FUNDRAISING FOR A CURE
Donating is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with us and we will never sell them
PLANETS New Year statement 2017
2016 has been an incredible year, we have raised approximately £175,000 and funded a range of projects; most notably IORT (intra operative radiotherapy), our goal for the last three years, which has finally come to fruition and is now fully operational at Southampton General Hospital with patients being treated this week. This project, which we first thought of in 2013 has been dogged by complications, delays, price rises and administrative red tape. However we have battled on through all of these and the IORT team and PLANETS working together have finally got this project live. We will now provide the funding to keep this active through until the start of 2019 by which time hopefully we will have got NHS funding completely sorted for this.
We have to say a huge thank you to all of our fundraisers and sponsors both large and small who have contributed to this incredible total for the last year. This has been our highest grossing year and we have seen our largest ever events; most notably the LP24 cycle ride and the Bollywood ball. However as with any year we find that the large events raise around half of our annual total and the rest comes from all of our many fantastic supporters who give us individual donations, get sponsored for challenges or put on events from coffee mornings, cake stalls, car boot sales, Church Hall events to fine dining and charity auctions. We are so grateful for every donation whether it be £1 or £10,000. The organisation and personal commitment that goes into each of these is immense and our appreciation is unbounded.
In particular we would like to thank the following people: Brian Stedman for organising the LP24 cycle ride, a mammoth personal commitment that took every spare minute for nine months. Jo Green, Tim Underwood, Sam Newborough and all of the LP 24 cyclists who put their lives on hold for six months and then their bodies on the line for 24 hours in aid of this incredible £65,000 event. Lisa Marouzet, Ian Wilson, Luisa Hashtroudi, Andy Stephen, Becky Pearce and everybody in the support crew who went with LP24 making dinners, mending punctures, setting up drink and feed stations and providing the final champagne reception.
Amanda Mollison, Sam Newborough, Ruth Willrich, Kiran Rai, Vicki Haylock and everybody else who helped organise and set up the Bollywood ball extravaganza in November, not to mention the extremely generous people who donated auction prizes, in particular Simon Hughes and Steph Shepherd. This was attended by 270 people and raised another £21,000 for the charity.
Carole Renvoize and Elizabeth Gay for their efforts at the Braishfield All Saints Church Christmas tree appeal. Leanne Baldry and her incredible ‘Pompey Massive’ fundraising team who have joined us in 2016 and have a whole spreadsheet of fundraising events planned for 2017, Football for Cancer for their generous donation, Ronny Allan for his amazing ongoing ‘tweeting’ on behalf of PLANETS, Tori Caine for her ongoing support of the charity and the wonderful extreme events that she organises every year for us, Venice Beach and Marion Fisher for another year of cake stalls and coffee mornings, Roz Dartmouth for the wonderful charity dinner she arranges annually, Kate Geraghty for a fabulous luncheon in March….
These are just a few of the many hundreds (if not thousands) of people who have supported us and who have sacrificed their own time and put in so much effort over the last year and whom we would like to thank again, from the bottom of our hearts, for all that each and every one of you have done to help us provide the best that we can to support the medical teams in their vital efforts to save lives. We are sorry that we cannot list you all, without making this look like a telephone directory! But we really appreciate everything that you have done.
But above all we would like to thank each and everyone of you for your ongoing support whether this is battling it out on the front line of the hard-core charity cycling events or quiet support from the sidelines, we need it all and really appreciate everything that you can give.
So what next for 2017? Well, we already have a range of challenges and plans including:
1) A one-day charity cycling, running, horse-riding… marathon . This will be held locally in the summer and will end at a camp site with a camp fire, barrels of beer and entertainment. Watch this space for more details!
2) “Scrap to the Future” a two day banger rally in October, Taking sponsored cars with a road value of less than £400 from Southampton to Loch Lomond where they will be scrapped after a black tie dinner.
3) Portsmouth Valentines ball in February organised by ‘The Pompey Massive’
4) Carnival and Casino night. A Caribbean carnival themed casino night at the Hilton in November.
Could you add to this list?! We would love to hear from you! Sign up to our mailing list and like our Facebook page to make sure you are updated on what we have planned.
Our target for 2017 is to raise another £250,000. A big ask but we have a wish list of things that we would like to fund, some of which are listed below;
We would like to support Jo Todd with funding for her next pancreatic and NET cancer research project. We are also keen to part fund a band 6 specialist NET nurse to cover Portsmouth and also Southampton patients with Emma Ramsey.
Alongside the patient support groups that we already fund, and would like to continue doing so, we are looking to initiate counselling sessions for new patients and their families which would be offered on a case by case basis.
In 2017 we are aiming to bring HIPEC (hot intra peritoneal chemotherapy) to UHS. We also need to raise £100,000 to pay for the lease for IORT taking us through to 2019 when we hope the NHS will fund it. We would also like to adapt a second theatre for IORT use.
All in all, another busy and exciting year for PLANETS which will probably see some changes to our structure as we continue to grow and work more closely with teams from other cancer sites to help their patients see the same benefits that we all have over the last 5 years.
So, here’s to a cracking 2017 of fundraising and fun!!
Neil, Brian, Layla, Jo and the PLANETS team.
READ ABOUT HOW FUNDS ARE USED
-
PLANETS Funds New Wellbeing Room for Liver Ward at UHS
PLANETS funds new wellbeing room for liver patients at University Hospital Southampton A new wellbeing room funded by PLANETS Cancer Charity has been opened for patients with liver diseases at University Hospital Southampton. The facility, located on the gastroenterology and hepatology ward, provides a quiet space for patients and a place for private conversations which […]
-
PLANETS funds novel 3D printed livers to aid complex surgery
Surgeons in Southampton are the first in the UK to begin using 3D printed models of patients’ livers to help them perform a complex cancer operation. Converting the data available from CT and MRI scans of patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma – a type of bile duct cancer – into 3D models will enable better planning […]
-
PLANETS Charity Welcome Coach Alison Bailey to their Support Team
Here at PLANETS we understand how daunting a cancer diagnosis can be. We know firsthand the transformative power of support throughout the cancer journey and have experienced ourselves the highs and lows, the triumphs and setbacks and the profound impact they can have on your life. We are very happy to be welcoming Alison Bailey, […]
-
PLANETS completes £1 million fundraising campaign to purchase pioneering radiotherapy machine
PLANETS has thanked its supporters after completing a £1 million fundraising campaign and making the final payment for a pioneering radiotherapy machine. PLANETS Cancer Charity has been fundraising for the past six years to fully purchase Mobetron, a revolutionary mobile device which delivers radiotherapy during surgery – known as intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT). When the charity […]
-
PLANETS Receive £10,000 Grant from The Hospital Saturday Fund
Thank you to John Greenwood, Trustee of the The Hospital Saturday Fund, for visiting us on Monday and bringing this incredible grant of £10,000 to support our IORT (Intra Operative Radiotherapy) machine. This will enable us to continue delivering this lifesaving treatment at University Hospital Southampton – the only centre in the UK currently offering […]
-
PLANETS Fund ‘New View’ Psychotherapy Course for NET Patients
PLANETS have funded a psychotherapy programme, after a successful pilot course, to help NET patients see their diagnosis in a ‘new view’. We all know that different people deal with their neuroendocrine cancer diagnosis very differently. Initially there are lots of scary tests and Doctor appointments. Then there are lots of talk about […]
-
Head and Neck Cancer Patient Treated with IORT in UK First
A woman from Salisbury has become the first patient in the UK with head and neck cancer to receive radiotherapy in the operating theatre during surgery to remove a recurrent tumour. Jayne Garrett, 53, underwent major surgery at University Hospital Southampton on 25 April after suffering a recurrence of her cancer following conventional treatment […]
-
PLANETS Host the 1st National IORT Symposium
It was an honour to present the fantastic work and great initial results to medics from all over the country at our 1st National IORT (intra-operative radiotherapy) Symposium on Friday June 21st at University Hospital Southampton. After a lot of hard work and fundraising in order to bring IORT to the UK for the […]
-
PLANETS Cancer Charity and the Robert White Trust, Fund a new regional NET Cancer Dietitian
A dietitian funded by PLANETS Cancer Charity and the Robert White Trust Fund is due to start work to develop and provide a comprehensive dietetic service to patients diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Cancer (NETs). Ruth Lee will be based at the Dorset NET service, which is part of the Wessex European Neuroendocrine tumour society centre […]
-
Southampton Secure £200k from The Robert White Trust for NETs Research
PLANETS are excited to share the news that University Hospital Southampton have secured £200,000 funding from the Robert White Trust for a research project that aims to gain a better understanding of NET biology which may lead to a greater range of treatment options for patients with this rare disease. Robert White was a former […]
-
Bowel cancer patient becomes first in UK to be treated with IORT
We are thrilled and proud to update our supporters that a Southampton bowel cancer patient has become the first in the UK to receive radiotherapy during surgery using the IORT machine that PLANETS has funded. he 58-year-old male, who completed a combination of conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy in August, underwent major surgery at Southampton […]
-
IORT Launch is a Success!
SOUTHAMPTON CLINICIANS PIONEER USE OF REVOLUTIONARY CANCER DEVICE PLANETS founders Neil Pearce and Brian Stedman, together with fund manager Layla Stephen successfully launched our long awaited IORT machine last night. The Mobetron is the first portable system able to administer the treatment in this way – known as intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) – and will […]
-
IORT Arrives at Southampton!
PLANETS are thrilled to announce that the eagle (finally) has landed! 2 tons of intra-operative radio-therapy machine (IORT) arrived from the USA this week – currently undergoing acceptance testing. This is the UK’s first ever mobile electron beam radiotherapy machine for treating cancers during surgery. Thanks to everyone who has supported our fundraising which has […]
-
Southampton Aiding Research into Earlier Diagnosis for Pancreatic Cancer
You may have notice that Southampton was mentioned in recent media stories regarding The National Tumour Bank that is carrying out important pancreatic cancer research? Colin Johnson, Professor of Surgical Sciences at University of Southampton, has this to say about the project: ‘The National Tissue Bank is a major development in pancreatic cancer research. Several […]
-
Sainsbury’s Hedge End Donate Digital Radios
A big thank you to Sainsbury’s Hedge End for donating two digital radios to PLANETS to be used in the lead lined Gamma Scanner Rooms at Southampton General. Pictured presenting the radios to staff in the scanner rooms are PLANETS Fund Manager, Layla Stephen, and Dr Brian Stedman.
-
PLANETS to Fund Pancreatic Cancer Research at Southampton
PLANETS Charitable Fund are excited to have committed to provide a grant over a two year period for a pancreatic research project: ́The role of Eps8 in αvβ6-dependent functions in pancreatic cancer invasion’ to be undertaken by Dr Jo Tod. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PC) has one of the worst outcomes of any cancer; only 3.7% of patients […]
-
First Patient Receives PRRT at Southampton thanks to PLANETS
[social_button button=”facebook” flayout=”standard ” fwidth=”450″ faction=”like” fcolorsheme=”light”] UHS magazine Connect featured a fantastic article about NET patient Maureen McKenzie who, in July 2013, became the first Southampton patient to receive PRRT (peptide receptor radionuclide therapy). The equipment for this treatment was jointly funded by UHS and PLANETS showing just how important and valuable the […]
-
Improving Patient Services Across the Region
[social_button button=”facebook” flayout=”standard ” fwidth=”450″ faction=”like” fcolorsheme=”light”] Pancreatic cancer affects over 8000 patients each year in the uk and remains the fifth biggest cancer killer in the UK, despite this its has been underfunded for many years and currently receives just 1% of total cancer research funding in the UK. NETs are a rare form […]
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Get informed about the latest news straight to your inbox
