January 2025 Three Groby Parish Councillors, other local residents, and hundreds of other fund raisers for Breast Cancer Now and PROSTaid, completed a sponsored walk supported by Bradgate Rotary through Bradgate Park on Sunday 12 January 2025. Council Chair Carol Lincoln, Councillors Lesley Trivett and Kathy Griffiths, and other Groby residents, got into the spirit of the event by joining the others who responded to the call for volunteers to wear decorated bras and pants outside their regular clothing.
The 2024 Freeze Your Bits Off Walk raised in excess of £16,000, and the organisers hope to beat that sum this year. By the day of the walk donations of over £5000 had been received, twice the official target of £2500.
This year donations will be shared with PROSTaid, a local charity which funds three local PROSTaid prostate cancer nurses in the East Midlands, two based in Leicester. They actually fund more prostate cancer specialist nurses than anywhere else in the NHS. Five support groups give support to local men who are newly diagnosed and treated, and to patients with advanced prostate cancer. New ‘cutting edge’ treatments not available on limited NHS budgets are also funded.
Breast Cancer Now gives support for today and hope for the future to everyone affected by breast cancer. Their world class researchers work in labs across the UK and Ireland. Their nurses and expert staff provide health information and support services. Fundraising helps to make sure that all
their vital work can continue. Over 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK alone, and 1,000 people still die from the disease every month. Last year 770 women in Leicestershire were diagnosed and treated at Glenfield Breast Care Centre.
Two important charities that need your help. You can make a donation by Googling Bits and Bobs Off 2025 and following the link to Justgiving.com.
I am grateful to Groby Spotlight for allowing me space to say a huge ‘thank you’ to so many of you who have supported me, shown interest and donated to my cause these last eight months. Yes, my charity skydive in September was certainly a lifetime experience.
As you know it came about as a combination of wanting to celebrate my 80th in an ‘extreme’ way, completing ten years as a volunteer driver at LOROS and thanking them for their support during my prostate cancer treatment. Although, at first I wondered if I was pushing myself a bit far, when the day came I couldn’t believe I had no nerves and seemed to have a smile on my face all day.
Preparing for the sky dive
We were lucky with the weather and I was scheduled for the 12.30 flight. First we attended a briefing and were shown the three positions for ‘exiting’, ‘free-falling’ and ‘landing’. I wore a jump-suit with handles beside the knees to help me lift my legs for landing. I was then strapped into a harness which has five connections to my tandem instructor and was ready to go.
Mike was my tandem partner and Sofie was my skydive photographer. We boarded our plane first so I was going to be last out. We took about eight minutes to reach 13,000 feet. The red light went on and the first couples bailed out. I fastened my goggles, gave the last tug on my straps, slid off the bench and shuffled towards the exit. I hung my feet over the side, felt the first blasts of air and I must say I then wondered what on earth was I doing here!
No turning back!
I leaned back and then we were somersaulting out of the plane – so disorientating. The balancing parachute opened and steadied us. Mike tapped my arms to get in the free-fall position. It was incredible: difficult to keep steady but not cold and very exhilarating. Sofie dived in close and circled filming our fall at about 120mph!!
At about 6,000 feet Mike pulled the rip cord and we jerked up a few hundred feet and spun before we settled into a steady glide to earth. The views were fantastic. Our landing was pinpoint near the spectators but it was quite hard. Yes, I felt euphoric. It really was the experience of my life time.
You helped me raise over £5000 for LOROS
I did it to raise funds for LOROS and your response has been incredible. The overall total for donations and Gift Aid to date is £5,013. Thank you so much. I have a list of items that are needed. It is not all going into the pot. These include a special wheelchair, a health monitoring unit, a hot cabinet for the cafe, a radiator for the reception desk area and an external seat at the main entrance. The plaque on the seat simply says “It fell from the sky”.
David Hartridge
Still time to support David’s charity sky dive
September 2024 In the year ended March 2023 local hospice LOROS spent nearly £17,000,000 on enhancing the quality of life of patients for whom curative treatment is no longer possible and who suffered with cancer, progressive neurological disease and other conditions. Donations, legacies, charitable and trading activities accounted for 99% of this expenditure.
This huge sum dwarfs the individual contributions resulting from the efforts of a legion of fund raisers, but each sacrifice and effort is a building block, helping essential targets to be met. This is something that local LOROS volunteer David Hartridge is well aware of.
A day like no other
Saturday 21st September was like no other Saturday for David. He travelled from his Groby home to an aerodrome near Peterborough, boarded a plane, and took to the sky just as he has done many times before. But that’s where the similarity will end, as there was no trolley service providing lunch and coffee, and no staircase from the plane exit to the runway on arrival. Instead, as the flight climbs steadily above the clouds, the cabin door will open at 13,000ft. Safely attached to an experienced tandem Sky Diver, David came back to earth at speeds of over 120mph for about a minute before gliding back down to solid ground.
Already exceeded his target
David had set himself a LOROS fund raising target of £500 for this jump, celebrating his 80th birthday later this year. By the 22nd his Sky Dive had raised over £3,600, including gift aid. If you want to show your support for the work that LOROS does, and the commitment of volunteers and fundraisers such as David, there is still time to sponsor him online by clicking this link.
One donor on the website summed up what many who know David will feel when he commented “On behalf of all those like me who have been lucky to have seen what you all do at LOROS, I’d like to thank you and wish you well in your Sky Dive & Happy 80th!”
Groby man tells why he will sky dive for his 80th birthday
April 2024 But first, what is LOROS? Although most people are aware that it’s a local hospice with an excellent reputation, fewer are familiar with the scope of the services offered.
LOROS, on Groby Road in Leicester, offers specialised care for those over 18 with complex problems who are suffering from a terminal illness when cure is no longer possible. The team of doctors, nurses and other Hospice staff promote dignity and individual choice and strive to improve the patient’s care experience.
The care offered is diverse, both for outpatients and, in certain circumstances, as a short-stay inpatient for symptom management and/or end of life care. The Inpatient Ward, with its 31 beds, provides high quality care to patients, their families and friends. The focus of this care is to enhance quality of life with physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs all being addressed. There’s a mixture of single rooms, with their own bathrooms, as well as four-bedded bays. Each bed has a TV and WIFI is available.
If a patient does not need the high level of specialist care that the Hospice provides,but still needs some nursing care, it may be more appropriate to enter a care home, or return home with appropriate support. LOROS will look at funding for care at home or in a care home.
Those patients at home benefit from outreach support - Clinical Nurse Specialist and Compassionate Neighbours service (previously known as home visiting.) These volunteers are highly trained to provide companionship, practical and emotional support to patients in their homes for up to four hours per week. Their visits do not offer personal care, but enable relatives and carers to leave home with peace of mind or to have time to themselves.
Other services include day therapy, a nurse-led service at the Hospice running Tuesday to Friday, which aims to is to enhance quality of life, promoting dignity and individual choice over 8 fortnightly sessions.
Patients and their families who are anticipating grief and who are terminally ill and bereaved can also benefit from the Counselling service, which includes specific support for children aged 5-18 years where a family member is or has been cared for by LOROS. A bereavement support service is also available in the Hospice and in the community.
Sky diving for charity
This year David Hartridge, a Groby resident, has two significant milestones in his life – his 80th birthday and 10 years as a volunteer driver at LOROS.
This has involved transporting out-patients, visitors, LOROS staff, and a range of delivery and other services. Groby is so close to the hospice he has also been called upon for any last minute jobs that need a driver.
He decided that an 80th birthday should be marked by doing something extreme, and he decided it could be used as a good fund raising opportunity for LOROS.
“The experiences and friends I've made there have been amazing and inspirational, particularly since I was diagnosed myself with prostate cancer last August. Volunteering at LOROS has helped me focus during my scans and radiotherapy treatment because I've met so many less fortunate than myself,” explained David. “I'm full of admiration for the doctors and nurses at LOROS who show such care and compassion, and decided to to say 'thank you' by fund raising and helping them maintain those very valuable palliative care services they give in many forms to the Leicestershire and Rutland communities.”
And so the idea to jump out of an aeroplane to raise funds for charity was borne. Needless to say there are precautions to be taken when jumping from a plane at 13,000 feet and speeds of up to 120mph. David smiled as he mentioned one. “I'm told it’s worth wearing woolly gloves, as one’s hands get quite buffeted by the wind.”
December 2013 A new Rotary club is being formed for men and women in the Groby, Ratby, Markfield and Glenfield areas. Roger McDermott, of Coalville Rotary Club, is leading the drive to create the new club. Having led the 3,000 Rotarians in the East Midlands, he has loads of experience of different sorts of Rotary clubs. “Each and every club sets its own agenda to suit the characters of its members,” he says.
First meetings in January 2014
Two meetings have been arranged for potential founders to learn more about Rotary. The first will be held at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 21, 2014, at the Heathley Park restaurant, near LOROS, Groby Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE3 9QE. The second will be held at the same venue during the early evening of Wednesday, January 29.
"Like all Rotary clubs, it will offer amazing opportunities for networking and making lasting friendships with like-minded people,." said a spokesperson. "Using hearts and minds, Rotarians from diverse backgrounds pool their different skills to take positive action to enhance health, empower youth, promote peace and advance community. The new club’s pioneers might innovate to create a brand-new project which might change the world. After all, that’s what happened in the 1980s when a group of Rotarians decided to rid the world of polio. Nearly 30 years on, Rotary is amazingly close to achieving that goal which seemed impossible, except to a few bright, determined, friends having fun while making what seemed like an impossible dream come true."
Support for projects decided locally
It will be up to the new community leaders to decide which projects to adopt; perhaps encouraging local schoolchildren to develop skills in writing, performing, designing. Or the new club might raise funds for Rotary’s wide range of international efforts, like Shelterboxes, Aquafilters and Trade-Aid Boxes.
Rotary clubs meet weekly. In this country, most – but not all – share a meal. Some meet for breakfast, others over lunch and some for an evening meal. The men and women who establish the new club will be able to choose what they want it to be. At the first two meetings, free hot drinks and biscuits will be available. There will also be free parking.
Jim Matthews, a member of the Rotary Club of Oadby, says: “I’ve been in Rotary 29 years. The fun I’ve had, the friends I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned prove to me that joining Rotary is one of the best decisions of my life.”