Brain-storming session planned for support group

7:34pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A PUBLIC meeting is to take place at the Talbot Hotel in Ledbury, in a bid to set up a lively St Michael's Hospice support group for the area.

The brain-storming session will take place on Wednesday, June 11 at 7pm, and the move comes as the charity looks towards celebrating its silver anniversary in 2009.

Once up and running, the Ledbury team will have the task of organising local fund-raising events.

The Hospice needs to raise over £3.6m a year just to stay open and it relies heavily on community support.

But although there is a busy St Michael's Hospice shop in the Homend, the nearest existing support groups are to be found at Malvern, Hanley Swan and Bromyard.

The charity's communications officer, Anika Backhouse said: "Ledbury and its surrounding area is under-represented in relation to Hospice events and activities.

"Support groups help us by holding regular events such as coffee mornings, craft fairs and musical evenings."

She added: "The shop in Ledbury knows what is happening and the work of the group will not infiltrate what the shop does."

The Ledbury group will be basically self-contained concerning how it fund-raises and how many fund-raising activities its plans every year.

Ideally the charity is looking for up to six or more volunteers for the group.

This is the size of the Bromyard team.

But the Ledbury fund-raisers could start from a smaller base.

The Tenbury Wells group only has two fund-raisers.

Anyone seeking further information should phone Annie Ransome, the Hospice's events and community fund-raising assistant, on 01432 851000.