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summer social event 2008 - The kidney patients' summer picnic

Saturday 13th July 2008 saw the launch of a new annual kidney patient event - the kidney patients' summer picnic. 

The event was the brainchild of Lucy Kirk (one of the Addenbrooke's Transplant Co-ordinators) who felt it would be good for patients with similar experiences to get together and offer one another moral support, encouragement and just have a fun day out in an informal setting. The event was organised by Lucy along with other staff members (and some patients!) and was supported with funds from the AKPA. Dialysis patients and recent transplant patients were invited to join in and bring their families with them. A Sunday was chosen to make sure that dialysis patients could come along.

Patients brought their own picnics and set up in the playing fields outside Long Road Sixth Form College. The weather was warm and sunny and the extremely talented band "Body and Soul Jazz" provided the perfect background music for a summer afternoon picnic whilst everyone ate, chatted and enjoyed games of giant jenga and giant Connect 4. (not to mention several games of rounders). It was wonderful to see such a fantastic mixture of staff, dialysis patients, transplant patients, families and especially the children all having fun together.

The afternoon's entertainment continued with an extremely energetic performance by the Geoff Bailey Dancers who performed a special set of 4 dance routines taken from their recent show at the Junction. It was exhausting just watching them! Despite the event clashing with one of the busiest weekends for events in Cambridge (Pop in the park to name just one) around 200 people attended the day and the feedback received until now has been very positive. Everyone who came said they had a wonderful time relaxing in the sunshine, chatting with old friends 

and making news ones. For some it was an opportunity to catch up with old dialysis pals missed since moving on after a transplant, for others it was an opportunity to swap stories and meet people who have had similar experiences. For many it was just great to get away from the dialysis unit and the wards/clinics and relax.

Kidney patients are a remarkable group of people and there were some amazing and heart-warming stories to be heard. As a result of the success of this event, a small number of patients have expressed an interest in helping to organise more social events so watch this space for more details. The AKPA would love to hear any feedback about this event or ideas for future social gatherings - email your ideas to info@akpa.org.uk.

Here's to the next one!

We would like to thank Sunshinebits for providing the giant games that were much appreciated during the day and donating three space hoppers for us to raffle.