This News Article was written by our South East Regional Contact, Diane.
Earlier this month I had the honour of representing Caring Matters Now on our stand at the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) Annual Conference in Liverpool. For three days, professionals whose daily work revolves around all matters skin-related came to the ACC, Liverpool to attend lectures, discuss innovations and generally share their knowledge.
Part of the conference was a large exhibition hall where many commercial stands were erected by big pharmaceutical and tech companies promoting their latest products, but around the edge of the hall, BAD had invited many patient support groups, such as Alopecia UK and the Psoriasis Association, and of course, Congenital Melanocytic Naevus (CMN), to have a stand to highlight their activities and aims.
As many of you will know, in 2019, Caring Matters Now held a ground-breaking photographic display (How Do You C Me Now) at the OXO Tower in London to raise awareness of the condition. Well, these same amazing photos were taken to the BAD conference, and we managed to set them up in the foyer, so that everyone who came couldn’t help but see them.
This had a double effect – firstly, how great that so many more people have seen the images, but secondly, they acted as a signpost to our stand. Over the three days, I lost count of the number of people who came over just to tell me how fabulous the pictures were. ‘They are so positive’, ‘such smiling, confident people’ and ‘so beautiful and positive’ are just a selection of the comments made.
Of course, once the delegates arrived at the stand, I was able to talk to them about the aims of the charity – awareness, support, and research – and how they might be able to help, or how we might be able to help any patients that they have who may not have heard of us.
The scope of these conferences is massive – I had conversations with other charities, sharing ideas about events, fundraising, etc; I had conversations with dermatology nurses who were so grateful for the charity being able to provide support in ways they couldn’t; I had conversations with dermatologists who asked about the latest research from Professor Kinsler and I even had a conversation with the paediatric dermatologist responsible for children in the Third World from the World Health Organisation in Geneva, who was so impressed with our photos he will be purchasing a copy of our How Do You C Me Now book!
Attending the BAD Conference is just one way that Caring Matters Now continues to raise awareness of CMN, and for me, personally, I was proud to have the opportunity to showcase all that we do.
