Network MESH annual review of activities

Annual review 2008 - October AGM

Review of the year 2008
Financially, we are still in a strong position thanks to the large anonymous
donation we received several years ago. The group decided that half should
be devoted to biomedical research into ME and this has been donated. We
felt that the remainder should be allocated to helping members of the group.
Examples are the grants awarded by THAT Fund, set up to alleviate
hardship and provide small amounts of assistance to members. Also the
four therapists offering their services at the AGM will be paid out of the
group funds.

However, we also decided last year that members should contribute to the
running costs of the group so that we did not deplete our capital resources
and we resumed asking for subscriptions. As usual, this was a time and
energy-absorbing exercise for me and several others on the committee, as it
involved a lot of chasing of those who do not respond to requests in the
newsletter or emails. We did eventually pull in about £1000 in subscriptions
and have now established a fully up-do-date membership list with 135
people on it. Interestingly, 75 of these are on email, making it easy for me to
send out reminder notices and things of general interest to people with ME.
In summary, the group had revenues of £1555 in the year to 31 July 2008
and we spent £1870, which meant we had to dig into our cash resources for
£315 to keep going. This is not as bad as it sounds. Actual running
expenses are less than £1000 a year. The extra expenditure was on grants
from THAT Fund to members and a donation to ME Research UK. The
accounts are available from me if anybody wants to see them.

The newsletter continues to go out to all members under Sally's capable
editorship and is back on track, I'm pleased to say, after a short gap while
Sally and Frank moved to their new flat. We shouldn't forget the behind the
scenes work done by Martin on maintaining the membership database and
Colin on actually sending the copies out.

We held a successful Summer Party in July. Everyone enjoyed sitting in the
Friends Meeting House garden on one of the few sunny days of the year.
The regular local meetings, overseen by Cath Ross, seem to be going well,
although how well varies according to the available energy of members in
each locality.

The imaging project at Hammersmith Hospital was reformulated in
September last year on a less ambitious basis and brain scanning of 25 ME
sufferers and 25 healthy controls is in now full swing. It is due to be
completed in April next year.

Finally, with extensive help from a few members, we completed the Profile
Project. All in all, we now have useful information on the wants and
capabilities of 113 people in the group who responded to the telephone
questionnaire. We are still working out how we can use this database to
benefit members, particularly in terms of reducing isolation.

Tony Golding

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