Eastbourne Support group are extremely proud to announce that Professor Basant Puri will be making a return visit to Eastbourne to speak again.

Professor B.K. Puri, a medical doctor and research scientist based at Hammersmith Hospital and Imperial College London, is a world-leading neuroscience and biochemistry expert. He has carried out pioneering research work in these fields. Indeed, he was the first in the world to treat a patient with depression using a pure fatty acid. Professor Puri's research findings have been described in scientific journals and in lectures at international medical and scientific conferences.

On Monday the 27th April we began the process of setting up the stand for the coming four days. It was interesting to see the big empty hall5 at the SECC transform into a slick professional medical conference. Our stall which was of course modest in comparison to the drug companies efforts still managed to carve out a noticeable corner on one of the main walkways.

Over the course of the week we did receive quite a few comments on our presentation with some coming to see what  the yellow and black colours meant from across the hall.

FMA UK made the decision to attend medical professional conferences with the aim of communicating our message to the people  that shape fibromyalgia treatment. Talking to Rheumatologists and Nurse Specialists as well as other medical professionals allows us to raise awareness among this group as well as find out useful information about relevant services around the country.

The 2009 Girlracer Charity Endurance kart race is raring to get off the start line, and the date has been confirmed as Sunday 18th October 2009, Supporting Fibromyalgia Association UK.

The race will be held at the superb facility at Daytona Milton Keynes, which features 11 exciting corners over nearly 1350m of all-weather tarmac. The race will be open to teams of between 4 and 10 drivers, and they are priced at a very competitive £1,295 plus VAT.

The format of the race will consist of a 2-hour Practice and Qualifying session in the morning after registration and driver safety briefings, followed by a 6-hour endurance race to the chequered flag! There will be some excellent off-track entertainment at the event to keep drivers engaged whilst not racing, and don’t worry about keeping up with the penultimate F1 race in Brazil as we will be screening the race live from 2pm.

The Rugby Fibromyalgia Support Group held an Awareness Day event at the Benn Hall, Rugby on 12th May. It was the first ‘open day’ they had run and they invited 20 other voluntary and support groups to open stalls at the event, including ME, Mind, Pension Service, Guidepost Trust, Rugby Credit Union, Rugby Disability Group, to name but a few. They had a large turn out and were very busy with many prospective new members turning up for information and staying to chat for quite a while. The FM table couldn’t really be missed with it’s brightly coloured yellow with black polka dot table cloth on.

Special mentions and thanks go to the following for their help and support: Mary Clarke, Jackie Hart (Joint chairs) Sue and Richard Drage, Carol, Terri and Eric Stevenson, Pat Webb and Marcia Phillpott. Photos were taken by Maurice Clarke.