The East Midlands Group

The group covers a geographical area from Lincolnshire across to Derbyshire and incorporate the county's of Nottinghamshire as well as Leicestershire. Currently, with our recently aquired additional members from Derbyshire and Leicestershire the group hosts 202 LupusUK members and is actively working to increase this number.

The locallity with the largest concentration of members is within a 20 miles radius of the city of Nottingham. Historically most of the meetings held by the group have been focused in or near toNottingham and have therefore relied upon the membership living outside of this zone, travelling to attend meetings. In 2009 the committee attempted to extend the group meetings beyond the traditional Nottingham zone into Lincolnshire, which turned out to be unsucessful.

The plan for 2010

The feedback from the members has given the committee some guidance to improving the service that the East Midlands Regional Group provides to its members.

• It is apparent in the East Midlands that very few members desire to attend group meetings. For some of our members we recognise that travelling is a major concern and the committee appreciate that a number of our members do not own transport, or they live away from reliable transport facilities.
• It would appear from our feedback that most people enjoy receiving the group newsletter so this will be our main communication medium to keep our members in touch with local events
• For members who have computer facilities and prefer to use the internet, we are happy to provide a web site that can (over time) be adapted to provide additional member needs if required. Newsletters will continue to be sent by post to members and in addition the newsletter (after all member distribution has been completed),will be posted on the website for all Lupus sufferers to read.
• The committe will organise/attend informational and fund raising events to improve the general awareness of the public to this disabilitating disease. We also feel that fund raising is a key integral part of improving the quality of life for all lupus sufferers and carers.
• We hope that local lupus sufferers visiting the website will be encouraged to join Lupus UK, hence becoming a member of our charity and part of the East Midlands group.
• If something lupus related is happening in your locallity, then please provide us information so that we can inform our group of these events, or report in the newsletter those that have taken place.

These are the main aims that the East Midlands Committee feel will be beneficial to the majority of our members in 2010.