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easyfundraising is a great website where you can help Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team raise funds simply by doing your everyday online shopping with over 3,300 big name retailers like Amazon, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com, eBay, Boden, and M&S.

Every time you shop, we receive a small donation to say ‘thank you’ and it’s completely free too! We want raise as much as possible so please sign up and help us at https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/dast/

Over £20million has already been raised for good causes in the UK by easyfundraising shoppers so please help us get our share.

Action Mesothelioma Day in the East Midlands

The first Friday of July is designated national Action Mesothelioma Day, drawing attention to this rare form of cancer that is only caused by exposure to asbestos fibres. Over 3,000 people die from Mesothelioma each year in the UK, most being exposed in the workplace 30-40 years previously.

Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team (DAST) assisted over 40 families affected by asbestos cancers last year in Derbyshire alone. We also helped many others across the East Midlands. We also work to raise awareness of the continuing danger of asbestos. Although the substance was banned in 1999, the UK imported so much of it in the 20^th century that it is still present in many of our homes and public buildings. Action Mesothelioma Day is a way of encouraging greater awareness of the disease and the continuing risks of asbestos exposure.

DAST will mark Action Mesothelioma Day 2018 by planting a memorial tree at Grassmoor Country Park near Chesterfield. Each branch of the tree will represent a profession or trade that is commonly affected by asbestos exposure – plumbers, electricians and teachers for example.  

We hope that local people who have worked with asbestos in the past will join us as we plant this tree. We will be meeting at Birkin Lane Car Park, Grassmoor, on Friday 6^th July at 10.30am. All are welcome.

The tree planting ceremony will be followed by a buffet lunch at North Wingfield Community Resource Centre. If you would like to join DAST for the event, please book by telephoning 01246 380415 or emailing mail@asbestossupport.co.uk 

To make a donation towards Action Mesothelioma Day, click on this link to be taken to our online donation page at The Big Give:

https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/projects/view/19708

Twitter: @DAST24

Facebook: www.facebook.com/asbestossupportEastMidlands/

Cooking Up Good Health

Thanks to our Co-op Local Community Fund donations, we are now able to produce our own DAST healthy eating cookbook.

This is your chance to get your own recipe into print!

We’re inviting our supporters to send us recipes that they have designed, or that have been passed down through their family. We are collecting recipes that fit into the following categories:

Breakfast – Snack – Light Meal – Dessert – Drinks

If you want to send us a recipe, we need your list of ingredients and the cooking method. Your measurements can be metric OR imperial but please don’t mix the two. We’d also like to know a bit of background information such as how you got the idea, why you enjoy it or any memories associated with it.  A high-resolution digital photo of the dish would be good but this isn’t compulsory. Please remember not to send us any recipes that have previously been published in other books.

Send your recipes by email to sarah.walters@asbestossupport.co.uk

Or by post to DAST, 34 Glumangate, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S40 1TX

When we have enough recipes to fill a book, we will use our Co-op donations to have a glossy cookbook printed, which we will then give out free of charge to anyone accessing DAST’s services. All those submitting recipes will also receive a free copy.

Support us with your Co-op Dividend here

Recognising our Volunteers

Today, 20 April 2017, is Volunteer Recognition Day and so we want to take this opportunity to thank all those who have given their time to Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team over the past year. Some of the things that people have done for us include:

• ·       Befriending someone
• ·       Raising sponsor money
• ·       Distributing leaflets to doctors’ surgeries
• ·       Speaking about DAST at events
• ·       Serving on our committee
• ·       Attending a supporters meeting
• ·       Put us forward to be a supermarket’s chosen charity
• ·       Made something crafty for us to sell

Without this kind of help, we would have considerably fewer resources – both in terms of money to spend on services and the services themselves. Sometimes, only a person that has been directly affected by Mesothelioma can do the job needed. To all of you…

Thank You!

If you want to join our bereavement befrienders or become a DAST Community Champion – tell us and we will give you as much support as we can. You decide what you want to do and how often you want to do it. Drop Sarah an email on sarah.walters@asbestossupport.co.uk

And we’ll give you a call.

Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/asbestossupportEastMidlands/

Poetry Please

Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team have launched their first ever poetry competition.

We are encouraging people to write a poem about asbestos – sharing how they feel about it, and how it has affected their life. Their work can take any format and it doesn’t have to rhyme.

As well as providing people with an opportunity to vent their feelings on paper, we aim to use the competition to raise money towards our Action Mesothelioma Day event. Each entry must be accompanied by an entry form and a donation of £3.

The winning entry will be read out at the AMD event, which will take place at The Roundhouse, Derby on July 7^th.  The author will also be awarded a £10 book token.

So, what are you waiting for?

Grab a pen and notepad

We’re sure you won’t be a bore

Your efforts will make us glad!

If you would like an entry form and set of rules, contact Sarah on sarah.walters@asbestossupport.co.uk

Closing date is 24th April 2017.

If you would like to make an online donation towards Action Mesothelioma Day, click here

You Can Bank on DAST

It’s been such a busy year at DAST. We’ve launched the Asbestos in Schools Awareness project and run the Asbestos Heritage research project. The bereavement support services entered its second year and we held a Reflection and Remembrance event at Lincoln Cathedral. We ran an Action Mesothelioma Day event and hosted this year’s Mesothelioma in the Midlands conference.

All this happened while we continued to provide our ongoing regular services including making home visits, holding coffee mornings and delivering information directly to those affected by asbestos disease.

The cost of some of this work has been covered by grants and donations from charitable bodies and trade unions. We are very grateful for this support, but the tendency is for them to select a specific project to fund.  Finding a grant or large donation to cover your day-to-day work is rare. Few charitable bodies want to fund our core work – the home visits or the maintenance of our website, for example.  The telephone bill is a major expense for DAST. Our staff spend hours of each working day on the telephone; providing reassurance and guidance, chasing up claims or planning events. According to our most recent accounts, DAST spent over £9000 on telephone, internet and postage in the last financial year.

DAST's most recent coffee morning in Stamford

This is why we need general, unrestricted funding. Our panel of solicitors help us to meet the cost of a large chunk of our overheads – the salaries, the rent and the travel expenses. But the rest? That all comes from our supporters.

Your donations really make a difference to the level of service that we can provide. Without them, there would be fewer coffee mornings where Mesothelioma sufferers find information and support. There would be fewer, less informative, information booklets. There would be no newsletter to keep families in touch with developments or ways to campaign on issues affecting their loved ones.

If you haven’t already done so, please consider signing up to a regular donation through standing order.

·        £5 per month would cover the cost of room hire for a coffee morning each year.

·        £10 per month would cover the cost of printing and mailing a newsletter to 100 families each year.

And knowing that this money is coming in regularly helps in planning our future activities.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to DAST this year. You have helped us to make a difference to many people. if you would like a standing order form, please follow the link below and click on 'Donation Leaflet pdf':

http://asbestossupport.net/support-us/fundraising/

Donate to DAST Without Giving Money!

 Here at DAST we collect several used items which we can magically turn into money to help pay for our services!

·        Old and foreign money. This is the new addition to our recycling programme.  Please consider having a collection of all that spare change that you and your friends might bring back from your holidays abroad.

·        Postage stamps. If you can, please cut these out leaving a border of 0.5cm – 1cm. Do you know a workplace office that can save stamps for us?

·        HP ink cartridges

·        Mobile phones

·        Any unwanted gift that would look good on our raffle table, or that we can sell on ebay.

·        Handmade items for our craft stalls

If you are coming to one of our future events, then it is easiest to bring your donations along then. Or if you are in the Chesterfield area, then you are welcome to pop onto the office on Glumangate.

Otherwise, we can accept most things through the post – except mobile phones. Royal Mail are no longer allowing these into their system so these do need to be handed in in person.

Please think about DAST before throwing any of these things out!

Visit the fundraising page on our website here