Our next group meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 29th October at 2pm at Arbury Community Centre.

We will have an educational talk accompanied by our usual refreshments and chat. Please pop the date in your diary and we’ll see you there.

We have arranged for Matt Lavers from the cardiac rehab team to join us and talk about exercising and keeping fit with a heart condition

This is just a reminder about our social meeting on Tuesday 8th July instead of our Group Meeting on 25th July.  

We will meet at Madingley Hall, Cambridge,CB23 8AQ.   We will have a short walk/stroll around the gardens for those who would like, followed by coffee/tea cakes etc. in the cafe.  The suggestion is that we meet in the car park at 10.30 am and those who do not wish to walk could go straight to the cafe.

We do hope many of you will come to enjoy the gardens, the walk and the opportunity to chat among ourselves about living with ICD’s etc.

With best wishes,

Heartbeats Committee

Our next group meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 29th October at 2pm at Arbury Community Centre.

We will have an educational talk accompanied by our usual refreshments and chat. Please pop the date in your diary and we’ll see you there.

We have arranged for Matt Lavers from the cardiac rehab team to join us and talk about exercising and keeping fit with a heart condition

Our next meeting has been scheduled for 29th January, to be held in the small hall in Arbury Community Centre at 2pm. Apologies for the short notice, we hope many of you will still be able to attend.

Kate Sanders will run an education session and be available to answer questions as usual. We will also be holding our AGM. We are in need of volunteers to join the committee and will be sending more information to members about this soon.

Our next Group Meeting will be on Wednesday 4th December 2024, 2 pm at Arbury Community Centre, (small hall), Campkin Road, Cambridge CB4 2LD.  This will be a special meeting (rearranged from October), similar to last year, with training for CPR with practice dummies etc. and demonstrations of AEDs.   Several of you have shown interest in attending this training again, so we do hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend.   We welcome back Patrick Swallow, from Kanazawa Training as our First Aid and Safety trainer.

The demonstrations will be followed by our usual refreshments and chat.

During the summer the Committee decided to arrange a social event for our members and their partners, on 5 September we had more than 20 attend this event, which was held at the Plough & Fleece at Horningsea.  The venue provided a lovely buffet lunch for us, and during this we had some time to chat.

This was followed by an entertaining 3-round general knowledge quiz compiled by Joe (our treasurer) who was also our quizmaster, this was a lot of fun to take part in and the winners won a £10 Tesco voucher.  

Due to unforeseen circumstances we will need to postpone the meeting on 9th October. We will arrange a new date as soon as possible and apologise for any disappointment or inconvenience caused.

Our next Group Meeting will be on Wednesday 9th October 2024, 2 pm at Arbury Community Centre, (small hall), Campkin Road, Cambridge CB4 2LD.  This will be a special meeting, similar to last year, with training for CPR with practice dummies etc. and demonstrations of AEDs.   Several of you have shown interest in attending this training again, so we do hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend.   We welcome back Patrick Swallow, from Kanazawa Training as our First Aid and Safety trainer.

The demonstrations will be followed by our usual refreshments and chat.

We are delighted to announce that we will be joined by an accredited therapist from NHS Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Talking Therapies (NHSC&PTT) at our next meeting on 10 July. They will tell us more about support for people living with cardiac conditions and devices.

We really hope many of you will be to attend what promises to be a very helpful session. As usual we will meet in the small hall at Arbury Community Centre at 2pm on 10 July. Refreshments will be available and partners and friends are always welcome.

We are also considering arranging a summer social away from these more formal meetings. Details and dates to be confirmed but in the first instance we’d like to know if our members would be interested in attending a social event – please let us know your thoughts!

Our resident cardiac scientist Kate Sanders presented a session all about heart rhythms, and more specifically how they go wrong and what pacemakers and ICDs do to help. After all, it’s why we have our devices! It prompted lots of discussion about the different heart conditions we have which lead to having a devices. Hopefully today’s attendees enjoyed it.

Our next educational meeting will be 10 July at 2pm. We’re also looking into arranging an evening social event for members to get to know eachother a bit better – watch this space for updates.

Finally, Addenbrooke’s have opened their annual staff awards for nomination again this year. If you’ve had a good experience regarding your device (or any other aspect of your care at Addenbrooke’s) and want to thank a particular staff member or team, nominating them for an award is a great way to do it! https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/news/nominate-your-public-choice-in-our-cuh-annual-awards/