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Wednesday 18 November 2009

Guest Speaker at the Venous Forum, Vascular Surgical Society Meeting 2009

Today I gave a guest talk on "Vein Screening" at The Venous Forum, the specialist vein meeting held at the Vascular Surgical Society AGM. The meeting was in Liverpool and was very well attended.

It was a very interesting subject to speak on.

In the USA, there are large numbers of hospitals and clinics offering vein screening for free. In these hospitals and clinics, people who are worried that there veins might not be working and might be going to cause a problem in the future can go along for a simple Doppler or Ultrasound test.

If found to be positive, then they can go ahead with treatment to prevent varicose veins or the other problems venous reflux causes - Aching legs, venous eczema, swollen ankles, brown discolouration of the skin, ulcers etc.

In the UK, currently we don't offer this sort of service. In general UK doctors tend to wait until a patient has a problem before checking their veins to see if they are working or not.

Having looked at this in detail, I think we will be seeing an increase in Venous Screening in the UK in the near future.

Monday 16 November 2009

Alvin Stardust, Jules and a Great evening

Last Thursday night we had our Charity Auction for India 2010 (See http://www.india-2010.co.uk/).

My colleague and I are joining the Enduro India event next January and February and are riding classic 1950's design 350cc Royal Enfield "Bullett" motorbikes 2,000 km through India.

Meal of Curry at the India 2010 Charity Auction - with entertainment by Alvin Stardust and his wife, JulesWith the state of the roads that we will be travelling over, many dirt tracks or stone tracks, this will be a real test of endurance - up to 16 hours a day in the saddle!!

However, as it is in aid of UNICEF, The Rainbow Trust and the Wildlife Conservation Society, this will all be worth it.

The Charity Auction itself was a wonderful event. We met at The Talbot in Ripley and over 85 people turned up - making the event a sell-out.

The meal (curry of course for an India trip!!) was served whilst Jules sang to entertain us. Jules is a West-end singer, having been in may productions including being the narrator in "Joseph" and having been in "Cats". Each song was strongly applauded and it set the whole evening up as a real extravaganza. Click here to visit India 2010

At this point it must be said that Alvin Stardust and Jules supplied and set-up the lighting and sound system ... a mark of a pair of real entertainers.

After the meal, we had a very moving talk and video from Sue Cocks of The Rainbow Trust. This wonderful charity provides essential family support work and doesn't often get the profile of some of the bigger charities.

Alvin Stardust then rose and showed his talents as a very amusing Auctioneer, both keeping everyone laughing whilst pulling on the heart-strings to get the best prices that he could for the Charities.

The evening was then completed with Alvin and Jules entertaining us with many great songs ... Including Alvin singing his "My Coo Ca Coo" ... with almost all of the audience joining in - whether dancing or not.

Overall, the Charity Auction raised over £5,500 ... far higher than our target of £3,000.

Our thanks go to Vicki Smith and Liz Smith who have worked tirelessly for 3 months to get everything organised and to encourage the wonderful donations for us to auction - and of course to Alvin Stardust and his wife, Jules, who were stars in every sense of the word.

Wednesday 4 November 2009

See us on the Rainbow Trust website

See our India-2010 appeal on the Rainbow Trust website:

http://www.rainbowtrust.org.uk/