Question about support group meetings

Hello Everyone, I am just curious to know if there is anyone out there who would like to attend a support group meeting in Wiggins on a regular basis? I know there are several people who have had WLS that live in the Wiggins/poplarville areas and I think it would be great to get a local support system started for those of us who have to drive 30+ miles to attend a meeting. I find myself not attending because of the drive so late in the evening. If you are reading this and know someone who does not have access to a computer who may be interested in attending a meeting in Wiggins, please ask them and post a reply so that I can get a count of how many are interested. Also, If anyone out there can give me advice on how to coordinate and facilitate a WLS support group meeting, please reply because if this happens, I'll need advice to keep attendance good.............Who wants to go to a boring meeting????? I really want to try and keep it interesting! Thanks! Lorrie

I agree you need to keep it interesting. The one in Hattiesburg is failing miserably in the interesting department and has lost many members. In the beginning, we had speakers to come and talk about different things for the first 20 minutes or so and then the last 40 minutes was used to talk about questions people had or issues they were having. Let's see if I can remember some of the speakers we had to give you some ideas. We had a lady come that had a degree in fashion and owned a boutique. She came and talked about how to dress our new bodies for our new shape. She brought pamphlets to hand out to help us pick the most flattering clothes for the shape we were. And how to camophlage the bad areas we may have. It was interesting. Then we had an exercise physiologist come and talk about cardio and weight training and show us some exercises to do for toning and strengthening our muscles. We had a psychiatrist come and talk to us about body image and things we may experience as we lose the weight. And she answered questions for people too. That was really good. We had a nutritionist come one night and talk about menu plans and the best foods and stuff like that. That is just some things I can remember right off. Good luck starting up a group in your area. I hope it does really well. Melissa