Some personal news to start 2011

It has been a while since I wrote anything – there has almost been too much happening and my brain couldn’t deal with prioritisation and then there were all those holidays....

I start 2011 with some personal news: you may know that I am involved with one of the Livery Companies of the City of London – the Worshipful Company of Needlemakers. All being well I hope to be Master next year. This is hardly a full time job but past Masters have made it clear that combining the role with full-time, full-on work is pretty tough and you end up having to turn down invitations you would have liked to accept.

I will be the first woman to hold this position in the Company’s 355 year history so it will be a very exciting time. It will also be a very busy year with many social and some ceremonial engagements. I have decided that it is not possible to take on this position and to work full time at the same time - to do so would be unfair to both organisations and to my family! I will be retiring from Breast Cancer Campaign during the summer of 2011.

I am very proud that with the support of my colleagues, the scientists we fund, and all the supporters and volunteers who all make up Breast Cancer Campaign, we have built a great organisation which is funding world class innovative research. We have an experienced and dedicated staff, a committed trustee board, a prestigious Scientific Advisory Board and exciting developments in the coming year.

The Trustee Board has started the process for the recruitment of a new Chief Executive and the post will be advertised at the end of this week.

Campaign will have, as always, my full commitment and energies until my successor is on board. I continue to be passionate about what we do and why we do it and look forward to seeing the charity not only flourish in a new chapter of its life but our research make a positive impact on the lives of those affected by breast cancer.

One of the advantages of having been here as long as I have is that I can recall and reflect on the progress that has been made in scientific research and the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
You may see a bit more about the Needlemakers over the coming months. If the Livery Companies are a mystery to you – have a look at the website: The Needlemakers Company.

And where were you when we were all battling the weather?

Firstly I was here for the chaos of the tube strikes.

Secondly I was here for the first snow chaos.

OK – so I was in Cape Town for two weeks until Tuesday. We were watching the UK news and I really, really felt everyone’s pain but somehow no one believed me.

As with many, our flight home on Sunday night was cancelled. However, the rest of our experience was very different. I received a text from BA at about 10pm on Saturday night to say the flight was cancelled. They, very unhelpfully, then gave a number to call which only operated during office hours Monday to Friday and the website was hardly responding. However I managed to find a local BA employee at Cape Town airport who very wisely advised me to rebook on the Monday night flight then and there which we did. We then had a trouble free journey home unlike thousands who were stranded here. Our friends in Cape Town (and everyone here) thought we were mad to come back but, as glorious as Cape Town is and it is very glorious, home is home.

While I was enjoying the sunshine, everyone at Campaign was working flat out. A lot of work was being done analysing the results of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month (and for some, recovering from working six weekends on the trot!).

A letter organised by Campaign’s Policy team was published in The Times on 16 December; (you have to pay to access the website so I can’t give you their link) but you can read it here on our website. It was signed by 122 leading cancer scientists and clinicians, and demanded that the Government renew its commitment to the Charity Research Support Fund. (The CRSF is the mechanism via which the Government funds the indirect costs of charity research, such as university libraries, allowing charities such as Campaign to fund only the direct costs of research.)

On December 20 the Business Secretary issued the annual grant letter which sets out Government funding for universities for the next four years. This is the first step in deciding the funding for the CRSF. We are therefore really pleased that for the first time ever in this annual process, the Business Secretary has given a clear Government endorsement for protecting charity funded research. The letter said that the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) should plan for “protecting funding leveraged from external sources such as the charitable and business sectors.”

The campaigning that we and others have done on this issue has helped to produce this result.

This is a satisfying way to end the year – lots more to do.

Charity begins at home

And ‘home’ for the working day is Breast Cancer Campaign. Our staff do things personally to support our charity on top of the day jobs, whether it is raising money through our own wear it pink activity, running marathons or other races or doing sponsored walks – we all do our bit.

I am also always impressed by a willingness to help other charities – and this week was an example. A friend has “adopted” two orphanages in Vilnius in Lithuania and asks for gifts of toys and warm clothes and donations. A friendly truck driver takes the donated goods over just before Christmas and she and her husband also go over and buy lots of fresh fruit and other treats (yes fresh fruit is a treat) for the children and ensure that everyone has a new toy and a big hug.

Colleagues here have rallied round with gifts of toys and warm children’s clothes. We also have quite a number of samples that we are sent and which we can’t use. We have filled five black bin liners which will soon be on their way to Vilnius. Really easy to do but we feel good about it.

On the same theme I was impressed with an initiative in London last week – Mitzvah Day. Mitzvah is Hebrew for a good deed. As I went into my local supermarket I was handed a leaflet and asked to add a few items to my trolley from the list and give them to the collector on the way out. This was to support a local shelter for the homeless. It was practical with things like soap and cleaning materials, shampoo, nappies and tissues, non-perishable foods and perhaps some nice biscuits as a treat. It was no effort and the cost was small but I felt good again – practical and effective and of course very dependent on all the volunteers who made it happen.

Getting on with the day job

Post October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a sort of writer’s block sets in. Not that the activity is any less – just different and too much to write about so I do nothing! We have been beset by every lurgy doing the rounds – I think that the adrenalin keeps everyone going during October and the moment you relax the bugs strike. This is not backed by any evidence so I should wash my mouth out with soap.

I am trying to generate some Christmas spirit but finding it difficult. What with strikes, student protests, WikiLeaks and England’s miserable performance on the rugby field, only partly offset by their better performance at the Gabba – I feel I want to stop the world and get off for a while. I don’t want to trivialise the serious stuff in there but one does feel beleaguered at times.

Even the nicest part of last week had a cloud over it. I have written before about my involvement with the Worshipful Company of Needlemakers of which I now am Senior Warden. There are a number of very enjoyable events during the year and last Wednesday was one of them – the Festival of St Cecilia at Westminster Abbey. St Cecilia is the Patron Saint of Music and the Worshipful Company of Musicians sponsors this annual service to raise money for their benevolent funds. It rotates between St Pauls, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral.

It is a beautiful occasion – the Musicians and the Masters and Wardens of the various Livery Companies process down the aisle (soon to be walked by Kate Middleton!) and then listen to wonderful music and some inspiring thoughts. What’s not to like?

I was quite anxious about being caught up in the student protest – I don’t do very well in crowds. So we arrived very early and there were no students to be seen (hardly a surprise – they don’t usually do early mornings). When we left we walked towards Victoria Station to lunch and although there were police cars there were still no students. After lunch we went to Pimlico tube station rather than coming back towards Trafalgar Square to avoid the demonstration.

So my information on the demonstration came from the news - but the most disturbing report was on LBC that evening where a woman phoned in (around 6.30) to say that she had driven into London and had no choice but to go along the Embankment and young men had kicked her car, jumped on the bonnet and threatened her through the window. She sounded shaken, as a woman alone in a car I can understand why. Were they students? Who knows and if not how do the organisers ensure that they are not a catalyst for general thuggery.

And then there is another Tube strike today – we are working around it – some taking a day’s leave, some working from home and most have made it in. How depressing that we take this all in our stride and work around it.

If you were in central London on Friday....

You may well have seen one or more of the 200 Raggies who were collecting for Breast Cancer Campaign at tube and train stations. The Campaign Megaraid is one of the highlights of Breast Cancer Awareness month and Raggies come from far and wide to take part. It is an interesting logistics operation and our conference room becomes the control room for the day with a spreadsheet projected onto the wall with running totals for each collector.

Most of us also down tools and help out – the more robust ones hiking around with backpacks to unload the buckets and bring them back. The control room takes calls from the Raggies when their buckets become too heavy to hold and someone is despatched to go and empty the bucket and bring the load back to base.

I love counting the money and spend most of Friday and some of Monday operating one of the coin machines counting and bagging the money. I can understand that we end up with a bucket full of foreign coins but what really puzzles me is the coins which are no longer legal tender. One bucket I counted had nine old ten pence pieces – they haven’t been legal tender for some time – is someone walking around with these in their pocket so that they can dump them in a collecting tin one day? There were also defunct foreign coins – German marks and French francs. Why are these in your pocket?

But there were notes as well and even a £50 note which was really exciting: it is such a great day and the Raggies and staff work so hard with little sleep on Thursday and Friday nights. I am afraid I wimped out at about 8.30 on Friday night. We count until all the money is counted because they want to know exactly how much has been raised by each collector, each university and in total – over £56,000 this year – a record.

For the uninitiated, universities have their “Raising and Giving” committees and students who take part are Raggies!

Thanks to all the Raggies and other volunteers, especially the team from Barclays (they normally never see real money.......) and also Pret a Manger for donating sandwiches on Thursday night to feed everyone!

If it’s October it must be.....

Let’s knock Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As regularly as the month of pink comes around so does the criticism. Less sexy cancers, a rather sickly pink. As my colleagues are sick of hearing me say “if I had a money tree then we wouldn’t need to raise money”. Until that happens we will do whatever it takes within what is acceptable to raise the money. The research won’t happen otherwise – the government isn’t going to fund it.

We absolutely understand that, for some who are going through treatment or have just been diagnosed or lost someone, all this pink stuff can be hard to deal with. On the other hand there are many women who have said to me that it is an opportunity to do something challenging (check out 500 women in muddy Hyde Park doing Pink Aerobics – many of whom have had breast cancer) or something silly to forget the daily grind of chemotherapy with the side-effects it brings; or to remember Mum or sister or colleague and all the time know that the end result is research which might change that picture in the future.

I have never claimed that the cause I espouse is better than any other – each to his own. The huge popularity of BCAM is that so many have been touched by this disease – whether personally or family, friend or colleague and they all appreciate that the money raised is vital.

We took inspiration from the AIDS campaigners of the eighties. All those women who wouldn’t talk about breasts let alone cancer suddenly realised that if people, and very famous people, could talk about contracting AIDS and therefore coming out about their sexuality or intravenous drug use maybe talking about breast cancer wasn’t such a big deal.

I had lots of opportunities in the early 90s to complain about the very high profile that AIDS had where the incidence in this country was very low compared to breast cancer – I didn’t – just watched and learned.

...as I said to the Prime Minister yesterday....

A very exciting and very early visit to Downing Street Thursday morning. If you didn’t already know it October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the Prime Minister very kindly invited us to Number 10 Downing Street to have a photograph taken. One of our Board members came along too and we pinned our pink jigsaw pin on the Prime Minister’s lapel and he put some money in our collecting tin. (Real folding money which he took out of his wallet – the reporter outside asked if it was just a piece of paper or real money so I knew you would be interested!)

I believe in the “photo opportunity” trade this is known as a grip and grin! He gripped we grinned and I managed to deliver all our key messages in five minutes.

Then we were on our way – to be followed later in the morning by the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger to the uninitiated) who apparently was accompanied by nine minders. Perhaps being Prime Minister isn’t such fun.....

We were also shown the Cabinet Room which seems surprisingly small – no blood on the carpet which you might think would be the case after the last few years in Downing Street - and the pencils needed sharpening.

Now back to work....