Welcome to the Research Support Network forum

Welcome to the Research Support Network (RSN) forum. I'm Claire, the manager of the RSN.
 
We created this forum to allow RSN members to communicate with each other, share experiences and inspire people affected by Parkinson’s to get engaged, involved and participating in research.
 
While all forum members can post here, we hope RSN members will share:-
 
  • Articles that you have written and would like to make available to people in other regions to share
  • Your experience of organising or attending research events or project visits or research speakers to your branch/group
  • Your experience as a branch/group Research Champion and any advice you have on what has worked for you and what hasn’t
  •  Updates of any regional research meetings
  •  General sharing of thoughts and experience on RSN activity
 
I hope you find it useful. Please contact us if you have any questions or queries about this forum, feel free to contact me at [email protected].
 
Happy posting!
 
Claire
 

Claire

Thanks and welcome to the forum. I have been a member of the RSN at least as long as I have been a member of Parkinson's UK. I am constantly discovering things that RSN members and others are doing to make Parkinson's research faster and more effective. Much of this goes on without fanfare which means we miss out on spreading the learning to other branches, regions or projects. I hope we can use the forum to share experiences

I think that supporting research is possibly the most important thing that people affected by Parkinson's can do. We all want the cure to come quickly. The person who discovers the cure(s) will be a researcher so it makes sense that we do all we can to speed them on their way. There are many opportunities to help make the research task easier and quicker ranging from participating in studies and trials, speaking to groups,  writing newsletters to spread knowledge and understanding about research, advising researchers, reviewing grant applications and more.

It's time to start shouting a bit more about the things we are doing or the things we wish we were doing.

Elegant Fowl

 

The meeting in Birmingham that you and your team, Claire, organised on Friday and Saturday last week went very well.  There were so many ideas about how the RSN could develop and how members can get together to do things in the regions in addition to responding to opportunities disseminated from National Office.  I hope we can talk about what we are doing throughout the country in this Forum and so maybe encourage people to do similar things - or radically different ones - in support of the research effort.

My involvement is with the East Midlands RSN group so I'd like draw your attention to our latest newsletter which I hope you will find interesting:  https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/sites/default/files/emrsn_newsletterapril2014.pdf .  Anyone is welcome to use any of the articles in their own newsletters if they want.  I hope more regional RSNs could have pages on the Parkinson's site so we could be inspired by what everyone is doing.  Ours is at http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/content/east-midlands-research-support-network .

J

Hello and thank you to both of you for helping start what I hope will be some really fruitful discussions. 

I completely agree that's it's time to start shouting about what we do. It is clear to me from our meeting that we have an incredibly engaged and willing group of people with some excellent thoughts and ideas on how we can take the Research Support Network to the next level.

We'll be working with some of our volunteers to ensure we've captured these thoughts and also building a plan of putting them into action. I hope that people feel they are able to follow up on any action/next steps from their own perspective but also that the Parkinson's UK Research Support Network team (staff and volunteers) are here to offer support if needed. 

It's a very exciting time for the Research Support Network and I look forward to working with you all.

Claire

 

Check out the latest East Midlands RSN News at https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/sites/default/files/emrsn_newsletterjuly2014.pdf