WE met for our meeting in June and were looking forward to our talk on the Macmillan Nurses. We were not disappointed as it was such an inspirational talk.

The meeting’s business was conducted first with apologies for absence and this month’s birthdays.

Ingrid Chestnutt then gave a report on her recent trip to London for the annual meeting. This included the resolution on midwives that we had debated last month.

Pauline Bamber thanked helpers at the Three Counties Show in Malvern, which in spite of Pauline’s description as “mud, glorious mud” was a very successful and enjoyable day. Members were also reminded of the outing to Hereford Cathedral in August and the Mary Berry Day in Worcester in September.

Our speakers were Kelly Whitehouse and Pauline Smith. Kelly, from the Macmillan Nurses gave us a brief history and outline of what Macmillan does.

The organisation uses professionals and many hundreds of volunteers one of whom is Pauline. Her enthusiastic and humorous talk gave us an insight into her fund-raising over the past few years. From coffee mornings held in her husband’s greenhouse to picnics in the park and winter warmers, all were very successful in spite of sometimes extremely inclement weather determined to spoil the occasions.

The NHS and Macmillan work in partnership to fund the training of new nurse specialists. All our local hospitals have Macmillan Information Units which work with the CAB.

Christine Pugh gave a vote of thanks to Kelly and Pauline for their inspirational talk which left us feeling very humbled and thinking what more we could do to help in our community.