Speaker 2 (00:00.802)
Hi everyone, I'm Maria, host of the My Local Marketer podcast. This week's interview is with Claire Rhodes, CEO of My Cancer My Choices, which is 10 years old this year. The charity does great work providing complimentary therapies for people undergoing cancer treatment in Berkshire. Please share this episode with anyone who you think could benefit from it. Now, without further ado, let's jump in.

Hello Claire and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. How are you?

I'm good, thank you so much for having me come and talk to you. It's lovely to meet you in person at last.

I definitely and thank you for inviting me to the My Cancer, My Choices headquarters. Would you say it's headquarters here in Charlville?

Yes, very small but beautifully formed.

Speaker 2 (00:45.374)
It is, a beautiful building. I wasn't expecting it when I, like you said, it is just like a nice, lovely house, isn't it? So it doesn't feel clinical or anything like that.

Yes, that's the whole idea, that people come here and can forget about all the treatments and things they've been having at the hospitals and come and have a nice relaxing time with us.

that leads nicely into what is my cancer, my choices.

So My Cancer My Choices is a local Berkshire-wide charity that was set up 10 years ago to support people who have had a cancer diagnosis. We provide one-to-one complementary therapies to people free of charge and some group courses as well, all designed to help them with the side effects of cancer and the medical treatment they're going through.

A lot people don't really understand what complementary therapies are. It's a bit of an unknown term to some people. Basically, it's a treatment that will help you alongside your medical treatment. It's slightly different to alternative therapies which are designed to replace the medical treatment, but all the therapies we offer will complement anything that they're doing with their doctors.

Speaker 2 (01:57.754)
that's lovely and clear. And can you give some examples of those complementary therapies?

Absolutely. So the ones we're currently offering are, we've got three different types of massage we do. We have an aromatherapy massage which uses all the lovely scented oils. We have an oncology massage which is specifically designed for people with cancer and it's very light touch, very gentle for them. We also have a number of therapists trained in scar massage. So if people have had cancer surgery, they can help with any tightness or difficulties with the scars.

Then we also have Reiki, reflexology and our most popular treatment that we offer is acupuncture with the very fine needles to help people in all sorts of ways with the side effects of the cancer treatment. Then in terms of other courses and so on, we do a one-to-one virtual art therapy course. We have group courses in mindfulness and yoga. And then this year we're hoping to start our Pilates and Tai Chi course is up as well. So it's a

really diverse range of things and usually people can find something that takes their fancy and come and have a try-off.

That's amazing. And it's nice to offer something when people are going through, like you said, the hospital treatments, the reflexology, the acupuncture, it just makes them feel a bit better, doesn't it? It's amazing what a difference it makes.

Speaker 1 (03:18.166)
Even if they don't enjoy the treatment itself, just having an hour to focus on themselves and their own wellbeing is so important. But some of the therapies are shown to have real actual benefits on some of the side effects in many cases. For example, a lot of people going through cancer struggle with hot flushes where because they're on hormone therapy, they're getting very hot, very cold. Kind of like the ladies of a certain age will know what we go through, but imagine that, you know.

on steroids. So acupuncture and reflexology are great for that. A lot of people with also struggle with something called peripheral neuropathy, which is a side effect of the chemotherapy, which I heard one lady describe as wearing a wetsuit filled with drawing pins and just constant pain stabbing you all over. It predominantly affects hands and feet, but a lot of people really struggle with that and it can be really debilitating.

And in many cases, of course, acupuncture can help with that. So it's not just always like, oh, it's a nice relax and it'll help me sleep better. It really sometimes has much more fundamental benefits as well.

What is the origin of my cancer, choices?

our founder, Mandy, Mandy Barter. She was a police officer who was also training to be an acupuncturist when she had her own cancer diagnosis. And as part of that, she was asking the cancer team, well, what can I do to improve my chances? How can I look after myself? And was told, well, you could try taking a vitamin C tablet. And she thought, there's got to be more I can do to help myself than just that. What about complementary therapy? She asked them.

Speaker 1 (04:58.018)
what about acupuncture? And they said, that's just available at the hospice. You can have it if you're palliative. And a young fit active woman, that was not something she really wanted to consider at that point in her diagnosis. So she was determined to do something about it. And once she was through her own journey, she got together with a friend, Liz, and they decided to make sure that complementary therapies were available to anyone.

from point of diagnosis right through their cancer journey. And from that little tiny idea around their kitchen table, My Cancer, My Choices has grown now to be across four sites in Berkshire, and we're hoping to grow more this year to extend our locations. And she's left a real legacy. She's still, although not working as the CEO, she's still on our trustee board and volunteering as a therapist as well, still for us. And we're so grateful for all the time.

she has as well as creating this fantastic charity.

Would you give an introduction to yourself, like how you got to work with My Cancer, My Choices and what your role is?

So I'm the CEO of My Cancer, My Choices. I took over from the founder, in middle of 2023. And I'd worked in local charities for, well, more years that I'm going to say. So I'd kind of heard of My Cancer, My Choices, but fortunately not had any personal experience with it. I had met the founder, Mandy, as well, and thought she was a really inspiring woman and the story she told was amazing.

Speaker 1 (06:35.778)
but was actually friends came to me and said, that charity you were talking about down the road, they're recruiting. You'd be perfect for it. So I applied for the job and yeah, here I am now and yeah, really loving working here. The people are just amazing and what we can achieve is just so powerful for people. So it's really rewarding to be here.

What's been your biggest takeaway, do you think, over the last 18 months or so you've been here?

I the people we're supporting, the people who are doing the supporting are just incredible. We're so lucky to have an incredible team of therapists and people in the back who we call our meet-a-greeters doing the support, make sure people have their appointments. And I've just met some amazing, amazing people on every side of it.

I'm glad you mentioned the people actually, because to run a charity and organisation like this, there are donors, there are the people in the office behind the scenes, there are the people who volunteer their time. How do you maintain these relationships with all these different groups?

I think we're incredibly lucky with the people we've got. They're all really, really passionate about supporting the cause. We have about 80 volunteers and five part-time staff. it's quite a small charity for the impact we're having. The volunteers, a lot of them have been affected by cancer or their partners have. So they really understand the benefits of what My Cancer, Choices does. And they can see the benefits they're bringing to other people, which I think just helps them.

Speaker 1 (08:11.062)
want to keep giving their time and efforts more and more. Alongside that, we have our volunteer managers, Katie and Claire, who look after the work that they do and supervise our volunteers. And as part of that, we offer development and training. So some of the therapists go on additional courses. We attend some sessions with the hospital as well to develop skills.

And of course we have some nice social activities as well. people make new friends, they get to meet people. Being a therapist in this kind of field can sometimes be quite isolating. A lot of them have just their own individual practice perhaps in their house or in a garden office. So to be able to be part of a wider network where they can share experiences and learn from one another as part of their training is really valuable to them and I think helps them keep coming back.

And I think that effort we put into looking after our volunteers is recognised. We were lucky to receive one of the first King's Awards for voluntary service. So that's equivalent to our volunteers having an MBE, which is amazing. And we're so proud of them for that. It just shows how hard they work and how much they bring to the organisation.

I think like you said, when you've got such a good cause as you have, it's easier for people to get behind with the experiences that people have had and they know what a difference it makes. So how do you communicate the great work that the volunteers and all the staff are doing to the public in order to get your donors and educate people?

Yeah, I think that's something that's changing over the last few years for us. I think until fairly recently, we probably could have described ourselves as one of Berkshire's best kept secrets. So very few people, unless they were going through cancer, might have heard of us. But now as we've treated more and more people, as we've had more and more volunteers come through, I think that word of mouth, people really have grown to know and love our charity is really important. So that's something that

Speaker 1 (10:13.356)
We're really proud of that, you know, more and more people know us. Our surveys show that people would recommend us to their friends and family when they've used our service. They rate our therapists as excellent. All these wonderful things are really helping us to spread the word about how much benefit we can bring to people. On top of that, our marketing person Dee does a fantastic job along with a couple of lovely volunteers we have helping with marketing. We've got Sarah who helps with the design and a few others help with social media here and there.

So that really helps us to amplify our message. We are on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn, and we are on Instagram. So people can find us there and follow us. And of course we have our website and our newsletter. So if anyone would like to go to our website and sign up to our newsletter, please do. And you'll hear about all our events and activities that we've got there. I think one of the other things that's really important in us

getting our message out to people is we have a really fantastic relationship with Royal Berkshire Hospital. So when people go into the cancer centre and have a diagnosis of cancer, obviously it's a really difficult and overwhelming time, but there are some amazing nurses there who talk people through all the support that's available to them. They get given lots of leaflets and we're part of that package so that people know from that point of diagnosis that we're available to support them.

through their cancer journey. And we continue to work really closely with the RBH. We offer training and wellbeing sessions to some of the nurses when we can. They educate our therapists and meet-and-greeters in changes in treatments, they're helping on the medical side, so we get a really good understanding of what everyone's going through. We've recently started some training with some of the other volunteers at the RBH where they're learning to do hand massage and so on.

expanding our impact by helping others to develop and deliver the complementary therapies in the hospital as well.

Speaker 2 (12:10.434)
That's the thing, isn't it? It does take time. Like you said, you began for 10 years now, so you managed to get that core practice that you do really firmed up. And now, like you said, you're expanding and Word of Mouth is definitely for every business, every charity, Word of Mouth is definitely the best way, but it takes time. Yeah, I think what you've got in place is definitely working. So what are the challenges that you faced in doing what you do, getting the charity set up, providing the services?

It does.

Speaker 1 (12:38.382)
I think obviously at the outset, 10 years ago, complementary therapies weren't very well known or understood. Even in the, particularly in the medical circles as well, there was a lot of misunderstanding about what they were. And there's been a lot of work done with the doctors and consultants to educate them about what we can offer and how we can support the patients. And that's really changed now where the cancer team are really supportive of what we're doing and encourage people to come along because they can see the benefit in the patients when they come back to them.

they can see the difference in their wellbeing. I think the other challenges are probably fairly common across most small charities that are trying to survive in today's economy. A lot of what would have been our core volunteers are now having to work extra jobs. A lot of our therapists are having to put extra hours into their own private practice and have perhaps a little bit less time to give the charity. So we're looking for more and more therapists to come and join us.

to help with that and anyone who can volunteer and give their time. Of course, funding is always an issue for small charities. We are okay, but to grow we need more funding and support. I think really one of the other things is that we're seeing this growing demand for our service as it is getting better understood, as people have less money in their pockets and can't afford private therapies. Our waiting lists are increasing, more and more people are registering with us.

So trying to balance that demand is really, really tricky for us, but we're determined to try and reach as many people as we can over the next few years.

Yeah, like you said, it's that difficult balance between wanting to help as many people as possible and get the word out there, but on the other hand, only having so many resources with which you can help people. So yeah, like I said, the longer the waiting list grows, then the more you need as an input. Yeah, that's a really tricky balance. You've mentioned a lot with how you've helped people. Can you quantify or what is the impact you've had on the community in Berkshire?

Speaker 1 (14:22.35)
That's right, yes.

Speaker 1 (14:38.382)
Yeah, in terms of numbers, it kind of paints a basic picture. We've provided well over 10,000 hours of care over the 10 years we've been going. We've supported well over 2,000 people during that time. But I think that's a very dry picture. What that doesn't convey is the personal impact we've had on those people. Not just the people coming to use the service, but the volunteers as well and how much benefit they've had from it.

But for those that come and use the service, I say to people, I wish I could bottle watching people come out. It's just wonderful. We see people arrive and many of them are stressed, tired, anxious, exhausted, feeling pain. And then I see them come in to book their next appointment an hour later after their therapy. And so many of them feel like they're floating. And you say to them, how was that? And they just go, wonderful. And it's just such.

a privilege to be part of that and to help them, even if it's just for a short time, feel so much better for that interim period. So I think, you know, for those people that benefit from this, the services, that impact just is enormous.

That's the thing I think when you stick with, you have to present numbers in order to get donors and funding and things, but you can't quantify the amount of impact.

The anecdotes, the things people say to us, I feel like it's my safe place. I can talk to you about anything. You understand what I'm going through. I can't talk to my friends or family because I don't want to upset them, but you guys get it. Or one person say, it's just, there's all these treatments that helping my body, but you've really helped my mind. This has really been sanity saving for me. They go through so much on their cancer journey. It's a real kind of

Speaker 1 (16:31.694)
conveyor belt of right now you're going to have surgery and now you're going to have chemo and then you're going to go on hormone therapy and then you're going to do this and then you're going to do that. There's no time for them to stop and really think about themselves. So a lot of people have said, you know, I've had so much done to my body. It's really amazing to have something just for my body that I'm in control of that I can choose to do for myself. And that is just so powerful. That's what we're all about, empowering people and giving them that control over what's happening to themselves.

Like we said, this is your 10th anniversary this year, so many congratulations. What are your plans for this year for celebrating?

Lots of celebrations, yeah. And hopefully to just get that message out there that we're here and that we need people's support to stay here for the future 10 years. We already kicked off the year with a fantastic gala dinner with some of our supporters in January. We had a record-breaking number of people attend and raised around £33,000, which is off to a great start, but we need to raise a lot more for the coming year.

We've also launched a series of quiz nights. Our first one's coming up in March in Charville. We have our 10th anniversary golf day in May and lots of other supporters doing crazy events for us. We've got one of our therapists is aiming to swim 70 lengths of her swimming pool 70 times before she turns 70 in the summer. And she's cracking on with that. We have our founder and some of her friends are intending over the summer to walk.

between our four locations where we offer treatments, which are in Bracknell, here in Charville, the middle of Reading, and right out to Stockcross in West Berkshire. They're going to walk between those in 24 hours. So that's about 40 miles, they reckon, in one day. So that's going to be amazing to see them, if they can achieve that. They're going to call themselves something like the Feet of Endurance, which I think it really will be if they manage it. And we've got some parties, and so I'm coming up alongside our Volunteers Day that we do.

Speaker 1 (18:34.934)
But one of the new things we're really excited about is we've got our first 10k anniversary walk which we're doing in partnership with the Goring Gap Run. So that's on the 17th of May. It's a 10k walk along the banks of the River Thames. You get a free riverboat crossing as well as part of it. And people who are doing it to fundraise for My Cancer, My Choices can get in touch with us and get a free entry code. So you'll get free entry if you fundraise for us.

and you'll get your finishers medals and so on and a fantastic day out along the river. So we're asking everyone who's been involved with the charity or who'd like to be involved with the charity, perhaps who've been users of our service or their friends and family have to come and walk to support us. 10K for our 10th anniversary.

What other ways can people help?

We're always looking for more volunteers. As I've mentioned, if you're a therapist and want to get in touch to see if your therapy is one of the ones we can or are planning to offer in the future, that would be amazing. But everyone's got some skills or time they can offer. So whether it's helping back in the office with some admin, if you've got specialist skills in, I don't know, HR or legal or so on, we'd always be keen to talk to you to see if there's any pro bono work you could offer. And...

just helping out, we've got lots of events happening this year so we always need plenty of hands to put up gazebos or hold a bucket or just wave and cheer when people are coming past on the walk and so on. So there's something for everyone that they can get involved with. And of course if people are financially able to donate that's always appreciated whether that's personally or through the company they work with. We'd love to get in touch with you and find out ways we could work together with your company.

Speaker 1 (20:21.388)
So yeah, lots of ways we'd encourage people to get involved or just simply follow us, get our newsletter and come and join in with our quiz or something that you fancy. It's going to be something for everyone this year.

That does sound fun. Now, is there anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

You know, cancer's not going away anytime soon, much as though we wish it was. Probably half of your listeners are going to be affected by cancer at some point in their lifetime. So it is something that affects everyone, but it's really important that we are there to support those people who are going through it into the future. So if you can get involved and support us in any way, whether that's just simply by telling your neighbor about us, if they're going through cancer, then please do.

get in touch and we would just want to be there and work with you and support your friends and family. So details on www.mycancermychoices.org. So find out more about us there or pick up the phone, give us a ring and we'd love to speak with you and see how we can work together or support you.

Claire, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. You've been brilliant and hopefully lots of people will be coming to you now just to find out a bit more or telling their friends about it.

Speaker 1 (21:36.458)
signing up for a little walk in the Cullington side.