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2020-12-01-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT 2019/2020

CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Purpose Something's Not Right 03 08 Structure, Governance & Management Thank you's 04 09 Why do we exist? Financial Statement 05 10 Activities & Achievements 06

P U R P O S E

Mission Remission is the only UK charity solely dedicated to supporting cancer survivors. Our vision is for everyone to live a happy, healthy, independent life after cancer and we plan to improve the experience of recovery for every cancer survivor in the UK.

“Once I had the ‘you’re now in remission’ talk with the oncologist, I was in limbo. My biggest hurdle was the ability to give myself permission to live again.”

To summarise the purposes of Mission Remission, as set out in our governing document, our ‘Charitable Objects’ are:

MISSION REMISSION’S STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

Mission Remission was formed by Constitution agreed on 7 September 2017. It was registered as a Community Interest Company on this date and converted to a charity, registering with the Charities Commission of England & Wales on 16 December 2019.

Our trustees are: Ryan Pickett Jane Spurgeon Andrew Morgan, Treasurer Kasmyn Chen, Secretary

Lisa Whittleton resigned as a trustee in 2020 and we thank her for her fantastic contribution to the charity and help to those facing cancer. She provided so much useful advice on support for mental health issues and was a much-cherished sounding board for all charity decisions.

Recruitment and appointment of new Trustees is the responsibility of the existing Trustees. The Trustees may appoint any person who is willing to act as Trustee subject to the requirements of the Charities Commission and the Constitution. The Trustees manage the charity, along with the founder, Laura Fulcher, who works on a voluntary basis.

No Trustees are paid for carrying out their duties as Trustees. Other professionals have been paid for providing specific services to the charity on an invoice basis that does not constitute employment. The Trustees and founder make all decisions regarding the running and management of the charity and are supported by volunteers who carry out specific tasks and roles.

The Trustees have had due regard to the commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant. The Trustees have given consideration to the major risks to which the charity is exposed and satisfied themselves that systems or procedures are established in order to manage those risks. There were no serious incidents to report during the financial year 2019-2020.

“Every day I have to fight the demons of anxiety, pain and fear but I now see a light at the end of the tunnel… and if anyone wants to know how I coped I will say ‘Mission Remission!’”

WHY DO WE EXIST?

Life after cancer can be tough

Once the cancer ‘battle’ is won, everyone celebrates your tale’s happy ending. It’s time to forget, move on, and feel grateful to be alive. Yet most don’t realise that recovery can be a battle in itself.

It’s difficult to forget cancer if, like more than four-fifths of those who took part in our survey, the fear of a recurrence paralyses with anxiety. It’s difficult to move on when you’re one of the two-thirds of people facing serious health issues, your body no longer working as it once did. And difficult to feel grateful when the very loves and hopes that defined you as a person now feel out of reach.

90% of people feel the time after cancer treatment is just as traumatic as the diagnosis (BCC). You’re faced with the need to return to ‘normal’ life, when life no longer feels normal.

2.5 million people live with cancer in the UK, yet survivors currently receive little to no support to help deal with the aftermath of treatment. In fact, more widely, there’s sparse information on life after cancer, with scant clinical research.

So we wanted to do something about it.

Mission Remission champions cancer survivors, filling the gap in support. We’re a small grassroot communityrun charity and help people by running our online platform, now with over 15,000 community members. We also run support groups, online discussions, a book club, and our early diagnosis campaign, Something’s Not Right. We aim to support all 2.5million cancer survivors reach their full potential, including the 48% of people who face a rarer cancer, who do not have a large disease-specific charity to put them first.

We make survival less isolating and more empowering. We’ve doctors and mental health specialists on hand, and have created a community helping tens of thousands of people share positive stories and practical tips. We support survivors to move forward with their lives.

We believe that cancer survivors are experts by experience. We are a community-run organisation, with all activities run by survivors. Our projects focus on building a strong community, forming connections and support between cancer advocates, and sharing peer support.

We promote role models who inspire and motivate. Our uplifting stories of recovery prove to those feeling dispirited, isolated, and incapacitated by ill health, that moving forward after cancer is possible. We’ve found that believing in recovery is often the first step, but biggest hurdle.

In the four years we’ve been running, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands of people. Over 80% of survivors state reading our practical tips improves their well-being and our stories and strategies have been voted helpful over 20,000 times.

ACTIVITIES & ACHIEVEMENTS

Our online hub is a place for survivors to read and share experiences and practical strategies for moving forward. Every week in 2019/20 we curated new strategies with our community and we now have over 100 topics and ideas that inform, inspire and motivate.

We developed the site so it is now organised into 6 themes:

We were supported by organisations like Lush, The Blurt Foundation, and Headspace to support our community with free products and ‘pick-me-ups’.

By the end of 2020, we reached hundreds of thousands of people. Over 80% experience an improvement in wellbeing from reading our strategies. Those that contribute say, ‘you constantly remind me I’ve something to give and my experience can help others. This helps me tremendously.’

The hub allows people to say a thank you on individual posts to show that they have helped. These posts were marked as helpful tens of thousands of times and hundreds of thousands have engaged with them on Facebook.

Building an active community

We are very proud that our community stands at over 15,000 people and our platform used over 30,000 times.

· ’ The Cancer Survivors Book Club

We ran a regular online book club, suggested by our community, which allows survivors to explore emotions. ‘Reading helps me find a piece of myself again,’ says one of our readers.

· Hosting Forum

We ran our online forum for cancer survivors, providing a safe sanctuary to read and share. We’ve found that our community used the forum for reading and thinking, and Facebook for communication, so we’ve used the forum primarily for sharing resources. Over 1,000 people are registered with our forum and our resources were accessed over 10,000 times.

· London Meetup

We ran a London meetup for the first few months before Covid-19 hit. Our meetup group were encouraged to join our online activities and participate in our ‘Something’s Not Right’ campaign.

‘Late Effects’ project

5… 20… 30 years after cancer treatment, research shows that almost every single survivor continues to face physical and psychological issues (Treanor & Donnelly, 2014).

These late effects of treatment - consequences of cancer not identified when treatment finishes – were what we addressed in this project. Late effects can include anything from long-term implications of surgery or treatment, to psychological issues, such as PTSD. As one community member describes, “I face many physical problems, deteriorating further with time… extreme fatigue, memory and self-esteem issues, depression, constant fear and introversion.”

With cancer survivors, we created 34 resources dedicated to the late effects of cancer and ran guided online discussions normalising, building empathy and sharing ideas about late effects.

"YOU CONSTANTLY REMIND ME THAT I HAVE SOMETHING TO GIVE AND THAT MY EXPERIENCE CAN HELP OTHERS AND THIS IN TURN HELPS ME TREMENDOUSLY."

Covid-related activities

2019-2020 was an unprecedented year globally. We directly support some of those at highest risk of COVID-19. Many in our community are on immunosuppression medication, whilst others suffer the effects of chemotherapy. People were anxious, scared and very unwell at the same time as followup appointments and treatment were delayed. This community is not only at risk of contracting COVID-19, but also experienced increasingly negative implications of shielding.

In 2020, we ran community-led weekly online support on our social media groups and community platform. We focused each week on different issues, sharing resources and running discussions on topics like financial concerns, exploring at-home exercise tips, or navigating hospital cancellations. We worked with our volunteer professionals, such as GPs, mental health specialists, and personal trainers to tailor advice. We supported over 1,000 people with these activities, with survivors actively contributing over 700 times.

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contributing over 700 times.
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SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT

Our five-year campaign (2020-2025), ‘Something’s Not Right’ encourages patients worried about the symptoms of cancer to gain the confidence to say: ‘Something’s Not Right’. It calls for clinicians to know to take these words and symptoms seriously. It also calls for specific policy and system change to ensure faster diagnosis.

We use both social and traditional media genres to build public support for earlier cancer diagnosis which will place pressure on health leaders to address issues.

In 2020 we focused on creating our ’10 steps to diagnosis’ resource. It helps people feeling overwhelmed by worry and helps people navigate the NHS. We are very proud that the ’10 steps to diagnosis’ is fully community-created, developed by a team of 23 people who have faced cancer. It has also been supported by clinicians, who are also cancer survivors.

Read more about our ‘Something’s Not Right’ campaign here, which was developed at the beginning of 2020, before Covid struck.

'In this world of guidelines and pathways there’s a worrying loss of trust. We don’t give importance to what patients are saying, or how they feel about their own body. We’re losing trust in the clinician’s art or skill too. With the forms and checklists, the words ‘something’s not right’ fall between the cracks. Referrals get downgraded, quite literally, because the computer says no.' - GP & breast cancer survivor

THANK YOUS FOR THE YEAR

We’d love to thank our volunteers who run much of our work. We'd also like to thank Lisa Whittleton for her invaluable support through the early years of establishing Mission Remission.

Much work went into Mission Remission becoming a fully fledged charity in 2019. We’re thrilled that the charity commission confirmed our registration. Our next plan is to develop our trustee and volunteer team further.

We’d also love the thank the following funders who supported what we do:

"Mission Remission is like sunshine coming through the clouds. Bless you a thousand times over because it can be so lonely."

MISSION REMISSION

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES INCLUDING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE PERIOD TO 2ND DECEMBER 2020

Receipts & Payments

£ £ Total Income from: Donations: (Unrestricted) 8141 8141 Grants: (Restricted) National Lottery 9900 Derwent London 2000 Sheila McKecknie 3750 15650 _____ TOTAL INCOME 23791 _____ Expenditure: Administration 4558 Charitable Projects 11200 _____ TOTAL EXPENDITURE 15758 _____ Net Income for the year 8033 ______

MISSION REMISSION BALANCE SHEET AS AT 2ND DECEMBER 2020

CURRENT ASSETS £
Debtors 0
Cash in Bank and in hand 14068
Creditors 0
Net Current Assets 14068
Cash funds last year end (from Mission
Remission CIC)		 6035
Cash funds thisyear end 14068

The charity is entitled to the exemption from the audit requirement contained in section 477 of the Companies Act 2006, for the year ended 2 December 2020. The trustees acknowledge their responsibilities for ensuring that the charity keeps accounting records which comply with section 386 of the Act and for preparing financial statements which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company as at the end of the financial year and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the financial year in accordance with the requirements of sections 394 and 395 and which otherwise comply with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 relating to financial statements, so far as applicable to the company. The members have not required the company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the year in question in accordance with section 476. The financial statements were approved by the Trustees on 20 September 2021.

Ryan Pickett (trustee)