Plans for our Stamner Park picnic are going well. Just a reminder for everyone that it will be held on Sunday 8th Sept 12-4pm. We will have gazebos to protect you from the sun. There will be three therapists with us, two offering treatments such as Reiki and Indian Head massage and the third doing manicures. Please bring along some food for yourself or a dish to share and something to sit on. Food and drinks will also be available to buy from the Stanmer Park Tea Rooms. The picnic will be held at or very near the site shown which is close to carpark access. To find us drive past the gatehouse, follow the driveway for about 1/3 mile where the road forks (one way system starts), take the left hand fork until you reach the first car park on the left. We will be visible with gazebos from this point. This is going to be a great event and we look forward to seeing you there.

Sorting Bottle Tops at the Green Centre

Kelly and Roz went to help sort bottle tops with Melanie Rees at The Green Centre in East Brighton on Tuesday 30th July. We had a great time helping out the team and meeting other volunteers and managed to fill three sackfuls of sorted bottle tops to be sent off to the recycling centre in Portsmouth. We also had a small celebration for Melanie’s upcoming birthday with the rest of her team at The Green Centre.

The Green Centre is still looking for people to sort bottle tops. You can volunteer your  help on a Tuesday or a Thursday between 10.30 and 4.30.  Alternatively, if you want to get your own team together you can do this as a group activity. If you think you can help please contact Melanie and leave a message on 01273 687700  or email mel@thegreencentre.co.uk

We had another very good turnout for our coffee and chat this month. Ten of us met up to look at poster designs and stickers for our group. We were also particularly concerned about kidney care this month and how we can all do our best to manage this sometimes difficult element of lupus. Mel is interested in putting together a working party to look at holistic ways of taking care of our kidneys. This will probably lead to a series of short talks that will take place outside of our usual coffee and chat dates. We think that this will be really interesting and hopefully helpful. Next months formal meeting will take place at 10.00am 17th May 2013 before the coffee and chat.

World Peace Cafe

Peace Garden

We had a very successful meditation and lunch at the Bodhisattva Kadampa Buddhist centre in Hove. A few of us met up and took part in a 20 min relaxing guided meditation, followed by a delicious vegetarian lunch in the World Peace cafe. It was a very calming and enjoyable experience and a really good way to destress. As well as the lovely cafe you can also relax and unwind in their gardens. Follow this link to find out more about what’s on offer at the Buddhist Centre in Hove.

It seems like it’s been a long cold winter, which has stretched well into spring this year!  It’s thought that around 60% of people in the UK are vitamin D deficient and I’m one of them! Vitamin D is a hormone produced in the skin after being in the sun, it can also be found in some foods like oily fish. People with lupus are even more likely to be short of vitamin D due to our need to minimise our exposure to sun. The steroids we may take can also reduce our ability to absorb vitamin D. Symptoms of low vitamin D are fatigue and muscle pain. It also plays a role in the immune system so a shortage of it has been linked to diseases like MS. You can find out if you are vitamin D deficient by taking a  blood test and if you are low in it, you can improve your levels by taking a  supplement. This article explains how a recent study by a team at Newcastle University has proved for the first time that there is a definite link between vitamin D deficiency and energy levels. The Mirror also published this article  just over a week ago about  how our poor UK weather is resulting in more people suffering from a vitamin D deficiency!