- Home
- Our Blog
- Challenges , London marathon 2021 , running
- New Year, New Beginnings – A message from our CEO
New Year, New Beginnings – A message from our CEO
New Year, New Beginnings
2022 is upon us and I send everyone my best wishes for a brighter, better 2022. The MSA Trust team are pretty sure it will be as busy as ever and I hope we can bring some light into your lives as we move through the year and to support you through your journey with MSA.
We have all endured another year of tough choices and difficult days, so I am sure many of you welcomed the opportunity the break Christmas and the festive season brings. No, it was not quite the ‘normal’ Christmas we had hoped for, but it was at least not as restrictive as last year. I hope many of you managed to meet with loved ones and enjoy time together.
The team here at MSA Trust are continuing to work on the development of new services and consolidating the old. Our hybrid offer of digital and in-person support is set to continue, as it proved to be quite a success last year. Our production of high quality factsheets and specialist guides continue to be reviewed and set against the rigour of the Patient Information Forum (PIF) tick standards for publications. We hope our super peer review panels will continue to support our information production and we are always ready to listen to new thoughts and ideas for information required by people living with MSA, their carers and healthcare professionals.
We are continuing to support amazing active people who insist on doing fantastic challenges like the three peaks challenge, abseiling down the Acelor Mittal Tower, or walking over the Millennium Dome. There is no end to your incredible inventiveness and superb fundraising. I hope we can be as supportive of your incredible endeavours as you are to us with the funds you bring to the Trust.
So to look forward this year, we will hold another Candlelight event in May (15th) in Yatton, I look forward to seeing many of you there to remember loved ones. In July we look forward to seeing people at the Summer Social in Thoresby – let’s hope for great sunny weather. This year once again we will be cheering people on in the London Marathon in October – I am so looking forward to it reverting to April – hopefully it is a beautiful Autumn Day! Of course we will also see many of you at the Great North Run, where last year as one of the first events to start up again, we felt quite lonely standing on our spot with very few other supporters around – I am sure it will be getting back to normal numbers next September.
Keep an eye out for the updates on research. We are pleased to have another research call out and are looking forward to welcoming our scientific advisory panel for a day in May to help us to select the projects we wish to fund. Keep an eye out for updates in the MSA News magazines and on the research hub, https://www.msatrust.org.uk/cause-and-cure/. We will also be bringing updates on the work of our new Research Fellow, Dr Yee Yen Goh and updates from our previous Fellow, Dr Viorica Chelban. There will be lots to report to you about in the coming months and updates on research trials that are in place currently.
So, there will be plenty to do, and we will ensure that all that we do is focusing on our vision of a world free of MSA and ensuring we get the best possible research to help us to achieve that. In the meantime, we will continue to support everyone affected by MSA as best we can.
Very best wishes for a happy and safe 2022.
Karen Walker, CEO
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the blogs published on these pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the MSA Trust.
