Going along to my local Breathe Easy ... - Lung Conditions C...
Going along to my local Breathe Easy meeting for the first time this week.What happens at these meetings,????woodshaper
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Hi Woodshaper
Each Breathe Easy Group is different. Have you thought about contacting the BLF regional office for your area to make sure the group is meeting and the venue hasn't changed. The office may also tell the group you are planning on visiting and somebody may meet you to make it less scarey.
Give me a call on the helpline 03000 030 555 if you need the number of the regional office.
Best Wishes
Andrea
Hi Woodshaper, I am the vice chair of our local Breathe Easy. When we have someone new we always have a member of the committee to look after them and make sure they are seated some friendly longstanding members who will take them under their wings.
We have a different speaker each month mostly related to various aspects of lung conditions ie:diet, excercise, local consultants, physios and respiratory nurses. We also have quiz and bingo with cakes a couple of times a year, and of course our Christmas lunch.
Members give a donation to help with the cost of the room and other expenses and we hold a raffle at each meeting.
At the end of each meeting we have tea and biscuits.
Of course each Breathe Easy group is different but the ideals are just the same.
I think it is the most brilliant place to be, to make friends and to be with people just like yourself, who are not going to be shocked if you are out of breathe or have a hacking cough.
Do try to contact someone before you go it's comforting to have a person to ask for when you get there, they will have contact numbers at BLF.
Let us know how you get on, I hope you have a really good time.
*polly
My Breathe Easy Group has very similar activities. We also try to arrange external social events of interest. One regular activity which we have at our meetings is Laughter Yoga. Most of the attending members seem to enjoy this activity - The gentle breathing exercises help to stengthen the diapgram and leave most with a sense of exhiliration and its fun. I recommend it. Try to find a Laughter Yoga Leader in your Area. There are 6000 clubs around the world, Best of fun!
Hi pollyjj
I rang the local Regional Office and left a message earlier, my call was returned not long long after by a Lady (sorry, terrible at remembering names) and we had a nice chat, she is going to contact the local organiser to make sure the meeting is still on and being held at the same location.
Your group sounds really well organised polly, (and you have Cakes!)
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Will let you know how I get on.
Best Wishes
woodshaper
Yes Woodshaper, we are renound for our cakes made especially for us by the lady who runs the kitchen where we rent our room, her scones are to die for. 
We are so lucky.
*polly
We did have tea and cakes at ours, but the NHS Trust have stopped us bringing our own stuff in Instead, we can book a tea trolley and sell our BE member a cuppa for 35p, crazy. We voted against it, instead we can get our own drinks if we want one. I usually take a small bottle of diluted cordial or something like that.
We hold our meetings in the board room of the hospital itself, quite big and a massive centre table for us all to sit around. There's a guest speak each month. We've had the fire service discussing oxygen in the house and arranging for smoke detectors to be fitted. People from the hospital are also speakers from time to time, explaining what they do.
There are occasional events we can go to as well. I attended one in Leeds in May about media, how to prepare a press release and so on.
There's usually a raffle and the chair/committee produce newsletters sometimes. It's helpful to have a chat with people like yourself, find out how they cope with coughing fits or what physical aids they've found useful.
Quite a few of the people who go to ours live in the same area and see each other through the month. Without Breathe Easy they may not have known anybody else with lung problems.
Are we the only ones still doing wife swapping then when reading it would seem so 
How lucky you are to have breath easy groups in your area, have had emphysema now since the mid 1990,s now on oxygen all the time and have the associated problems of atrial fibrillation etc. here in Eastbourne we do not have a group our nearest group appears to be Brighton which is impossible to travel to, really enjoy this site and being a member of the BLF as it keeps me in touch and helps me to understand etc when I have excerbations.
Not sorry for myself or downhearted I try to get on with things and have many interests including playing Bridge online. All my own fault for being a smoker and never realising it was so easy to give up, in the end I was coughing and spluttering trying to smoke one day I was so disgusted with myself I just threw the packet away and never smoked again.
Do go along to your group Woodshaper I am sure it will be enjoyable and helpful too!
Halsa
Hi Halsa,
So sorry to hear you still don't have a BE group in Eastbourne.
In 2009 I was doing a coastal fundraising cycle ride for BLF from Hastings to Isle of Wight. This coincided with BE week, and I arranged for our BE group (Canterbury and Coastal in Kent) to come down to do an awareness stall at EDGH to try to support people with lung disease in your area and persuade health practitioners to come forward and help start a group - it seems to work best when someone like that takes initial responsibility.
What a shame it still hasnt happened. Maybe the BLF development officer would have some ideas how to get one going. That's probably Joanne Rowland, same as ours in kent.
Good luck,
jean
Dear Jean,
Thank you very much for your helpful information, EDGH seems to be a bit of a COPD backwater as we have few services we do not seem to have Respitary Nurse service, I am lucky as I have had two very good Consultants here and have an excellent GP, so I should,nt grumble.
Many thanks,
Robert
I am also several miles from my nearest group, and they are in the centre of town which means extremely limited parking and quite a walk to the building used (too far for me) so I cannot attend. Shame, they sound fun.
Hi Woodshaper
Please enjoy your Breathe Easy meeting.It is like anything in life you have to put in to take out.Enjoy your new found friends, take part in what they do, become involved ,maybe join the committee .You will I am sure onjoy Breathe Easy. Richard Cornish.
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