Our AGM also marked our first birthday so we celebrated with wine and a fabulous cake by our very own superstar baker Sara Lawrence. We had lots of ‘business’ to attend to but the meeting was still well attended and what could have been very dry was actually a warm and chatty social evening. I’m not going to bore you with all the details but here are the bits you might want to know. We are solvent! Amanda is re-elected as our president and we have a new committee of ten.

Campaigns
As a group we discussed and voted in favour of the 2015 Annual Meeting resolution which Failing to care – assessment of need in long term care. The resolution is specifically about continuing care which is funded by the NHS and gives free long term care to people with complex and ongoing healthcare needs requiring full time care. It is about making it simpler for people to access this package and looking at the assessment criteria to make the process fairer. It opened up a much larger discussion about the state of social care in the UK and the combination of NHS and social care into one body.

We have decided to support a local charity and Sara and Jacquie have done a lot research – presenting us with various options over the last few meetings. We voted on Age UK (East London), Headway (East London), NIA, CARIS and Dalston Curve Garden –  details of all of them can be found on our campaigns page HERE. The winner was the women’s aid charity NIA.

Sara also drew our attention to two things we might like to get involved with on a personal level. Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and there is A Pause/Mindfulness event at Dalston Curve Garden on 13th May (click here for details).

This is followed by Dementia Awareness week and the campaign to educate people about dementia through the Alzheimers Society becoming a dementia friend programme (click here for details).

Fun stuff
Jacqui James has organised for us to have a private view of local gardens who are part of the National Gardens Scheme on Monday evening, 1st June – (click here for details and to book).

There are a lots of local and london-wide events, competitions and  centenary celebrations listed on our Around de Beauvoir, Federation and NFWI pages. If you want to find out about afternoon tea in the Crypt, picnics in Hyde Park, open air theatre in Perivale and a literature festival in the beautiful Abney Cemetery please check out these pages.

Needle Felting
Next month’s meeting is a practical session where we will learn about needle felting – and have a go ourselves! See you then.