Liverpool Group

Changes to CHICS Committee:
Chair: CATHY BICKERSTAFF and Secretary: ELAINE LANG have stepped down due to personal reasons. All at CHICS would like to thank Cathy and Elaine for all their hard work and support.

Meetings:
Meetings are normally held the second Tuesday of each month at 8.00pm at Ronald McDonald House. Everyone is welcome, it is informal and very friendly, so why not give it a try. The next get together at Ronald MacDonald House will be on the 14th February at 8pm as usual.

Teenagers:
Teenagers meet on the first Thursday of each month (contact the CHICS office on 0151 523 8886 for details). If any of your children (patient or siblings) are over 13, they are eligible to join the teenage section of CHICS. The emphasis is on fun and being with children who find themselves in similar circumstances.

We are thinking of having a couple of outings a year for our 10-12 year olds. Maybe to the cinema or bowling and then for a meal. They would be supervised by CRB checked adults and would give them a chance to get to know each other. If you have a child in this age group and think they may be interested attending then please call the office and leave their names.

What Do You Want?
We at CHICS would really like to know what you would like to see the committee offering by way of support. Would you please phone Linda with your suggestions. We are a family support group and we would love to develop this role even further. We are looking at inviting speakers along to the meetings to give practical help and advice on anything you would like. So please think about it and ring Linda with any idea, it would be great to build up the attendance of the meetings.

Newsletter:
If you would like to receive your monthly CHICS newsletter by e-mail as opposed to "snail" mail, please send an e-mail to Eddie requesting this (eddie.chics@blueyonder.co.uk). Not only will this save CHICS money but also barring accidents your letter should never be delayed by the post.

**Echo Wish Tokens"":
If you get The Liverpool Echo you will probably already know that CHICS won the wish token collection bagging a fabulous £5,000. A very big Thank You to everyone who collected the tokens we really appreciate the effort. We had a total of approximately 127,000 tokens which is absolutely amazing.

Collection Boxes:
CHICS finally now have a supply of collection boxes. We are requesting member's to go in to their local shops and ask if they can leave a box to be filled. If you can place a box please contact Eddie at the CHICS office.

Calling All Volunteers:
We are trying to put together a list of people who are willing to volunteer for CHICS events such as fundraising, manning stalls, bag-packing, helping out at social events, etc. Please call office if you wish to go on list.

Items for Sale:
We have received our new stock items for sale and these include some great pencils at just 50p each, pens at 65p each, note pads with a pen at the side £1 each and our mugs with CHICS logo on at £1.50 each. If you would like to purchase any of the items or you think you could sell them at school, work etc. Please contact the office and we will send out the goods. Payment will be required on receipt of your order.

Wristbands:
You cannot fail to have noticed how the wrist bands, started by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise money for Cancer Charities have taken the nation by storm. So we thought we would have our very own CHICS band done. What we need now are our members to sell as many as they can, if you are able to do this ring the office and we will get these out to you.

Direct Debit:
Most of you will have seen adverts on TV asking you to donate a minimum of £2 a month for a particular charity. Well we would like to do the same for CHICS so if any of you could consider setting up a monthly direct debit to go to the charity could you please phone JUDY. This could provide the charity with a regular monthly income to enable us to do even more work with our families.

Eddie's Day Off:
Due to Eddie's new work contract, Tuesdays are now to be his day off. It would be greatly appreciated if all phone enquiries could be directed to the office. If you need to contact anyone urgently please phone any of the committee members.

Also, could I point out that the messages left on the office answer machines are picked up EVERY day, so unless it’s a real emergency could we ask you not to ring Eddie at home, leave a message on the phone and we will get back to you.

Trips - Get More Involved With CHICS:
Give us your ideas. Have any of you had a great day out this year? Would you recommend it to others? Well we would love to hear from you. We are constantly on the look out for places to go. As you can appreciate CHICS has visited many places over the years, but we are constantly looking for fresh ideas so please start thinking and phone the office with your ideas. Or better still come a long to a meeting.

Request to Parents:
Do we have any parents who are willing to be CRB checked? This is because we sometimes require individuals to supervise children on route to holidays, day trips, holidays etc. If you are willing please call office.

Bereavement Group:
We are looking to resume the Liverpool section bereavement group. If you are interested in attending, please contact the office.

Bereavement Book:
CHICS have a bereavement book which is kept in the Alder Centre. If anyone requires a form to place an entry in the book, please contact Judy.

Just Giving Web Page:
CHICS now have a page on Just Giving (www.justgiving.com). If you are thinking of donating to CHICS online you can do it via this site, or it can be used to sponsor anybody who is taking part in a sponsored event for CHICS.

To view example of this visit www.justgiving.com/Helen-Lodge who is running the Liverpool Half Marathon on behalf of our group.

THANK YOU:
We would like to say a very big THANK YOU to Owen’s Dad, Paul Rimmer for organising a charity night on Good Friday and the children’s fun day on Easter Sunday he raised a whopping £1200 for CHICS. Well done Paul what a fantastic effort and a great boost to our funds.

We would also like to say a massive Thank You to Broghan White’s mum Gemma for her fundraising efforts. The charity night raised a whopping £5000 (plus what is on the Just Giving website) for CHICS which is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for your efforts we really appreciate it.

Holidays on offer. Patient and siblings only, No Parents.

Barretstown, Ireland.

June 26th to July 3rd Patients only age 7-13.

July 19th to July 26th Patients only age 14-17.

July 31st to August 7thPatients only age 7-13.

August 13th to August 20th Patients only age 7-13.

July 9th to July 15th SIBLINGS only age 7-14.

Over The Wall, Dorset.

April 7th to April 11th SIBLINGS only age 8-17.

August 5th to August 10th Patients only age 8-17.

For more information please contact Eddie Hincks at CHICS, Children’s Cancer Support Group. Office: 0151 523 8886 - eddie.chics@blueyonder.co.uk

Remember CHICS is here to give you and your family support - we are only a phone call away.