June/July 2020 e-letter
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Be a part of our BrainBox quiz
Join The National Brain Appeal to challenge your brain to help beat brain challenges!
We've all done the lockdown quizzes, but here's an opportunity to really challenge yourself with a special brain-themed night. We want to get as many of you as involved as possible!
On 30 July, starting at 7.30pm, we'll be testing you with a variety of rounds such as 'Guess The National Hospital clinicians' fridge as well as questions about medical-related TV shows! There will also be special guest appearances from celebrity supporters Richard Arnold, Kevin Eldon and Stephen Mangan.
Whether you fancy joining alone or with friends, we hope you will get involved! We recommend a maximum of six members in each team and you can form teams across multiple locations – all you need to do is make sure you can all view the quiz live stream and communicate answers with each other, perhaps over a video chat on Zoom or a group message chat on WhatsApp. One person per team should be responsible for noting your answers and submitting your score at the end of the quiz.
We are suggesting a £5 donation per person but feel free to ramp up the risk and challenge your friends to a quiz-off (lowest scoring team donating on behalf of everyone). Now remember, £5 is just the price of a standard drink, but since you’re at home, feel free to up that to £10 or £20 depending on how large your glass is!
We'll be hosting the quiz on our YouTube channel and will share a link nearer the date with those who have registered. All you need to do is sign up below!
Making an impact
We are extremely grateful to all of our supporters who've continued to donate and keep the good work going. But the stark reality is that in April, at the height of lockdown, The National Brain Appeal experienced a drop in income of 53% compared to the same month last year.
Inevitably, there have been a number of adaptations and delays to projects we are funding this year, and you can find out more about this in the story below. In order to support these changes and to bring delayed programmes back on track as quickly as possible we need your support more than ever.
We know that your situation may have changed, but if you are in a position to make a donation, we would be so grateful for your help. All donations are extremely valuable, but would you consider a modest regular gift if you haven’t already signed up to support us in this way? This form of giving will enable us to underpin the amazing projects already underway and plan ahead to support new initiatives. For example, just 100 supporters donating £5 per month could pay for two of our Small Acorns projects each year. Find out more below.
Adapting to Covid-19
Clinics and services at Queen Square are adapting, with new procedures in place to protect patients from the risk of the virus.
We talked to Andrea Hill, Superintendent Radiographer at the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy (a Queen Square-run clinic). "We now scan outpatients and inpatients on separate days," she explains. "When patients and their drivers/carers arrive, they are asked to wait in different bays to minimise contact with others. All radiology staff wear masks, aprons, gloves and scrubs. We've had to allow greater time between appointments because we clean the scanner bore after every patient scanned, and put on new PPE too."
Many outpatient clinics at The National Hospital are offering virtual appointments. Consultant neurologist, Dr Rugg-Gunn, tells us, "We have been running almost all the clinics remotely during lockdown. Typically this is over the phone, but we have started to use video calls more. This works well for multidisciplinary clinics with numerous clinicians and therapists working together with patients and their carers or families. We hope to find more of these safer and efficient ways of working."
Find out more about the impact of Covid on the projects we're funding below:
Ready for artworks
Thanks to all of you who have created artworks for A Letter in Mind this year, and have been waiting patiently to send them in.
We are delighted to say that we are now ready to receive your creative envelopes!
Please send it to:
The National Brain Appeal – ALIM
3rd Floor, Ormond House
26/27 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ
A member of the team will email you to confirm it has arrived safely – please note there may be a delay in acknowledging your work as we will not have a full-time team back in our office for some time yet.
Please help to spread the word by encouraging friends and family to take part and share that you're taking part in A Letter in Mind on social media. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, tag us and use the hashtags #ALIM20 and #EverydayThings. Remember, we don't want to see your artwork - they need to remain anonymous!
If you still need to sign up, click below!
Watch Jackie Ashley, our new chair, talking briefly about her personal reasons for supporting Queen Square, along with her aspirations and plans for the charity.
For more personal stories and how your funding makes a huge difference to patients at Queen Square, please visit nationalbrainappeal.org.
Theresa, Marcelle, Tina, Cara, Anna, Eva, Alexis, Julia, Seb, Shaun, Marie, Lisa, Kim, Jane and Josh
