The Big Give Challenge:
Mending the Medical Mindset on ME
We need your help. We have to raise £7500 in pledges by 28th August to help us continue and to expand a campaign that provides vital information to medical and allied health professionals about M.E. on a regular basis throughout the year!
- Please consider making a pledge of support today. Visit The Big Give Challenge website and be sure to read the terms and conditions. The minimum pledge is £100.
Medical education and awareness
The ME Association has always provided free copies of the authoritative clinical and research guide (AKA “The Purple Book”) to health professionals.
Earlier this year we created a central mailing list of hospital services, medical and allied health professional contacts.
With your help the mailing list has grown to around 1,000 names and we want it to continue growing so that we can reach more and more GP surgeries, hospitals, and staff over the next few years.
Every three months we have been sending all these contacts an information pack containing:
A covering letter from Dr Charles Shepherd, MEA Hon. Medical Adviser, and Neil Riley, MEA Chairman, the latest issues of ME Essential magazine for use among staff and in patient waiting rooms, new leaflets about Covid-19, Post-Covid and ME, and updated flyers containing new initiatives like the CPD Training course for health professionals and the DecodeME research project.
- If you would like to nominate a health professional to receive our regular mailings, then please send their contact details to: caroline.cavey@meassociation.org.uk
This is the core aspect of our campaign and we know from feedback that it has been well received by those we are reaching. It is vitally important that those medical and allied health professionals on the front line are kept informed of the latest developments and provided with accurate information in a timely manner.
In the next month we will be making a special delivery of the 2020 Clinical and Research Guide to all those on the mailing list. Printing and postage for this alone will cost us over £5,000, and the regular quarterly mailing incurs printing and mailing costs as well.
We will also be utilising any funds we can raise to help us continue with the initiatives taking place around the country with Dr Nina Muirhead and the CMRC medical education group.
These include local meetings with health professionals and ME clinical experts. Several have taken place this year and have proven very successful.
The new NICE clinical guideline on ME/CFS will be published in April 2021 and we’ll be doing all we can to either support it or to advocate against the parts that we don’t agree with. This campaign will allow us to do that more effectively.
And we’d like to produce a new video explaining ME – symptoms, diagnosis, management – that might replace the rather dated version featuring Dr Charles Shepherd, currently used by NHS Choices.
If you can please help us to reach those who are able to pledge a minimum of £100 to the campaign by 28th August, we can then move forward with the Big Give Challenge and have a shot at reaching our £30,000 goal by the end of December.
The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2020
The first part of the challenge begins now. We need £7,500 in pledges by the 28th August. We will then hopefully attract a sponsor who will match the pledges and we can proceed to the final part of the challenge towards Christmas.
In December, individual donors will be encouraged to support the campaign and any donation they make will be doubled!
We are hoping to reach a target of £30,000 in total which will help finance the campaign in 2021/22.
The Big Give Christmas Challenge specialises in helping charities get more bang for their buck out of fundraising – something that we're in dire need of this year following the fall-off in funds because of the coronavirus crisis.
In December, supporters can double their donations until the matched-funding pot has been emptied. The first matched funds to be used will be those kindly promised by pledgers.
We're hoping you will be generous enough to pledge a total of £7,500 to get us started by 28th August.
When those promises have run out, money pledged by the Big Give's own band of community-minded commercial companies and private philanthropists’ kicks in. We've asked to be considered for another £7,500 worth of promises from that quarter..
If you would like to be part of the challenge and pledge some money up front to go in the matched-funding pot please, please click on the link below. The minimum pledge we ask for is £100 but we won't actually be taking it off you until AFTER the festive season.
With covid barrelling down on us, leaving what promises to be a tsunami of M.E. cases in its wake, we need to be working closer than ever with the medical profession and improve the care of people with M.E. This campaign will help achieve that.
- Campaign Details: Mending the Medical Mindset on M.E.
- To make a pledge for the matched-funding pot by 28th August 2020.
- Please read the rules carefully before making your pledge.
- For any further information, please contact Tony.Britton@meassociation.org.uk or phone Tony on 07946 760811.
Thank you!
The ME Association
Please support our vital work
We are a national charity working hard to make the UK a better place for people whose lives have been devastated by an often-misunderstood neurological disease.
If you would like to support our efforts and ensure we are able to inform, support, advocate and invest in biomedical research, then please donate today.
Just click the image opposite or visit our JustGiving page for one-off donations or to establish a regular payment. You can even establish your own fundraising event.
Or why not join the ME Association as a member and be part of our growing community? For a monthly (or annual) subscription you will also receive ME Essential – quite simply the best M.E. magazine!
ME Association Registered Charity Number 801279