charities for Chorley Carnival 2014 - we are looking for volunteers for our carnival committee, and people to be in our carnival float (don't worry it will be a vintage 1950s bus).

- we have taken on the region of Preston aswell as Chorley.

- we offer subsidised Hydrotherapy to our members at Bolton Jubilee Pool.

- we offer free yoga / relaxation to our members at our meeting venue in Leyland.

- we have regular coffee afternoon meetings which alternate between Preston and Chorley.

We have been busy bees!!! This does not include the events such as:

Rose and Crown raising £1500 for us, Chorley and Leyland Health Melas, Chorley Disability Awareness Reach Day.

We have the Preston Health Mela up and coming soon, and Natalie will be attending the BSR conference with HMSA.