Support Group Activities (dated March 2021)

Our normal activities are on hold during the current Government restrictions on social gatherings. As things stand, we are likely to start having Open Meetings before we are able to resume PSA Testing. Some of the considerations are discussed here.

Open Meetings

We are currently holding our Open meetings online via Zoom. We held our AGM for 2019 in October (2020) and had an informal Christmas gathering in December. We will be advertising further online Open meetings on this website starting with our AGM and guest speaker on 15th April 2021. New members always welcome at any of our meetings.

Our open meetings are relatively small in size and in the right surroundings it would be possible to observe social distancing. We are of course dependent on the lifting of Government restrictions on social gatherings. Likewise, we are dependent on the venue, eg Ambleside Club, being open for us. So, we await developments on this front. Normally we would have a meeting in June, but that is probably too early to hope for. So, it’s more likely to be September before we can have our first proper open meeting. We will circulate members with details as soon as circumstances permit.

PSA Testing

We will resume our programme of PSA Testing as soon as we can ensure it’s safe to do so. 

Here are some of the pre-requisites and considerations:

• Lifting of Government restrictions on social gatherings
• Mandatory online registration and pre-booking of time slots
• We can control the number of men per time slot so that queuing is minimised and it’s possible to observe social distancing
• The taking of blood samples is problematic because social distancing cannot be observed. We are currently discussing with our NHS phlebotomists when and in what circumstances they are able to resume PSA testing.
• Vulnerable men may be unwilling to attend our events

We will update this item with any developments. However, our best guess is that it will be August 2021 at the earliest before we can resume safe testing.  

In the meantime you might like to find out about Home Testing Kits