READING PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP (RPCSG)
A Registered Charity in England & Wales, No. 1210779
TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2025
Covering period January 2025 to December 2025
ORGANISATION
At the end of December 2025 the RPCSG had eight committee members, all of whom are trustees of the group. Our registration of Charitable Incorporated Organisation with the Charities Commission in November 2024 was a major achievement and a great benefit to the group.
The committee continued to have no appointee to the role of chairman, instead the committee has absorbed the chairman’s responsibilities and continues to fully function and effectively manage the affairs of the group. The email account of chairman@rpcsg.org.uk remains active with the mailbox being monitored and responded to by several of the trustees.
This Trustees’ Annual Report for 2025 has been written by the trustees to document the activities, events and achievements of RPCSG.
CHARITABLE INCORPORATED ORGANISATION
We are very proud that our application for charitable status was successful and was awarded on 5[th] November 2024. We have also registered with HMRC so that we can claim Gift Aid on donations.
The status of CIO has greatly benefitted the group, we believe that this led to an improved esteem of the group and has helped toward the increase in donations and a reduction of some costs.
We remain grateful to Beverley, who did tremendous work in raising an application form and negotiating with the Charities Commission for a revised constitution.
A link to the current constitution can be found in our web site (www.rpcsg.org.uk) in the ‘About Us’ tab.
FINANCIAL REPORT
At the end of 2025 Treasurer Richard Joyes compiled the following financial report for the year ended 31st December 2025.
The unit of the figures is pounds sterling (GBP £)
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NOTES ON THE 2025 GROUP ACCOUNTS
The following brief notes will, we hope, facilitate interpretation of the Accounts:
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We ended the year with a very healthy bank balance, just over £5,000 more than at the start of 2025. This was mainly due to a large number of donations in our first full year registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).
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The donations came from Members; the Mayor of Reading’s Charity Fund; two awareness events at Broad Street, Reading and All Saints Church, Wokingham; and from these organisations or groups – Beat:Cancer, TKMaxx and Homesense Foundation, Trinity Concert Band, Chancellors, Friday Friends, Steer Community Fund, and Loddon Vale Model Railway Club (where we had an awareness stand).
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Refreshment income: This covers donations given for the cups of tea and coffee at the ten Group meetings over the year (not including the two Socials).
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The very well supported raffles at the Summer and Christmas Socials raised a combined sum of £430.
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Hall Rental costs: The rental fee for the year remained at £22.50 per hour. We had the hall for 3 hours for each Group Meeting, 4 hours for the Summer Social and 6 hours for the Christmas Social.
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Insurance: We require this for Public Liability and Property Damage insurance cover.
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Stationery/Printing costs: This was for the printing of another batch of the tri-fold awareness leaflets.
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Gifts/Donations: We have been fortunate to continue to obtain help from guest speakers throughout the year. The cost of gifts is to enable us to provide a token gift to those speakers. In addition, we made two donations – equipment for the new
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Urology Centre at the RBH (donation shared with the Bladder Cancer Support Group), and a Prostate Cancer Awareness Banner for the Berkshire Cancer Centre.
Many thanks to Treasurer Richard Joyes for managing our finances and organising our group meetings refreshment rota.
GROUP MEETINGS
The RPCSG held a group meeting on the first Friday of each month. The meetings included social events and group meetings at which guest speakers gave talks on subjects relevant to prostate cancer. At meetings involving a talk by a speaker we continued to have a Zoom connection which is advantageous for members who cannot travel and enabled some other prostate cancer support groups to participate remotely.
During 2025 the group meetings consisted of:
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3 Open meetings – members free to chat among themselves
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7 Speakers – delivering talks on topics concerning prostate cancer
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2 Social events – the Summer and Christmas socials. Both of these events featured a quiz and a raffle.
The average attendance at group meetings excluding socials was 29 patient members and 6
partner members.
Many thanks to Beverley, with assistance from Steve Allen and Andrew, for arranging a very successful programme of group meetings, with several interesting and informative talks by guest speakers.
The Summer social consisted of food and drink sourced by the committee and was very popular.
The Christmas Social featured a buffet meal served by external contractor, Little Platter, that was again very much enjoyed.
The 2025 Annual General Meeting was held at the start of the group meeting on the 7[th] March 2025, and minutes of that AGM can be seen in our web site (www.rpcsg.org.uk) in the ‘Newsletter and AGM’ tab. The minutes will later be replaced by those of the 2026 AGM, after which a copy of the 2025 minutes can be obtained from the committee if needed.
SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
The group provides peer support in several forms. The group meetings are an opportunity for members to talk to each other for peer-to-peer support, and some experienced members also provide one-to-one support when members require this. We always allow time for this, even when there is a speaker or other scheduled activity at a group meeting. Some of our group meetings are ‘Open meetings’ at which there is no speaker as the entire evening is for chat among members. This type of support is also available on our ‘Walk and Talk’ events. We also provide support via our telephone support line or occasionally over a one-to-one Zoom session. Over the year, we had around 55 calls to our support line totalling almost 12
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hours. While some calls may be simple questions which are easily answered, others such as from a newly diagnosed patient considering treatment choices, are often over an hour while we discuss their concerns and what treatment options are available. We can arrange followon conversations with other members who have had specific treatments.
A couple of our members who provide a lot of support also attend medical conferences to keep up-to-date with treatments and to feed back to clinicians on the patient experience. They were also joint authors of a published research paper covering patient experiences with the various ADT (Hormone Therapy) treatments often used for treating prostate cancer.
Towards the end of 2025 the group discontinued the publication known as ‘Pharos’ as much of the information that it contained has been superseded by ‘Events’ emails that Andrew regularly distributes. These emails contain not only detail of the RPCSG meetings but also list many other external events and presentations in which our members can participate.
MEMBERSHIP
Membership of the RPCSG has always been free of charge. Many men join and remain active for a period during diagnosis, treatment, and recovery while they need support, whilst others continue their involvement after their own support needs, to support newer members.
During 2025 22 men joined the group, which is an increase from the 17 men who joined in 2024. We also welcome partners to join as members, and during the year 7 partners also joined the group, but sadly this is a decrease from 12 during 2024.
AWARNESS AND PROMOTION
We have two target audiences which we try to connect with:
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Those diagnosed with prostate cancer, for whom we can provide support.
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Those not diagnosed with prostate cancer, for whom we raise awareness of this cancer, which usually has no symptoms and for which there is no screening program. Early detection depends on the awareness of the individual.
We have developed promotional posters and A5 handouts with RPCSG contact information given to hospitals for inclusion in the pack which is given to all newly diagnosed patients. Our posters are displayed in public places such as libraries, public conveniences, dental and medical surgeries and waiting rooms. A record is kept of the locations of our posters. We also produced a pull-up banner for our local oncology centre and will be doing something similar for our local urology centre.
We held several awareness events in public places at which our stand is manned by volunteer members, to inform the public about prostate cancer. During 2025 these have been held in Broad Street, Reading, during two of the Trinity Concert Band’s Concerts in Wokingham, and an openair concert in a riverside park in Henley, plus we were invited to man a stand during Loddon Vale Model Railway Club’s annual exhibition in Earley and all were well received.
We have developed a tri-fold awareness leaflet that provides an overview in plain English of what prostate cancer is and we hand these out during our awareness events. Wokingham Lions kindly sponsored the first print run of 2,500 of these leaflets in 2024 and in 2025 the car repairer’s Steer Group Community Fund kindly sponsored the printing of further 2,500 with RPCSG’s charity registration details on.
At our awareness events we have noticed an increase in the number of men who have either already heard of prostate cancer or who have had PSA measurements. We are pleased with this result that indicates that the awareness of the disease is widening.
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Peter Dawe signed up as an Ambassador for the Prostate Cancer Research (PCR) charity’s ‘Proactive for Your Prostate’ campaign, promoting the benefits of establishing a national screening programme for prostate cancer. Peter encouraged members to support the campaign, by sending an email to their MP and Andrew Gabriel included the appropriate information and links to the PCR proforma letter in RPCSG’s emails to members. A number of members duly wrote to their MPs:
Clive Jones MP for Wokingham Freddie van Merlo MP for Henley and Thame Joshua Reynolds MP for Maidenhead Matt Rodda MP for Reading Central Olivia Bailey MP for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)) Yuan Yang MP for Earley and Woodley
At least two members subsequently had a meeting with their MP to impress on them the importance of national screening programme, the need and justification for which was being reviewed by the National Screening Committee.
As a patient advocate Dr Steve Allen wrote to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Prostate Cancer and Peter Dawe was interviewed on BBC Radio Berkshire and for ITV Meridian News on Tuesday 14[th] 2025.
Two ‘ Value of being a member of RPCSG ’ interviews were videoed in November and are in the process of being edited. Thanks to Steve Allen for conducting the interviews and Peter Dawe for recording and editing the videos.
The intention is to make the videos available on our website and also offer them to Tackle, the charity that supports prostate cancer support groups.
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
We held our usual two social events during the past year, being the Summer Social in July 2025 and the Christmas social in December 2025. Both events were very enjoyable and successful, with the number of guests being 35 and 44 respectively.
The Summer Social is a buffet consisting mostly of ‘finger food’ organised by the committee and was very enjoyable.
The Christmas Social used the same contractor Little Platter who we used in December 2024 to provide a hot and cold buffet meal, and again it was a great occasion.
At the summer event the raffle raised £180 and the Christmas raffle raised £250. Both sums went toward the costs of running the group. Many thanks to all committee members who contributed to the setting up and managing the events, in particular to Alex Miles and Steve Allen for the organisation and management of the social events, and Beverley Skelton and Nigel Booth for managing the raffles.
WALK AND TALK SESSIONS
We held a walk in each month, each walk invariably ending in a pub or café for refreshments, to which non-walkers were invited to join. The walks were about four miles in distance and the number of members participating in the walks is usually around 6 to 12 people, often greater in the summer months
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The walks are very leisurely and have been very enjoyable and a great opportunity to chat among members whilst taking some gentle exercise. These are a particularly valuable support resource to men with a recent diagnosis, for whom the walks are a great chance to discuss options in a relaxed atmosphere. Refreshments in local pubs or cafes were enjoyable.
Many thanks to member Richard Brown for a very successful programme of interesting and enjoyable walks during the year.
TRUSTEES
The application for charitable status nominated eight persons as trustees:
| Steve Allen | Awareness Secretary |
|---|---|
| Nigel Booth | Webmaster |
| Peter Dawe | Membership Registrar & OneDrive Admin |
| Andrew Gabriel | Membership Communications |
| Richard Joyes | Treasurer |
| Alex Miles | Social Secretary |
| Steve Parkinson | Secretary & editor |
| Beverley Skelton | Hospital Liaison |
These trustees met regularly throughout 2025 as a committee, to manage the proceedings of the group. We can have up to 12 trustees so if you would like to help with the running of the group we would welcome new trustee members. Please let us know at any meeting.
Thanks are due to all of the above trustees for their work as trustees and committee members:
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Nigel Booth is a skilled webmaster, maintaining our web site which is invaluable for information and reference.
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Peter Dawe for managing our databases and records in the OneDrive workspace, and for his contribution in facilitating the Zoom connection for many of our group meetings
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Andrew Gabriel issued regular information emails to our members, and acted as a valued support contact, as did Steve Allen.
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Richard Joyes managed the finances for the group and set up new bank accounts as a charity.
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Alex Miles managed the social activities and quizzes, making arrangements with external contractors.
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Steve Parkinson as secretary managed the minutes of committee meetings, the 2025 AGM and the trustees’ annual report.
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Beverley Skelton drove the arrangements for the group as a charity, and arranged all of the guest speakers at our group meetings.
In addition, the committee very much appreciates and sends thanks to former committee member Chris Addison for continuing to perform the ‘Meet and Greet’ role (i.e. welcoming current and new members, handing out badges, and ensuring attendance is recorded) during our group meetings),
Finally, a big thank you to all our group members for their support by attendance at our meetings and events.
Wishing you the very best and good health in 2026.
The Trustees.
16/03/2026
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READING PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP
A Registered Charity in England & Wales, No. 1210779
ACCOUNTS: 04 NOV 2024 TO 31 DEC 2025
RECEIPTS EXPENDITURE
| Balance brought forward | 2,036.78 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refreshments | 620.00 | Website/PC costs | 190.54 | ||
| Donations received | 6,078.20 | Hall Rental | 1,102.50 | ||
| Summer Social | 350.00 | Insurance | 242.56 | ||
| Summer Raffle | 180.00 | Stationery/Printing | 135.92 | ||
| Christmas Social | 2,568.00 | Summer Social | 177.58 | ||
| Christmas Raffle | 527.00 | Christmas Social | 2,069.74 | ||
| Refund on Insurance | 24.63 | Gifts/Donations | 312.22 | ||
| Telephone Helpline | 22.53 | ||||
| Awareness - Pitch Rental | 72.00 | ||||
| Postage | 2.70 | ||||
| Meetings (Drink Cups) | 27.13 | ||||
| TOTAL RECEIPTS | 10,347.83 | TOTAL EXPENDITURE | 4,355.42 | ||
| Balance carried forward | 8,029.19 | ||||
| 12,384.61 | 12,384.61 | ||||
| Signed | Treasurer | Richard I. Joyes | |||
| Signed | Examiner | Roslyn Brewster |