News

The nominations for this year’s Annual National Awards are now open. Our Annual Awards are MS Ireland’s way of recognising the contribution many of our members make within their families, local communities and MS Ireland. It is a great honour to be nominated for the Annual National Awards so we would encourage branches, individual members and staff members to nominate members who they feel deserve recognition. The closing date for receipt of nomination forms is Friday, 11th August 2023. The Annual National Awards for 2023 will be presented at the Annual General Meeting in Athlone on Saturday, 16th September 2023.

There are 3 Annual National Awards and the categories are:

• MS Person of the Year
• MS Carer/Helper of the Year
• MS Volunteer of the Year

Full details and Nomination forms are available here or from our National Office, tel. 01-6781608. We would recommend you return your nomination forms to National Office as soon as possible.

We have a new webinar series called the Unspeakable Bits and our March edition is called ‘Money Matters” which will take place on Thursday, 30th March at 8pm for one hour online.  Our host Trevis L Gleason and a panel of MS professionals will talk about the planning for the 3 stages of life with MS. Financial planning are topics most people think of in their advancing years.  People with MS often must think of them earlier in life.   

The panel be answering questions from our MS community sent to us in advance, as well as from our live audience. We will be covering topics on finance like planning, investing, pensions, early retirement, long-term care, health, and life insurance/assurances. We will also be covering topics on law like wills, conservatorships, trusts and advanced directives.  We will also discuss topics like social protection and entitlements.  

Please either email your questions to aoifek@ms-society.ie. We welcome everyone to our live webinars so if you would like to attend, please register for free here 

Dr Susan Coote, MS Ireland’s Exercise and Physiotherapy Co-Ordinator launched MS Ireland’s 3,000 Push Ups in March Challenge on Clare FM’s Morning Focus Show this week. To highlight this fundraiser Morning focus’ host Alan Morrissey will be taking up this great challenge in March. Speaking of the upcoming challenge Alan Morrissey, the host of Clare’s most listened to radio show said “I'm delighted to be taking part in the 3,000 Push Ups in March Challenge. Not only will it help support the vital services provided by MS Ireland, but from a health viewpoint it will also really benefit those taking part. I am really hoping that by the end of March I will have shed some of the extra pounds which made themselves at home on my body over Christmas. I would encourage as many people as possible to take part in the 3,000 Push Ups in March Challenge."  Listen to the Clare FM interview here 

 

Dr Susan Coote discusses MS Ireland’s plan for sustainable national physiotherapy services on Midlands 103 Health and Fitness Show

MS Ireland is calling on people with Multiple Sclerosis in Ireland to help us plan for their service needs over the coming years by participating in our My MS My Needs Survey.  

 

• MS Ireland is asking people with MS in Ireland to take our new My MS My Needs Survey 

• Help us discover the most important MS services required for Ireland in 2023 

• Our survey can be accessed here: https://lnkd.in/eGQ2DUVd 

• The survey takes approximately 15-30 minutes to complete. 

Take on 3,000 Push Up Challenge in March to Support MS Ireland 

• MS Ireland is asking people across Ireland to challenge themselves by doing our Push Up Challenge of completing 3,000 pushups in March.    

• Raise much needed funds to enhance the vital services of MS Ireland 

• Sign up now and get your Push Up Challenge Pack here

• Visit our Facebook Group here 

• If you do not wish to set up a Facebook fundraiser, you can set one up here instead

MS Ireland is conducting a repeat of a 2016 comprehensive survey of the needs of people with MS. The results of the survey will help us to plan our services and will inform our ongoing advocacy work. It will also help to inform us of where there are gaps currently in service provision and the information gathered will offer us an evidence based platform to campaign on your behalf. It is therefore very important that we get as many responses as possible – this is a vital opportunity for people with MS to have their voices heard and make their needs known. The survey takes approximately 15-30 minutes to complete. All responses will be anonymous and the questionnaire does not ask for any personal information. We would like to assure you that the information gathered will only be used for the purposes stated above.

To complete the survey click here.

We have known each other for a while now. I was diagnosed 14 years ago, but you were lurking in the shadows long before. You take up so much space in my head! What on earth did I think about before you came along? Why won’t you leave me alone? Why won’t you leave the other 2.8 million people you affect alone?

Happy New Year to all the MS & Me readers and your families!

As we move into 2023 in earnest, we’re excited to announce a spin-off from the MS & Me blog, an MS & Me webinar series entitled “The Unspeakable Bits”. The first one is set to air, live, from 20:00 on Thursday, 26th January (Join host Trevis L Gleason and a panel of MS professionals to talk about a Healthy Body: Healthy Brain on Thursday, 26th at 8:00pm* Register here).

Happy New Year! What is it about the turning of the year that has us reviewing everything? Planning, making arbitrary promises, our social channels flooded with infinite numbers of articles about changing habits or ‘living your best life’ (??).