A glimpse of what we do

This was the week BRACE finally arrived on YouTube. We uploaded some films taken by volunteer filmmaker James Murray-White at the public meeting we held in Frome last month.

A meeting is not the most visual of activities, but James did a great job filming the event and then editing the films and slotting in slides from the presentations. We had well over 70 people in the room, and they heard some very interesting speakers. All the details are here, including a link to the films.

This highlights one of BRACE’s great strengths. One of the things that make us different – compared to national charities – is that, while you won’t find us on BBC breakfast television, you might well find us in your local community building. In this case we were in Rook Lane Arts Centre in Frome. The following evening we held a very similar meeting in The Guildhall, Salisbury. We send speakers, including me, to schools, Rotary Clubs, the WI, church groups and others who invite us.

This makes us stand out as a charity which can engage the public in a very different way. Staff, Trustees and volunteers from BRACE attend dozens of meetings of this sort every year and arrange gatherings like the one in Frome. And as the films show, we are quite often able to bring the public into contact with the researchers themselves.

YouTube makes globally available what was truly local. You might say that the same is true of everything we do – global benefit from all the hard work done in a rather more limited geographical area.

Make us your charity

One of the forms of help we most need is “adoption” as charity of the year or a special event.

The group adopting us might be a business, school, college, faith group, social club, sports club or whatever, but the essential facts are the same. The group raises money by doing things that it enjoys doing and gives it to BRACE. We gain extra funds to put towards research and the overheads are negligible. The people who do the fundraising have a good time and know that they have made a difference to a cause they care about. For a business and for most other groups, the benefits of being seen to help others are considerable.



Fishponds surgery staff, who have raised £'00s this year



We’ve seen a big increase this year in the number of groups raising funds for us in this way. Our Silver Service campaign has been especially effective, with IOP Publishing and East Clevedon Churches topping the list of fundraisers so far.



We are looking for new supporters for 2013. Good news came yesterday from a golf club which has made us its charity. Could your place of work, study, leisure or worship support BRACE for a while and help us beat dementia?

At least we're talking about it

Today’s Daily Mail contains the rather depressing news that a third of us are still scared of talking to someone with dementia. The article then takes a more positive turn by including some basic advice about how we should to talk to people with the condition.

On the face of it, it might appear that we haven’t moved very far in our attitude. However, this is clearly not the case. Dementia has been moving into the light, slowly and painfully, for a very long time. It’s no longer a case that “granddad’s gone a bit funny” – no, granddad has dementia. There’s a much greater level of awareness that dementia is a disease, not something as inevitable in old age as wrinkles.

That doesn’t make life any easier for people who are neglected or isolated right now because they have dementia, however. Tackling this problem isn’t one for the scientists that BRACE supports. The problem lies not in the pathology of dementia but within us. How do we overcome our fear?

We first need to recognise that we are afraid. Dementia is reportedly the medical condition that frightens most people. Perhaps this is because it’s currently incurable. Perhaps it’s because it attacks what it means to be human – identity, relationship, a sense of having and being part of a story. Dementia appears to us to be a long and increasingly dark tunnel that leads inexorably to death. We fear to approach it.

And yet, as the Daily Mail article reminds us, sufferers can have a reasonable quality of life. It’s up to the rest of us to understand that and make sure that we are part of the good things in their world, not contributors to a growing isolation.

At least we are talking about dementia as never before. Giving it a name – or a range of names – has helped enormously to make that possible. There is an ancient belief - found, for example, in the Bible – that naming something gives us power over it. This is true of things that we fear, and scientists like Alois Alzheimer have helped us all.

The more we learn and the more we talk about dementia, the better we shall be able to deal with it.

Thirteen times thirteen

Sunday was Half Marathon day in Bristol. Twelve people ran for BRACE and we then discovered that another runner had run to raise money for us but didn’t tell us until afterwards! A welcome surprise on a Monday morning.

The thirteen each ran about 13 miles (a half marathon is 13.1094 miles, I am reliably informed) and that’s a fair distance to run if you’re not used to this sort of thing. Many of the people who undertake this sort of thing for us are attempting a long distance run for the first time, and there were certainly first timers among this year’s runners.

We are supported by a real mix of people, too. A wide range of ages, both genders, all sorts of jobs and none.

We heartily thank all of them for their exertions and their fundraising efforts. Thanks also to Demi, Louise and Reuben for sending us photos and stories.

Demi is a researcher funded by BRACE, working on the role of dopamine in memory. Originally from Canada, she now finds herself pounding the streets of Bristol with her friend Ruth to raise money for new research.

Louise, a café manager, also ran with a friend – Abi – and they raised money to be split between three charities, including BRACE. Their total looks set to pass £2,000. What a great effort.

Reuben was really enthusiastic afterwards. He emailed to say, “I feel great. The run was fantastic! Loads of people lined the streets and cheered. I saw quite a few BRACE runners! It was a fantastic experience so many people running for all kinds of reasons.”

A few words in a blog are scant thanks for all the work these and other runners put in. I hope their real thanks is the knowledge that they have made a difference in the long, slow slog that is the fight against dementia.

If you want to sponsor any of the runners retrospectively and can't find their fundraising page, you can donate via the BRACE website and leave a note of the runner's name.