AGM

We have had a very successful year financially, £6,000 has been given to the British Lung Foundation, to further their work in Wales. We are getting closer to buying equipment for the Respiratory Community Nurses at Cimla Hospital.
We have worked hard at getting ourselves known through the press and various Awareness days and this year it is all falling into place. More and more people are learning about us and the work we do and we have attracted new members, Helen, Basil, Edna and Jan have all joined us this year.
Mary (chairman), Margaret (secretary) and Lynne (treasurer) will remain in office for the following year.

We were delighted to see Claire and Paul Bethell, and Dylan, looking so full of beans. We first met Dylan two years ago at Meet the Patients in Cardiff and have kept in touch ever since. Although they live in Barry, it's good to have them as members of our group. Dylan enjoyed fooling around with our new BLF sweatshirts.

Breathe Easy Officers Forum

Members from Aberystwyth, Carmarthen, Llanelli, Newport, Swansea and three of us from Neath, as well as Chris Mulholland, Shan Evans, Dr Emrys Evans and Kay Byrne (our temporary press officer), met in the Village Hall in Llanarthney.What a lovely hall, in such a lovely rural setting too.
Kay did an interview and article in the South Wales Evening Post last year with three of our group. My doctor had the story on the surgery waiting room notice board, he thought it was such a good anti smoking article.
It's good to meet up with the other groups to exchange news and ideas. We talked about campaigning and spreading the word that there are many groups across Wales. We are only managing to reach a small number of people living with lung conditions and it would be good to be able to include more, as we know just how supportive our groups can be.
Kay talked to us about getting the attention of the media, in order to get stories about lung conditions and about our various events in the newspapers, on the radio and TV.

Welcome Support

Great news. We have just heard that The Inner Wheel in Neath have adopted us as their charity of the year. This is wonderful as it both helps us to raise awareness amongst the people of the area and any monies raised will be used to help people in the valley who are living with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma and a whole range of other conditions.

We are really pleased to have contact with this group and hope we can work together over the year, and get to know more about each other on a social level.

Are we the group for you ?

Have you heard of Breathe Easy Neath Valley ? We are a support group for all people in and around the Neath Valley who are living with lung conditions. We meet every third Friday in the month, from 1.30 until 4.30 in the Owain Glyndwr Community centre in Waun Ceirch, in Neath.

We are a part of British Lung Foundation Wales and we are continually working to improve respiratory care in our area, across Wales, and indeed the whole of the UK.

We go to the Welsh Assembly to meet our AM's and talk to them about our concerns. We raise money to be used locally and by BLF Wales for their work.

Watch this space for updates on all our activities.