(October 2009)

The Europa Hotel was ideally situated for easy access for public transport; the conference room was sited on the 1st floor - this was spacious and close to facilities such as WC’s & lounge area. Over 60 people attended and the speakers for the morning session were the endocrine team from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast - their talks were interesting and informative with good visual presentations.

After a delicious hot & cold buffet lunch - leisurely so that people could talk to each other - the afternoon session began with an interactive quiz, enabling all of the audience to participate, sharing their experiences which were totalled on a screen.

Following a break for tea and biscuits, the endocrine nurses produced an excellent session on living with pituitary conditions - especially Hydrocortisone issues. They showed patients and their carers how to use a HC emergency injection.

The conference was a huge success with positive feedback from the majority.

Further information will appear here as soon as it is available.

(December 2008)

In October, we held our first-ever conference in Wales at the Quality Inn in Cardiff.  We had excellent attendance, with over 100 people there on the day.  The Cardiff Local Support Group worked dilligently to make this a success, assisting with grant-writing, getting the word out to make certain the conference was well-attended and they gave a warm welcome to all who arrived.  They also organised a tombola (that was cleared by the end of the day!) and the sale of some lovely jewellery.

The endocrine team from Cardiff University, lead by Prof. Maurice Scanlon, presented on in the morning.  The team managed to cover thorougly a wide range of pituitary topics in a short period of time.  These included Prof. Scanlon speaking about GH; Dr. Aled Rees on the subject of Testosterone replacement; Dr. Sam Rice informing us about DHEA and; Dr. Aled Roberts going over steroid replacement.  After lunch, Dr. Jonathan Pinkney gave us excellent insights into Pituitary and how the gland affects Your Weight.  After Dr. Pinkney, Ms. Emma Stiles, a nutritionist, gave fascinating and highly enjoyable talk about Pituitary and Nutrition. 

It was a lovely day and it was exciting to see high attendance again at a conference. 

We wish to thank the Cardiff Support Group for their hard work.  We also wish to thank the speakers for giving their time and expertise.  Lastly, we wish to thank Awards for All and Bayer Schering Pharma for their sponsorship.

(November 2007)

The Pituitary Foundation held its 2nd Regional Conference in the North West on Saturday, 17 November in Liverpool at the Liverpool Football Club.  The programme included talks from the endocrine team at The Walton Centre.  We are grateful to Dr. D. Deepak, Dr. Lara Adetunji and Mr. Chris Morgan for spending their day with us.  Also thanks to Mr. Mohsen Javadpour and Dr. Marianne Morris for their time and expertise.

It was a full day, with a lovely buffet lunch and a fantastic tombola provided by the Liverpool Support Group.  We even were shown the football pitch through the executive boxes by the helpful staff at Anfield. 

We thank all who came and again our lovely speakers for making this a great day!

Many thanks to Awards for All North West and the Liverpool Support Group

for their assistance with funding this event.

The Conference and Retreat weekend started with an informal quiz on Friday night, designed by two of our Trustees, Mike Griffin and Mike James.  Mike James was our Quizmaster and presented an excellent night to over forty delegates.  As folks wandered in, teams enlarged, people met and chatted and it proved to be a great way to break the ice.  The winners were The Strangers, a band of delegates who (except, of course, for the husband and wife on the team) had met only that night!

The rest of the weekend was chock full of talks, workshops and other activities presented in a casual and relaxed setting.  Workshops are receiving high marks from delegate feedback, our new, enhanced sessions proved very popular and helpful.

There were delegates who chatted away their breaks and lunch in the bar or out on the patio in the beautiful sunshine.  Many took the opportunity to use the pool, Jacuzzi or gym or simply took nice walks around the lovely grounds. 

The evening's dinner and disco was lovely, with excellent food and wine and most importantly, good company.  Competition was fierce (and quite fun to watch) at the auction after dinner.  We thank all of those who so generously bid and bought auction items, as well as the outpouring of support for our raffle.  Both raffle and auction raised over £1,200!

Sunday's panel session was warm and supportive (thanks to the participation of audience members who shared their thoughts and experiences during the discussions).

We have received excellent feedback and will be sharing feedback reports with you once they are compiled.

Thank you to all the Trustees and staff who helped bring this day about and most especially, thank you to the delegates who attended and made it such a special weekend!

And a special thank you to

ProStrakan and The Society for Endocrinology/Clinical Endocrinology Trust  

for their generous sponsorship.

We were pleased to host the 1st Regional Conference at the Royal Holloway, University of London in Egham, Surrey on Saturday, 4th November.  

We received so many registrations before the event that we were overbooked.! We held workshops on pituitary and nutrition, what a new patient can expect, stress management and Needs Analysis feedback.  We tried something new and conducted three discussions moderated by experts:  one for carers; one for patients; and one for new patients.

According to our evaluations, everyone enjoyed the day and went away feeling they'd learned something useful.  

This was a new idea and a pilot event.  However, with both the popularity of registrations and the positive feedback, we feel sure that we will be planning another Regional Conference sometime late in 2007. 

Thank you to all our delegates for coming and the many volunteers who helped us make such a success of the day.

To read a write up of the Nutrition presentation, download  Nutrition.pdf (51.89 KB)

If you would like a copy of the presentation materials for 'The State of Pituitary Care Today' by Dr. Stephanie Baldewag, email helpline@pituitary.org.uk and we will send you a PDF.  Unfortunately, due to the size of this presentation we are unable to make this downloadable from the website and the cost of postage prohibits us from sending paper copies.  However, if you send us a large, self-addressed envelope stamped with two first class stamps, we will post a copy to you.