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Midlands Conference 2008
The 2008 British Lung Foundation Midlands Regional Conference took place on Thursday 25th September, at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham. British Lung Foundation staff, speakers and delegates from across the region gathered for the annual event, which this year had the theme ‘Taking Control of your Lung Health with the BLF’.
During the morning session delegates heard from Dame Helena Shovelton, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation, who gave information on the British Lung Foundation’s current and planned activities, and Ian Jarrold, Director of Research, who spoke about the BLF’s research projects. There were also speakers from both Nottinghamshire PCT and Breathe Easy Nottingham, who gave information on user involvement from a professional and patient perspective respectively.
After a lunch break and time for the delegates to visit the exhibition stands, the afternoon workshops sessions got underway. Delegates chose two 40 minute sessions to attend from Taking Control with your GP with Sandy Walmsley from Solihull PCT, Taking Control of your Medication with Anna Murphy from University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. , Taking Control of Your Breathing with Alison Hartley from Heart of Birmingham PCT, and Confused@COPD.com – Making Sense of COPD with Chris Loveridge from Education for Health. All four workshops were very popular, and we’d like to thank the workshop facilitators for their time. 
The conference finished with the announcement of the winners of the 2007-2008 Breath of Fresh Air Awards. Jeremy Bacon, Midlands Support & Development manager for the British Lung Foundation presented the winners with their certificates. The Midlands team were particularly pleased to announce that Alison Sutherland, who won the regional award for Outstanding Healthcare in the Community, also won the national award in the same category.
This was the new Midlands team’s first conference and it was a successful day; feedback from the evaluation forms was very positive. To quote one of the attendees “To describe how I enjoyed the conference…well, I didn’t want it to finish, I really did enjoy it. On my way home I really did think that my glass was half full – thank you very much”. The Midlands team hopes to build on this success with an even bigger, better conference next year – we look forward to seeing you there.
Breathe Easy Week 2008
Once again the Breathe Easy Support Network here in the Midlands region has been very busy for Breathe Easy Week 2008.Many thanks to all of the groups who let us know what you were up to during the week and to those who forwarded on the photos of your events.
There were a number of Information Stands and Tombolas held at hospitals around the region, including, Warwick and District, Ross on Wye, Bassetlaw, Dudley, Ilkeston and Sutton Coldfield.
The Midlands Office is very pleased to announce the BE Hereford held their official group launch during BE Week this year. Jeremy Bacon, Support and Development Manager for the BLF attended, along with local actress and TV star Emma Stansfield (pictured left) and Dr Aled Phillips.
Some of the other events held in the region included a Beer and Skittles evening, hosted by BE Solihull. BE Birmingham South visited a local primary school and BE Stafford and BE Cannock and Stafford held their annual garden party. A number of groups also put on Awareness Stands and collections at venues such as Trentham Gardens in North Staffordshire, Arnold Carnival in North Nottingham, the Cornerstone at Clifton in South Nottingham and outside Sainsbury’s in Bourne, Lincolnshire. BE Nottingham were at Wheatcrofts
Garden Centre and in St. Peters Square, Central Nottingham.
