Hi everyone,

I have been raising money for MCF letting everyone know its MOUTH CANCER AWARENESS WEEK
ITS GREAT THAT A FEW MORE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD KNOW MORE ABOUTH MOUTH CANCER and have shown support by giving donations.

Those of you who are taken part i wish you all the best and hope to meet with some of you who have shared such kind words with me over the past few months.

Mel x www.justgiving.com/melaniebrooks £250 SO FAR

Hello Mel

quote:

Mouth Cancer Awareness week is about raising public awareness of mouth cancer and drawing attention to the support needs of mouth cancer patients who suffer greatly. Mouth cancer patients suffer from various disabilities like facial deformity, loss of teeth, damage to tongue and throat with consequent difficulty in talking and eating in public places. Yet they do not receive the attention and support other cancers invoke. The Mouth Cancer Walk on 19 November is for them.

I look forward to meeting all members who can make it for the Walk on Sunday.

Don't forget to say hi to me!

Best wishes
Vinod

Hi Everyone
It was great seeing you all in Hyde Park,today and meeting you all.What a gorgeous day in every way - weather,company,and all,of us promoting a greater awareness of our overlooked cancer.
Did hear one negative comment though,overhead a lady say to her two children "Look at those funny people - they are wearing their T-shirts over their coats!" Let us hope that she noticed what was on the T-shirts -perhaps it was not that negative ,she had seen us!!
Just realized why I have not been on site for a long time I have great difficulty logging in , hence I am now sneaking in as Earthdancer.
Take care,
Toni

It was good to see everyone in London yesterday.

Congratulations to everyone who took park, and well done for supporting the MCF.

I just about acheived my goal which was to jog all the way round, although the last km was barely more than a stagger!

Still, the training over the last couple of months was worth it as it has turned a couch potato into someone who sort of likes jogging, so hopefully I'll carry on with the exercise, so this can only be a good thing.

I'd be really interested to hear any stats about the event - eg number of people who took part etc, and also the total amount raised when this is available.

Kezia

WELL DONE TO YOU ALL FOR COMPLETING THE 10KM whatever method you used to get round walking, running, jogging costumes and all it was a great day.

Mel x
on a more negative note please excuse me because all in all it was such a positive day, but I have to get this off my chest. I hope you all wont mind, near the finishing line members of a Mouth cancer awareness walk team which consisted of (5-6) healthcare professionals sat on a bench and were smoking. Whilst I completely understand smoking is a individuals personal choice and their right I felt it was completely inappropriate given the event and where they all chose to light up, I felt really disappointed I must admit I had a good cry because it upset me so much Mel x

Melanie

I understand where you are coming from re the smoking.

I do car boot sales in aid of the MCF over the summer, and one of my helpers is a smoker.

I will not 'let' him have a cigarette when he is 'on duty' in an MCF t-shirt as an MCF supporter because I think it is sending out the wrong message.

It's all about image, and I think that in public, the MCF should not be seen to be endorsing smoking.

I guess it would be hard to stop people smoking in Hyde Park though as it is an open air public space.

Kezia

oh i know but these people had just taken part in the MCF walk it was astonishing.

My mum and several members of my family smoke and im sure they always will.

Mel x

Hello everyone

The Walk was a great success with lots of positive comments. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you in person.

I know we could do better. I agree with with Mel and Kez that the public image is important. So next time we will advice our smoking supporters (and we do appreciate their support) to take off the t-shirts during their smoke break. We could also have made better use of the free screening by putting up signs in the park saying this was being offered and that the public was welcome.

Did anyone see the little 6 year old girl who was walking with her mum and 74 year old grandad! We will be sending her a prize .

Best wishes
Vinod
(not as sore as I thought I might be as I didn't practice! )

Photos will soon be available on the Mouth Cancer Walk website and if you wish to share your photos, please email info@mouthcancerwalk.org as soon as possible. Once again, thank you for all your support and look forward to seeing you next year!

Yes what a glorious day it was yesterday. I hope all of you had a fun day out. I had a birds eye view watching you all do the warm up from the bandstand. You were all actually helping me out with the warm up as I couldn't see Jamie (the fitness guy) from up there!

It was also fab to finally chat to many of you who attended whilst on the walk.

Hope everyone will attend again to next year's event and bring their friends along too :P

Do send in your photos...
Geeta

HI ALL
What a great day on Sunday it was nice to see so many people.
Friends and family have decided they are going to start saving after christmas a couple of pounds a week.
so next year they will go for the weekend and take part in the walk.
Then they wont have to worry about finding the money to get to London. they should have saved enough to do some shopping, and donating.
next year i hope to bring a coach full of people.
This year was great, but next year we will make it bigger and better.
congratulations to everybody who took part.
WELL DONE

Carol

Hi everyone

It was a fantastic day and so good to meet and see each other (met Shelley, Brenda and many others for the first time)! We were lucky with the weather - wow, we couldn't have asked for a better day.

I set off much later because I wanted to get a free screening so I had to jog the first 4 kilometres just to catch up (I did not plan on jogging this at all - boy was I punished the next day!). Kez, wish you had walked so I could have caught up to you! I saw Ryoko with her daughter around the 2k mark - how did you two manage? Carol, it was great walking with you from 4-6K or so. Did anyone see Paul (I know he registered)?

The 2007 Walk will be bigger and better (but not longer, 10K was just right!). Planning will start early next year. Please email me your photos for the website!

Thanks to everyone for the support and making our first Annual 10K Mouth Cancer Walk a success.

All the best, Krishan

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Krishan,

In the liverpool Echo Yesterday there was a piece on mouth cancer.
They had a mobile screening unit in a local shopping centre.
Doctors from Fazakerley hospital performed swab tests, out of 200 people screened 22 were referred, and 13 people had appointments made to attend the oncology clinic.
To me that is a high percentage of people.
What would have happened to those people if that unit had not been there.
would they keep putting it of hoping it would go away.
This is were we need more awarness.
I will be the first to admit until Barry, mouth cancer never crossed my mind.
I tell a very different story today.

Just moved my creaky old bones towards the laptop to let you all know about our walk.

On the Friday evening (17th) I was on local television as part of the Mouth Cancer Awareness Week article they were running. Take a look here - it should open in Media Player and it's the second piece on the news.

Saturday was work as usual and on my way in I dropped a sponsorship form into my local before starting - finally got round to it at the last moment. Finished work at 4pm and got a call from my friend asking me to pop into the pub (he was working there that day) before going home. Slight panic because he was taking us to the ferry and I thought he might have had to work late. However, he just wanted to show me a pint jug full of money - they'd been getting sponsors for me all afternoon and had raised almost £150 for me!

Dashed home, quick change then off in the car to the ferry. We'd booked to travel on the National Express coach (funfare - £20 for the two of us, return!) which actually cost less than the ferry (£24). Not long after 6pm we were heading towards London. The coach got in 20 minutes early and my mate was about 10 minutes late picking us up (we were freezing) because she doesn't know the idiotic one way system around Victoria very well, bless. It took us two hours to get back to her flat in Highgate, but at least we'd warmed up by then.

The early night we'd planned didn't happen because we've not seen her for ages - you know how it goes ...

Bright and early (sort of) the next morning we headed out. The tube wasn't running from Highgate so we had to get a bus which took a bit longer than it would have done otherwise. Then when we got to Camden we discovered that the Central and District lines weren't operating so there were twice as many people using the tubes - mental! Had to let a few trains go because we couldn't get on. Bear in mind we also had my friend's 6 year old son with us.

Finally made it to Hyde Park just in time to register quickly and start the walk. We were meant to be there by 9.30 but were an hour late so missed the warm-up.



My friend and her son walked with us for the first three kilometers so we took it fairly slowly to start with. I did my stretching exercises at that point and we carried on.



It was a lovely sunny morning and I really wished I had the time to take lots of lovely photos along the way, but I contented myself with some 'record' shots of the walkers and was unable to resist the squirrels who were extremely friendly.

Just after the 8km point, my friend and her son joined us again for the final stretch. We were happy to slow down again by this stage, and even though we'd started almost last, we had made up quite a bit of ground along the way.



We finished just before ten to one, signed back in, got our goodie bags.



Finally got a sit down and some refreshment, and a chance to take in the scenery in a more leisurely way. My daughter and the young lad played in the leaves for a while before the hunger pangs began and we decided to head off for something to eat.



More tube hassle, but soon we were at Victoria station where we got some nosh and a much needed cuppa. Sat there like a zombie for ages - lack of sleep and too much dashing around, as well as doing the walk, caught up with me for a little while. Soon perked up enough to take a stroll around Covent Garden and do a bit of Christmas shopping before heading back to Victoria for our coach at 6.30.

It was a longer journey back as the coach went via Heathrow, Aldershot and Fareham (among other unheard of places along the way) and we finally arrived at Portsmouth quarter of an hour late but still plenty of time to get the 10.15 ferry, at the other end of which was my brother and his car! Got home at 11pm.

More photos of the walk here.

So far, online, we have raised £1,150 between us, plus the £150 from the pub. The fundraising page will stay open until January so I'm hopeful we can make it to £1,500 before we call it a day.

All the donations and support from our friends have made such a huge difference to us over the past few months which have been very difficult. It has also helped to have this walk and the Awareness Week to focus on, particularly as Christmas looms for the first time without Mum.

Well done everyone. It was a great day!

Paula, I have just watched your television item and want to say how well you came over. It must be very hard talking about your Mum on air so soon after her death. Well done for raising awareness, doing the walk, taking the photos, plus raising such a lot of money. I hope your bones have recovered! Brenda x