By Hal Bailey
The 16th Annual General Meeting of the Branch was held on 10th April at the Macdonald Portal Hotel, Golf & Country Club, Cobblers Cross Lane, Tarporley.
Joel Millett, as Chairman of the Branch, opened the meeting thanking everyone for attending and welcomed Sandra Smith (a Trustee) representing the Merseyside Branch, and Lord Ashbrook, who is the Branch Patron.
Joel then presented his 6th Chairs Report identifying the successes of the previous year’s activity and to thank to all those individuals who have gone out of their way to raise funds, attend functions and make donations to the Branch.
In his report he thanked Marion Chadwick, who is retiring after 10 years as Branch Contact, for all her hard work and dedication to the Branch and Association during that time, and wished her all the best for the future.
John Kinder then presented the accounts, and highlighted the salient features during the 12 months to the end of January.
Our speakers were Kate Bibbings, PhD student working on a pain free way of diagnosing MND at Manchester Metropolitan University who gave a presentation on the findings of the research project to date;
Sandra Smith in her role of Trustee has been leading the project on developing NICE guidelines on behalf of the Association which were approved in February and highlighted the principals of the guidelines;
Chris Bennett, Regional Delivery Manager for the West, gave an insight to his role and identified the 3 main campaigns for the coming year and beyond. These being continuing the Silence Speaks Campaign, Champion the Charter, and making sure the NICE guidelines are adhered to in England and Wales.
Before the meeting broke up for coffee and cakes Mr Alan Smith spoke on behalf of the Cheshire Provincial Mark Benevolent Fund, and again surprised everyone by presenting a cheque to Hal Bailey for £1,000 to pay for the printing of our newsletter for the next 4 issues.
Amy Phillipson thanked our speakers for giving their time and delivering informative presentations, which were very much appreciated by the branch and attendees.