about us
September 2008 Statement
Sincere apologies for not updating the webpage for nearly a year. I promise I will make a concerted effort to upate more often. In the past few months we have held some events.We have had many events held in aid of our charity. The trustees and members have held three collection days at our two local football clubs. Port Vale and Stoke City. We collected approx £2,700. We hope to collect again at both clubs this season. Recently Blackfriars .Rotary Club held a Golf Competition and raised £2,100 many more fundraising associations have raised money on our behalf which I will mention.. A friend of mine Gary Clewlow has offered to run the Nottingham Marathon for us. He hopes to raise a substancial amount of money for the charity. Gary and myself are selling pink bracelets @ £2 each in support of the run. The bracelets can be obtained at Gary's place of business "Designer Furniture Outlet" in Trentham (see their web page) or myself. We are donating funds to support Breast Cancer drugs Trials at The University Hospital of North Staffordshire. Two Electronic Beds for Ward One and Four Chemotherapy Pumps for the Leukaemia Ward 117. Our thanks to Ann & Ted Forster of Porthill who recently opened their garden to the public for the second time. They raised £230.91 On Wednesday of this week I was invited to give a talk to Cheadle Breast Cancer Support Group. They made me extremely welcome. It was a pleasure to meet everyone including The Mayor of Cheadle and his consort. The group are purchasing ten pink bracelets. I am now tired and promise to continue this update over the next couple of weeks.
November 2007 Statement
On Tuesday October 23rd Barbara Clarke appeared on GMTV'S This Morning Programme and was interviewed by Eamon Holmes about her battle for Herceptin in 2005. Barbara was asked if the successful outcome ie: "all women could now have Herceptin on the NHS" was down to her alone and she replied "Yes". I have been asked to reply to this by several very frustrated ladies and men.
Barbara was not soley responsible for this succsessful outcome. "The Women fighting for Herceptin" (Dot Griffiths, Alison Poole, Mary Potts, Elaine Barber, Lynne Burton, Elaine Davies, Jo-Ann Leese, Judy Evans and Melanie Waite) led a powerful national Campaign which resulted in The Prime Ministers Office intervening to overturn the refusal of North Stoke PCT prescribing the drug.
Jayne Sullivan fought for all Welsh women and won, and six ladies in Shropshire led their campaign not forgetting all the lone women around the country.
Many peole contributed to the success of this campaign including BBC Radio Stoke, BBC Radio 4, 5 live, BBC Mdlands Today, National T.V both BBC and ITV,SKY, The Sun Newspaper,( Jane Symons) The Sentinel,(Staffordshire Newspaper) and we are very grateful to them all.
Babara very kindly donated £11,000 to our fighting fund. This was a very generous amount which she had raised during her campaign and which we appreciated very much.
October 30th 2007
Welcome everyone to our web site. My name is Dot Griffiths and I am very happy at last to be able to start updating you on everything we are and have been doing.
There have been various events taking place during the past few months, this web site went live in November, and those involved in the charity and those campaigning with the Women Fighting For Herception have joined forces. Lynne Burton, Mary Potts and Alison Poole have become trustees and committee members of the Charity. We have agreed to give £40,000 of the money raised to University Hospital of North Staffordshire's Oncology department. See Sentinel news article.
August 2005 Statement
The Dorothy Griffiths Breast Cancer Appeal Fund was formed in February 2004. It is a registered charity, raising money for the support and treatment of breast cancer patients.
Last year (2004) we raised £8,000.
We hope you find this web site useful. We receive no government or other statutory funding. All donations go to our appeal fund, allowing us to continue our work. Click here to make a donation or click here to contact us if you think you can make another sort of contribution.
Thankyou!
history of our beginnings
It all started in 2004, when a group of North Staffordshire businessmen launched a charity appeal in recognition of Dorothy Griffiths, a brave cancer victim who has tirelessly campaigned for thousands of women (and indeed men) to have a life saving drug for breast cancer, called Herceptin.
A dinner dance with an auction was arranged at the Plough Motel in Stoke early in that year, which kick-started the fund. It also received a very generous donation which together culminated in a massive amount of over £5,000.
the aim of the appeal fund
The aim of the appeal fund is to relieve patient's suffering from breast cancer and other cancers, by the provision of purchasing equipment for the Oncology department at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.
Dorothy's campaign 2001
Herceptin is an expensive treatment, seemingly only availabe to a few. Dot wanted to end the postcode lottery and began campaigning in 2001 for women with advanced HER2 Breast Cancer. At this time Herceptin was not available on the NHS but you could have it in an NHS hospital if you could pay for it. "If you could pay you could live if you couldn't pay you would die". She campaigned to have the drug made freely available on the NHS to all who needed it and would benefit from it; a fight that she still continues.
items purchased to date
2004 three Baxter Colleague Infusion machines at a cost of £1, 800 each, have been purchased for the Chemotherapy ward at the University Hopsital of North Staffordshire. This is where Dot undergoes her treatment along with many, many more Staffordshire patients.
The infusion devices are used in Chemotherapy departments to give patients the right dose of treament at the right speed, thus cutting down the amount of time a patient has to be in hopsital. We have also purchased arm and leg easy-slide sleeves to the value of £600, for patients who suffer from lymphoedema; these are an appliance to assist the application of a tight elasticated support sleeve to help reduce the swelling that is caused by this condition.
items to be purchased
The next project is to furnish the "quiet room" on the Chemotherapy unit to give pleasant surroundings for patients who at difficult times need a room where they can sit in the privacy of tranquil surroundings to be with their relatives and clinician to discuss their condition. We also hope to soon start purchasing equipment for the Radiology department , the Lymphodema Clinic and the Cancer Ward at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.
projects undertaken
We have undertaken many projects already including a car boot sale, spring bazaar, rock gig, raffles, product sales including plants, clothes, hand-made greeting cards and we have been fortunate to receive many kind donations from friends and contacts. Also collection boxes have been distributed to various outlets in the area, we had an all day collection held at Sainsbury's in Stoke and Tesco Superstore on a Saturday.
A local group of amateur singers Michaleen Hilton, Andrew Talbot and Grant Bovey gathered together a large group of local artists and arranged produced and directed the most fantastic show called "For the Girls" it was hosted by Tim Wedgwood a well known and popular presenter with BBC Radio Stoke.