Thanks to Joe, Brian, Ron, Dennis, Mike and Larry, the day before the Festival the gazebo and flags were standing proudly by 3pm. We were primed for our fourth two-day annual awareness campaign.

The weather is always such a determining factor in our success at this event and thankfully we were blessed with two days of sunshine. It has been stated by The Waterways Trust that up to 25,000 pass through the gates of the Aquadrome over that weekend. We actually had a visit from the Chairman of Three Rivers District Council, who congratulated us on the robust, cheerful, upbeat manner in dealing with a subject most would rather not hear about on a pleasant day out.

We are usually allocated a site in the Environmental Area which is slightly off the beaten track but we still managed to distribute almost 1000 leaflets. This, I can assure you, is no easy task as most men (and I mean most) can be observed physically shying away from our stand, although this was the first year we were actually approached by so many for information. The recent Media coverage of Prostate cancer no doubt prompted some to take a leaflet.

Many more than in previous years did engage with Dennis, who at 90 years of age manned the gazebo for the whole weekend. Plus, he kept an eagle eye on the dismantling and re-storing of the gazebo, tables, leaflets, etc ready for our next outing which is Chorleywood Village Day in July.

Ron, as usual, was there to put up the gazebo and on both days to hand out leaflets. It was interesting to observe the different approaches our volunteers adopted to get a leaflet into the reluctant hands of recipients. Shirley was sweetness and light; Mary’s ‘sales pitch’ was “what do you mean you don’t want a leaflet - you have a prostate don’t you?!”; John L earnestly engaged with those he managed to halt; Denis Mc, although still recovering from treatment, was another one of our Stormtroopers handing out leaflets and chatting to men; Anthony was more than vocal and keen as mustard to reach as many as possible with the message. Both Anthony and his wife Joy are new members to the Support Group so it is heartening to us ‘old hands’ that they and others are willing to step up to help FOPS spread the word. Christine’s knowledge of Prostate cancer and personal experience of Terry’s battle enabled her to engage with many on the day.

My own overview was that it had been a positive weekend. However, at least four men told me that they had been sent PSA ‘testing kits’ in the post so therefore had had the test. But on questioning them further I found out that these men were not aware that the kits did not cover Prostate cancer testing. One man with a PSA of 17 was told by his GP that he was too young (52 yrs) to have Prostate cancer. And yet again I heard so many state that they had no interest in getting tested. So we were determined to keep this particular annual outing simple by concentrating on raising awareness only. On this occasion, rattling collection cans could detract from our main aim.

We left the Aquadrome at 4pm on Sunday and , much to Dennis’ relief, our son-in-law and grandson were already at 34 to help unload the car and stack everything neatly for our July outing. Restored by a glass of wine while sitting in our garden, Dennis and I were reflecting on the success of our band of troopers and concluded that it had been wholly worth the effort.

A big thank you to Ron, Larry, Dennis M, Mary, Mike, Joe, Shirley, Jim, Anthony, Joy, John, Brian, Christine.
Encore, take a bow!

Kind Regards, Gabrielle.
PS: The next Support Group meeting is on the 15th June at Christ Church.