• 16 November 2014
• General

Over the last year there has been significant changes in Diabetes UK from the re-branding to Diabetes UK  - Care, Connect, Campaign and significant changes to the ways Voluntary Groups will operate in the future.  Members of the Wirral Group attended two conferences one in November in Haydock and one in late March 2014 at Bury.

Discussions took place at both of these events regarding the positive impact of the partnership with Tesco which has raised almost 10 million pounds.  The North West and our local group did raise over £35, 652 at the bucket collections and we are hoping to beat that in June this year.

The focus of much of the discussion was how money is raised and spent by Diabetes UK and how the new Group Charter will effect local groups.  Significant changes include the ruling that Local Groups can have a maximum amount in funds in their bank accounts of £3000. This would affect Wirral Group as traditionally we have through fundraising been able to give £1000 to research annually and a similar amount to Careline.  On discussing this we have been told that if we can inform Head Office of the reason we need to retain more than £3000 this will be considered.  We have done that this year as we wish to hold an Awareness Day in November and would like to continue giving funds to Research.

We were told that there would be a widening range of projects and activities to which we could contribute funds.

Another significant change is to the names of the groups. In future our group will be Wirral Diabetes UK Group and this will have an impact on changing our publicity materials  and other administration matters such as re-naming of the Bank Account.

Much of the focus in the other networking groups of the days was about recruitment and training of new volunteers, particularly around the roles of Ambassadors and Diabetes Voices.  There will be training programmes devised which include how to carry out Risk Assessments at the road shows and there will be on-line training programmes regarding Diabetes for professionals and lay members.

Major campaigns  launched are  "Putting Feet First"  and the "Be Awesome - be a volunteer" and Diabetes Voices.

If you would like any information on how you can be involved then please go to the Contacts Section of the website.