Caroline Robertson - Facts about Arthritis

Our speaker, Caroline Robertson from Arthritis Research UK, made an interesting start to her talk when explaining she had been in Durham over twenty years, went on to thank Laurie Turner for giving her her first job at New College! She is the Fundraising Manager for the charity, her region covering everything from the Scottish Border to N. Yorkshire N. to S. and the North Sea to the Irish Sea !

For her talk she adopted an unusual approach and gave us all a Quiz which helped enormously to focus our minds on the topic of Arthritis research and produced a number of very interesting statistics :-

There are over 15,000 young people suffering from Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis which is one of the 85 forms of the disease. 50,000 people have hip or knee replacements every year largely because of arthritis [several within our own club!] Arthritis Research UK was actually formed in 1936,yet of the recorded population of the UK only 2% of people had registered an interest in or heard of Arthritis Research UK.Of every £1 they raise, 86p. goes towards funding vital research and educational projects and all the money raised locally goes into local projects. Caroline left us with a reminder that the Charity is holding an Open day at Newcastle University on the 26th. June

As you can see Caroline did a great deal to raise our awareness of the work that Arthritis Research UK does and to increase our appreciation for the efforts that this charity does in the search for cause, cure or treatment for arthritis.

Have a look at the Arthritis Research UK website ...