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New Total £960,000!

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Invest in ME Research announced in their Christmas and New Year Funding Appeal that £960,000 has been raised and pledged to support the charity’s Centre of Excellence for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis projects.

The Let’s Do It for ME campaign is run by severely ill patients supporting the charity’s Centre of Excellence programme of biomedical research and medical education projects. Our original crowdfunding goal of £100,000 enabled this work to get underway in 2013 (patient samples for the lab work obtained since 2014) and we would love to reach £1,000,000!

So to start off the new year, we have created a grid with 40 vacant slots with a funding target of £1,000 each and invite you to contact us if you’d like to aim to raise £1,000 whether as an individual or group, private or business. Read more on the page for Our 40 x £1k Fundraisers Challenge.

Many thanks to everyone helping Invest in ME Research to achieve their goals relating to maintaining a programme of high quality biomedical reseach with international collaboration focused on establishing diagnostic tests and medical treatments for this disease.

The charity wrote in December,

“To our supporters we owe great thanks – you helped create something that was thought unachievable. A sustainable Centre of Excellence for ME is now harnessing the benefits of a strategy of collaborative international biomedical research in modern facilities with world-class researchers.”

With very best wishes to you for 2020 and the new decade ahead and grateful thanks for supporting Invest in ME Research.

In case you missed it, your input is needed to inform the agenda for an upcoming public engagement meeting at Quadram Institute.

Our 40 x £1k Fundraisers Challenge

Your Input Needed for 2020 Public Engagement Event

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Invest in ME Research and Quadram Institute are arranging a Public Engagement Event in Norwich on 7th February 2020 and are inviting patients, carers and supporters to send them any input to the meeting.

They are collecting information now in order to plan the agenda. If you have specific issues or questions that you feel should be addressed at the public meeting then please use the contact form on this page.

Supporters will know that work has been ongoing to establish a Centre of Excellence for ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) based at Norwich Research Park, which houses Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, University of East Anglia, Norwich Medical School, Earlham Institute (formerly The Genome Analysis Centre) and the new Quadram Institute.

Invest in ME Research is run by volunteer parents and patients. The charity published a detailed proposal for a centre in 2010 and began crowdfunding in 2011 to enable the biomedical research programme to get underway in 2013. The next phase is a clinical treatment trial of faecal microbiota transplantation for ME planned to start in 2020.

IiMER and QI are keen to discuss the planned research with patients and carers, and wish to get views and additional insights to help them shape their future research. They will be discussing logistics for this meeting and will be meeting in the New Year to plan the event.

Please contact them through the contact form on this page.

The meeting itself will be on the morning of 7th February 2020 (the likely time being 10:30 – 12:00) in the new Quadram Institute building near the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital; postcode NR4 7UQ.

More details will be provided nearer the time.

Many of us are too ill to leave our homes or are unable to attend meetings in person for other reasons, but please do take this opportunity to share your thoughts and ask any questions to help shape the agenda.

Let’s Do It for ME is run by severely ill patients supporting Invest in ME Research and their Centre of Excellence for ME projects.

Day 23 of the Invest in ME Research Advent Calendar is about the Centre of Excellence for ME so you can read more about it here.

Link to the meeting info and contact form here.

Thank you for supporting Invest in ME Research!

Team Catherine’s Christmas Cracker

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These girls did!

Team members: FFion Hicks, Verity Ballard, Sophie Martin, Claire Bloomer, completed the Weston Athletic Club Christmas Cracker 10k run in aid of Invest in ME Research for their friend Catherine Halford.

Catherine’s Story

I was first diagnosed with ME at the age of 12 after having glandular fever,  I did not recover from this so many months of hospital visits led to my diagnosis. This had a big impact on my teenage years spending much of my time unable to join in with school activities and general growing up.  I was always very active and enjoyed many sports. I spent 5 years managing my health along with my education with lots of support from my family.  Much of my time was spent in bed unable to move and many nights of severe pain.  I was then very lucky and things started to get easier for me, my pain levels went down and I had more energy.  As the years went on I was able to lead a relatively ‘normal’ life with my ME in the background.  I was well enough and able to train for and run the London Marathon which is an achievement I am very proud of and can only dream about doing again.  In 2018 I caught the flu, this hit me hard and with my immune system hitting a low my ME was re-triggered.  This has been life changing for me, I have had to give up a job I love, my hobbies and can not always be there for my husband and children as much as I would like.  I spend my days trying to manage my illness once again while being there for my family.  I would love to be out running again but this is just not a possibility.  My lovely friends are running the 10k Christmas Cracker in order to raise money to support a fantastic charity.  I am so grateful to them and charities that support ME, one day treatment and a cure will be found to stop many others going through these life changes due to the illness.

Invest in ME Research is an independent UK charity finding, funding and facilitating a strategy of biomedical research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME or ME/CFS).The charity is run by volunteers – patients or parents of children with ME – with no paid staff.Overheads are kept to a minimum and all funds raised to go to promoting education of, and funding for biomedical research into, ME.Our efforts are focused on setting up a UK Centre of Excellence for ME which will provide proper examinations, diagnosis and in time treatment(s)/cure(s).

WAC Christmas Cracker 10k: justgiving.com/fundraising/crackerrun

Big thanks Team Catherine and all supporting Invest in ME Research!

✨Christmas Shopping and Fundraising for Invest in ME Research✨

Hay’s Book Giveaway for Donations over £10!

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Author Hayley Green (Hay Baker) will send you any one of her paperback books of your choice as a thank you for any donations over £10 to her Facebook Fundraiser. You can see all of her books here on Amazon.

https://www.facebook.com/101TipsForCopingWithME/posts/1568703833268376

If you decide to buy any items on Amazon, please remember to use this referral link or sign up to Amazon Smile to generate an extra donation to Invest in ME Research at no extra cost to yourself.

Browse our bookshelf of other books kindly sold
with part or full royalties to Invest in ME Research.

Hayley is a long term ME sufferer, which is the topic of Day 4 of Invest in ME Research Advent Calendar and includes video of a presentation at the charity’s 6th conference by Dr. David Bell on his 25 year follow up of patients who initially fell ill during an outbreak in 1985.

It’s Day 4 of the free to enter easyfundraising contest to win prizes for you and donations for Invest in ME and still time to nominate the charity to a win £1,000 prize from Ecclesiastical specialist insurers.

✨Seasonal Shopping and Fundraising for Invest in ME Research✨

Thank you for supporting Invest in ME Research!

Let’s Win £1,000 Again!

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Please nominate Invest in ME Research (charity number 1153730)

Earlier this year, your nominations won Invest in ME Research a wonderful £1,000 award in specialist insurer Ecclesiastical’s #MovementForGood. Here is our chance to do it again thanks to the company’s #12Days of Giving.

Nominations are open now and remain open until midnight before the day of each draw. You need only nominate once and your nomination carries over to the next day if the charity does not win.

Draws will take place each weekday from 5 – 20 December 2019. 

Winners will be drawn at random and the more nominations Invest in ME Research receives the greater the chance of them winning, so please spread the word and encourage your friends, family, contacts, to nominate too!

Click here and scroll the page for the nomination form.

Charity number: 1153730

Charity name: Invest in ME Research

Charity type: Health

Mark Hews, Group CEO of Ecclesiastical, said: “As a company whose purpose is to contribute to the greater good of society, charitable giving is at the heart of our business. Our annual 12 days of giving Christmas campaign will help charities change lives for the better and we know that for many charities, £1,000 can make a real difference. We’re encouraging everyone to nominate a cause close to their hearts this Christmas to be in for a chance to win a festive financial boost.”

Thank you for this opportunity Ecclesiastical and thank you everyone nominating Invest in ME Research!

About Invest in ME Research

The charity believes that biomedical research into ME is crucial in order to make progress in treating this disease. We also believe that education of healthcare staff, the media, government departments, patient groups and patients is to be a priority.

The charity’s objectives are to initiate, maintain and augment a strategy of high-quality biomedical research into ME, to provide education about ME, and to raise awareness of the effects of the disease on patients and families.

We are a small charity but with supporters who have big hearts – and a determination to get the best possible research to be carried out to find the cause of myalgic encephalomyelitis and develop treatments.

We have links nationwide and also internationally. Read more…