Network MESH (West London)

Registered Charity Number 1099950

Mission Statement: "To provide mutual support and information to individuals and their families affected by ME/CFS within the West London area."


About Ourselves

Network MESH is a thriving ME self-help group covering West London. We were established in the late 1980s and have grown significantly over the last ten years. We currently have around 150 members, most of whom live in the West London area. In October 2003 we became a Registered Charity.

We are an independent self-help group, which means we are not directly affiliated to either of the national associations, namely The ME Association or Action for ME, but members of these organisations are welcome to join our group, and vice versa.

We hold regular meetings, which are friendly and informal, where members can meet in a relaxed, non-judgmental atmosphere with other members to discuss any aspect of the illness or approaches to coping with the illness. Occasionally we also have outside guest speakers. We also send out a newsletter to our members 4 times a year, covering various aspects of the illness and local issues relating to it. We feel this is a service for everyone but it is especially important for the many members who are too ill to come to our meetings. Whenever we have sufficient able-bodied people, we organise fund raising events such as stalls and bring and buy sales, which supplement group funds, and helps us increase the level of services available to our members.

We have our own library, which consists of a wide range of health-related books and audiotapes, which are posted to members on request.

We hold a regular committee meeting, which we call the Ideas Forum, which all members are welcome to attend where we discuss ways of expanding our profile, and ways in which we can offer greater support to our members, particularly those who are severely affected.

We aim to be a positive, uplifting and informative group, providing ongoing support to sufferers and their carers alike. As a result, many of us have made new friends through joining the group and find support and understanding of such a group to be of great help in coping with this most isolating of illnesses.

We ask our members for a subscription fee of £10 a year, but those on concessions can pay £5 and those in difficult financial circumstances need not pay anything at all. We would not want anyone to feel excluded from membership for financial reasons. Our membership fees are spent primarily on the production and distribution of the newsletter, our moderate group expenses and providing services to members.

We are conscious we are known to only a small number of sufferers in our area and we are exploring ways of getting in touch with people who might need us but do not know of our existence. We are currently investigating a number of means to raise our profile in the locality, as we recognise that our members are only a very small proportion of the true number of sufferers in our large geographical area. Then we are also seeking to raise awareness of our group, and the suffering M.E. causes, in the local community, amongst health professionals, care workers, and local decision members, with the aim of improving the level of services available to sufferers, and to provide more support to their carers.