To say my role as Chief Executive of the Meningitis Trust is a varied one is an understatement. I feel incredibly lucky that one day I can be helping to influence positive change for people affected by meningitis in Parliament, then the next spending time with the very people that we are here to support.

I am proud that we are an organisation that firmly has our beneficiaries at our heart and a favourite part of my job is meeting and spending time with the people we exist for - they are such an inspiration. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to have quite a bit of this going on!

Last week saw me attend a meeting on pneumococcal disease in the House of Commons with MPs, peers and other charities – looking at the work that’s already been done and identifying what still needs to be done on this. It’s great to be involved in partnership working groups like this – ensuring that the people we help have a voice for their needs.

I then went to Scotland to our regional office there and met with an amazing supporter of ours, Olivia Giles, for lunch. It’s always lovely to catch up with supporters and find out what they’re up to. 

It was then time for our quarterly briefing, where all our staff from across the UK come together. I love it when we get together like this as a team, looking at what we have achieved, but most importantly, looking at what we are driving for in the future.

 
We were lucky enough to have two fantastic supporters come along and talk – as ever, a massive inspiration to us all. Alex Williams (with his mum and Aunty), who was our first Young Ambassador, had us all in hysterics when he was talking about what he had been up to, but touched us so much when he said how much it meant to him to be a YA. It’s so wonderful to have such inspirational young people working with us as they really are our future – and with our Young Ambassadors programme, they are all so enthusiastic about our work and committed to our future vision.

We also had Bahman Jamaldini, and his wife Lesley who spoke about his personal story which had only started just over a year ago when he became ill.  He lost all four limbs to this dreadful disease, but is astounding health professionals with his progress. His brother has created a fantastic video of Bahman painting which you can see at the bottom of this page. Bahman and his wife Lesley are a force to be reckoned with and are even hoping to do our China Trek in October! Amazing. 

Then it was back to our Education Campaign and moving that forward. I was very lucky to get a meeting with Sharon Hodgson, Shadow Minister for Children. She came along to our campaign launch back in October and has been very supportive of the campaign ever since.  The meeting was really useful and she was incredibly helpful with her ideas and making introductions for us to people working on training programmes for teachers regarding special educational needs. I also met with Lord McConnell (ex-First Minister of Scotland), who was a teacher before going into politics. It’s great to have support from influential people like this, helping us to drive it forward. 

Please remember that we need to keep the momentum going with our campaign – we’re now at over 5,000 signatures on the petition, by we need to reach 10,000 soon so that we can take the fight to Downing Street. If you haven’t been involved in our work before now, please get in touch today and start helping us to fight back against meningitis.