The power of an email

So last week I got on my soapbox about the lack of awareness of arthritis among local councils, and actively encouraged you all to use Arthritis Research UK’s website to send an email to your prospective parliamentary candidates to get them to sign up to be arthritis champions. Well today, I bring glad tidings!

So, aside from the clear misspelling of my name (but that’s what you get when your dad puts an extra ‘l’ in Collette for no discernible reason) this is wonderful! So far Mr Blomfield is the only candidate to get back to me to say he’s signed up, but if he gets re-elected that’s good enough for me. I do still, of course, encourage all other Sheffield Central candidates to let me know if they’ve had a change of heart about how important an issue a disease that affects 10 million people is.

It’s so important for me to make everyone aware of arthritis in all its forms, because it’s something I have had to fight to do my whole life. It doesn’t just affect the elderly, and it’s not something that everyone is going to inevitably get as they age – by promoting certain lifestyles it will be possible to prevent people getting arthritis in the future. By raising awareness of the rarest types of arthritis, we can make lives easier for those who have these conditions and those who are as yet undiagnosed.

By raising the profile of Arthritis Research UK, we can boost their donations to fund further research into the causes and treatments of arthritis, improving lives of those already living with it and giving a better future to those yet to be diagnosed – by improving their treatments or by stopping arthritis all together.

Just one last time then, please feel free to email your parliamentary candidates through ARUK.