Newsletter July 2004

NewsLetter Archive

June 03

November 03

April 04

 

Canterbury Crohn's & Colitis Support Group
PO Box 2568 Christchurch
www.chronsandcolitis.org.nz
Info@crohnsandcolitis.org.nz

 Patron: Prof. Philip Bagshaw
Academic Department of Surgery
Christchurch School of Medicine

President: Claire Secretary
Treasurer: Katrina

Canterbury Crohn's & Colitis Support Group Inc.
P O Box 2568 Christchurch
www.crohnsandcolitis.org.nz
Info@crohnsandcolitis.org.nz

AGM:                  Tuesday 27th July 2004

Time:                   7:30pm

Venue:                 Knox Centre, 28 Bealey Avenue, Christchurch

 

 

Dear members,



Our AGM will be happening shortly.  Please note that this meeting will be on our usual Tuesday night as opposed to last time when the meeting was held on a Thursday night.

 


GUEST SPEAKER

 

Dr Richard Gearry will be giving a talk at our AGM called “Why do people get IBD? – Interim results from the Canterbury IBD Project”.  As most of you have probably participated in Dr Gearry’s research, I’m sure you’ll find these interim results very interesting.  Dr Gearry had kindly enclosed a flyer about his talk.  Included in this newsletter is an article about Dr Gearry’s research from the Chairperson’s report of the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation.


 

IBD Symposium

Claire (CCSG president), got up and gave a very informative speech about the group and the services we provide. We were privileged to be able to sit through a few of the talks, including talks by guest speakers Fergus Shanahan (Ireland) and Dr Peter Gibson (Auckland).

 

We will hopefully have more details about their talks in the next newsletter



On June 25th and 26th, Christchurch was the host city for the IBD Symposium.  Some of the CCSG committee members attended this event to try and increase the awareness of our support group amongst the health professional community.  At our last committee meeting we decided to invest in a banner which we used at the symposium and can use at future meetings, displays etc.  We had a stand on both days with our nice new banner, and our library books, pamphlets etc.  Pictured above is our stand.

Subscriptions

Some members still haven’t paid their subscription yet.

 

I can’t stress how important it is to be a financial member of the CCSG.  I know our system is a little confusing at times, but to make things a little easier I have attached a payment over due sticker to any member’s newsletter who this applies to.

 

If your newsletter doesn’t have a sticker on it there is no need to send any payment.  If anyone who hasn’t paid their 2003-2004 subs fails to pay by October 1st 2004, their name and contact details will be deleted from our database and they will not receive any of the benefits of being a CCSG member.  2004-2005 subs will not be expected until after the AGM.

As per usual you will find a FORM  to fill in when paying your subscription. Either post it to our P O Box or hand it to me at the next meeting.  It’s also a good way of letting us know if any of your contact details have changed.  Each time we send a newsletter out we receive several back due to people not telling us that they’ve moved, so it’s really important that you let us know if your contact details change.

The AGM is the time of year to elect/re-elect the positions on our committee.  Sadly Helen will be stepping down from the committee this year.  We appreciate all the time and effort you have put into the CCSG Helen.

Would you like to join our committee?  Do you have some ideas of things we could do (or perhaps not do)?   The committee meets approximately three times a year in addition to our general meetings.

Young memebers of CCSG

At the last committee meeting we talked about the possibility of starting a “sub-group” of the CCSG for people under thirty.Perhaps this group could have outings and coffee groups etc. More about this topic at the AGM.

INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE UNDER ANALYSIS
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a debilitating and painful condition affecting increasing numbers of young people.Internationally, statistics indicate that up to 450/100,000 are affected by IBD including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, which causes inflammation of the lining of the bowel.Whilst there is no cure for inflammatory bowel disease, symptoms can be managed with a combination of drugs, regular colonoscopies and surgical intervention where necessary. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhoea and bleeding, and have a major impact on the quality of lifestyle for the mainly adolescent to 35 year old males and females who develop this lifelong condition.

Dr Richard Gearry, a gastroenterologist and PhD student based at The Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Christchurch Hospital has been chosen as the CMRF Fellow this year and it is hoped that his research project on inflammatory bowel disease in the Canterbury region will shed light on risk factors for the disease and contribute towards better outcomes for those affected.Dr Gearry’s research,under the mentorship of Murray Barclay, is based on questionnaires, clinical studies and genetic analysis for people affected by the condition.

The project started in May 2003 and has already attracted more than half the required 1,000 participants required to answer questions on a variety of influences from their childhood, to give blood samples and to allow their data to be analysed and processed to determine key factors that may influence the prevalence of the condition. A “control” group of 500 is also being recruited as part of the project and although research will not be completed until 2005, already interim results are proving interesting.

 

This article was obtained from the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation’s Chairman’s Report.  We thank the CMRF and Dr Richard Gearry for letting us reproduce their article in our newsletter.


 

Scotswood Trust As we mentioned at the last meeting, we were successful in obtaining a grant from the Scotswood Trust.  This money will help with our website overheads, hall hire and some paid advertising.  We thank the Scotswood Trust for granting us this money, it was very much appreciated. Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve the CCSG? Is there anything that we do that you like, or don’t like? Who would you like to have come and talk to the group? If you have any ideas please don’t hesitate to email the group at Info@crohnsandcolitis.org.nz, post it to CCSG, P O Box 2568,Christchurch, or tell one of the committee members at a meeting.

 

 

Katrina
Secretary/Treasurer