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This event was the brainchild of Michelle Fischer of Creative Leadership. Here is her story:

"In Oct 2008 my father was diagnosed with advanced stage Prostate Cancer.  This was a real shock to my family and I, as dad (who’s only 64) has always been healthy and lived a very wholesome life.  With medicine the way it is we’re thrilled with how well he’s doing and responding to the hormone treatment he’s on.  Modern medicine really is an amazing thing and we’ve received phenomenal support from our local NHS and doctors surgery.  

Last summer I met up with other male family members on my fathers side who live in France, and heard tales of how, due to the screening they receive each year in France, they too were diagnosed with Prostate Cancer but as they caught it early, have been a little more fortunate with their prognosis.  As time’s gone on and we’ve done more research for ourselves on the illness and gotten used to (if that’s possible?) the prognosis, it’s become startlingly apparent that had my father taken himself to the doctors at an earlier stage, his cancer might have been detected and cured rather than simply treatable.   

This spurred me on to want to do three things:

Promote awareness and increase education of male cancer

1. Help raise funds to fund more research and find a cure
2. Lobby the powers that be to introduce screening for male cancer in the UK
   

And how could I do that?  Certainly not alone that’s for sure, which is partly why I’m emailing you.

Two ladies and fellow business associates Emma James of Tasty Marketing and Anne Orchard of Families Facing Cancer, whose lives have also been affected by C word, got to talking late summer 09 and came up with the idea of running an event to do exactly that.  

Introducing Love Balls
With this in mind we’re running an event which I’d hope you can come along to or support in some way.  It’s on 19th February at Bournemouth Football Club from 7.30 – 11.30.  Tickets cost £22 or £190 for a table of 10 and are available to purchase now from me.  You can also see more about the event on the Facebook page we’ve created:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Love-Balls-The-Orchid-Cancer-Charity-Event/277175049965?ref=mf

We’re thrilled that the founder of Orchid, Colin Osbourne, himself a former sufferer of testicular cancer, is able to attend the event.  He was appointed for an MBE in the last honours list for his services to charity and his attendance and support is brilliant!!

The evening itself will be an informal affair.  Yes there will be lots of opportunity for you to network and we’d love you to dress to impress if you like, but equally formalwear is perfectly suitable too.  On the night you can expect plenty of dancing and great food, plus the chance to contribute towards raising funds for such a good cause with an auction and raffle too.

How can you Contribute?
There are lots of ways you can contribute:

1. Buy a ticket/tickets – we’d welcome teams as well as individuals! (NOTE: To find out how to pay for a ticket please email rsvp@tastymarketing.co.uk, we can't take ticket payments through this page)
2. Help us achieve our goal of awareness/funds and screening by emailing your address book, posting on Facebook, Twitter and any other way you can
3. Print the invitation (see photographs) and put up at your work/on your website etc
4. Donate a raffle/auction prize
5. Sponsor the event in some way – more details on this to follow
6. Donate ££ if you can’t attend - this you can do here on JustGiving, it's quick and easy

We’ll happily field more ideas if you can come up with anything we haven’t thought of?  The more we all do, the better this will be and the more likely it will be to help others.

Why “Love Balls”?
Yes we know the name is a little risqué and we certainly don’t mean to offend, however it struck us that part of the problem with men getting diagnosed is the embarrassment factor.  So many men hide when they see problems down below.  As our event is held close to Valentines day and we’re holding it at AFC Bournemouth Football Club, we kind of figured the name was a must!

Did you know?
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.  It affects 35,000 people and families every year in the UK and there are 10,000 deaths each year – that’s one man every hour.   But Male cancer is not simply confined to the more mature man as is commonly believed, Testicular cancer is the most common cancer for men aged 15-45; and each year around 2,000 young men are diagnosed and face the emotional and physical trauma of fighting this disease.

Thanks for your time and for support in this."

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