Month: July 2014

Week 1 at the MS Trust

The MS Trust is a wonderful charity whose principal aim is to improve the lives of people living with multiple sclerosis (MS). Not only do they provide information and support to those with MS, but they also aid health professionals working with People with MS (PwMS). They publish newsletters, participate and fund research, as well as educate health professionals. All in all the charity does a huge range of things, far more than I had anticipated when I first heard about them.

As part of this work with health professionals, the MS Trust is working alongside another organisation – ‘Therapists in MS’ (TiMS) – to produce a ‘toolkit’ to be used by allied health professionals involved in the care of people with MS.

Wild Heath Festival PREPARING WEEK

 

Wild Heath Festival

14/07/2014 – 18/04/2014 Preparation for the Festival!!!!

 

14TH July 2014 – Monday

  • Email and phone correspondence with potential volunteers
  • Volunteer Wildlife Interpreter Interview s.
  • Response to specific volunteer role applications sent via websites and email.
  • Researching events happening this week in different communities like Hackney – to try to attend or post adverts in about the festival.
  • Starting to draw up a project plan looking at all the roles in the project – the sustainability of each role for the future of the project with volunteers only as the workforce.
  • Drawing up a plan to follow for future coordinators to use and share about what their jobs/tasks would involve – i.e.

First week with CWT

My internship working with Cornwall Wildlife Trust got off to a great start. Whilst here I will be investigating the feasibility of renewable energy installations at their head offices. The Trust does great things to protect Cornwall’s wild things and wild places, and with the engineering and economic aspects of my project, I was excited about both where I was going to be working and what I was going to be working towards.

The morning of the first day entailed general housekeeping, introductions and a site tour. There were a lot of people to meet and names to (try and) remember, but all were very welcoming and created a good working environment.

Week 3 – Promotion of the TF Willetts Social Media Campaign

So week three is at an end and we’ve finally finished editing the video which starts the campaign, to check it out go to:

http://youtu.be/TsyC3swvDZY

The Facebook and Twitter pages are also now active with content we’ve scheduled to go up and hopefully we’ve started drawing attention to the charity – our whole aim!

This week’s tasks, alongside the social media content and video launch, were to film a second video and organise proceedings for two further events later in the year. This second video focused on an Italian guitarist who specialises in gypsy guitar, Giulio Romano, and is someone whose events the charity supports.

3rd blog

3rd blog

The working environment in Oxford is quite different from London where you can feel people always in a rush and make the big city very busy. I like London, because the busy city lights my thoughts, passion and dreams, and stretches me to develop myself quickly. Nevertheless, I also appreciate the beautiful, peaceful, and elegant culture of Oxford, which enables people focus on thinking deeply.   This week, my work in George Institute is on data extraction form large number of papers, which requires me to go through papers quickly, and spot useful information precisely and efficiently. At first, I feel very struggling, for everyday, tens of paper to read, and more than ten categories of information need to be extracted, and I have to be very careful, because some definition of information is ambiguous.

project and work progress

2nd blog

Two weeks of work has passed, it is time to write them down.

What is my project about?

Blood pressure is associated with many problems as blood clots, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, etc, but it is unclear about the efficacy of blood pressure drugs on those diseases. Specifically, the project is focused on the effect of blood pressure lowering drugs on the prevention of atrial fibrillation. One of the questions below this topic is what kind of populations can benefit from blood pressure lowering drugs in preventing atrial fibrillation. Another question is whether there is a specific blood pressure lowering drug can make an effect on atrial fibrillation by a particular mechanism or all the drugs helping to obtain a lower blood pressure can be used to treat atrial fibrillation.

some tips for future applicants

Just had a look at some blogs posted by previous charity insight participants, they are so amazing! Informative, interesting and full of fantastic photos! However, few of the posts have mentioned about the application process of the charity insight programme, which is useful information, and will be the starting point of my blog.

Why did I desperately want to participate the charity insight programme?

I have never had a proper job before, so I am always hoping to gain some working experience to get to know the outside world, and contribute what I have learned in the university to the real community.

My survey’s going online!

This week has flown by. Wow. I also have to apologise for always writing and writing and writing (I lose myself in the process sometimes, which is why my posts end up as short stories). To make this week’s blog entry a little more endurable, I’m adding some colourful images!

So, what happened at Rethink this week? Again, I spent much of my time perfecting the primary care survey. I am quite amazed at how much time and thought goes into a piece of work that will only take 5 minutes to fill in. I have been rephrasing and slightly altering the order of questions so many times, because it has to be perfect – thousands of Rethink’s followers will (hopefully) see and respond to this survey, and the same applies to the other organisations we are collaborating with.

Week 2 on the Beautifully Wild Heath

2ND WEEK !!!!    7/07/14 – 11/07/14

The summary diary of the main activities day to day I was involved in the 2nd week.

7th July 2014 – MONDAY

  • Finishing & editing volunteer flyer leaflet with photo edit.
  • Researching all the volunteer advertising websites WAHH project appears in, so looking at how the project is observed by potential volunteers.
  • Spreadsheet for the different advertising websites WAHH project appears in and also potential websites to advertise in that are used at present by other volunteers. So updating existing adverts and placing new ones. Using the information given by existing volunteers – and the pie chart from statistical analysis already completed to find out which advertising method/organisation to go through so to get more volunteers.

Week Two with BHF

So having finished my second week with BHF it is safe to say I know a few things about IV diuretics and Integrated Care!

Feeling settled in (worked out how to get the boiling water from the tap for tea) I was less nervous about the week approaching. Friendly faces always greeted me in the morning and I now had a better understanding of some of the NHS terminology which was making reading government policies and strategies quite tough last week! My Aim for the week was to get through 2 evaluation reports, one about IV diuretics within the home and the other about Integrated Care schemes taking place in England, Wales and Scotland.