North Central Mass Support Group (Fitchburg, Gardner, Athol, Northeast Worcester county)

Hello again, I have to apologize for not being more responsive to getting this group off the ground. Due to the death of a family friend I have been remiss in getting in touch with all of you. I was hoping to have a meeting tomorrow night, February 24, at my office in Westminster. Because of the death, I need to change that to March 2. I'm hoping this will be enough notice and a relatively convenient date for everyone. I thought we could start the meeting at 7 p.m. Everyone is welcome to arrive as early as 6. Moving forward, I'd say that 6 to 7 would be a time for us to do a clothing exchange and some one on one chatting. I thought we could meet until 9. It helps to have a cut off time once we all get chatting. We can adjust that time as necessary in the future. At our first meeting I thought we could get a concessus for how often everyone would like to meet. If you are unable to attend next weeks meeting but plan on coming in the future, please let me know of any absolute "cannots" for scheduling. The meetings (unless they are something special) will always be a weeknight as I know most of us work and/or have family commitments. My office is conveniently located off of Route 2 in Westminster. If you respond that you are coming I will send you detailed directions. For the first meeting its probably easier if we all bring our own beverages. I'll have something small (and WLS friendly) to nibble on and we can address how to handle that at future meetings. If you have a specific issue that you'd like to talk about please let me know. I thought we would break the discussion down into pre-op, newly post up (less than 6 weeks), 6 weeks to 3 months post op, 3 - 6 months post op, 6 months to one year, and one year and beyond. During the meeting, I'll open the floor to everyone in that order. Obviously if no one in that time frame has an issue OR if there is no one in that group, we'll move on. If you are nervous about speaking up, feel free to send me a note before hand and I'll put your question (or concern, problem, etc.) out there. In the future, if we agree as a group, we can look into having guest "speakers" (doctors, nutritionists, counselors, personal trainers, etc.) to meet with us for question and answer type forums. Since we are a patient run group and will be sharing information, insight and support, if you have any articles, books, etc., they'd like to share, please let me know and I'll take care of getting copies made (legally w/in copyright laws). Please make sure to include the source so it can be documented. We aren't the professionals, so we want to make sure everyone knows where the information they are reading is coming from. In the very beginning the group is probably going to be relatively small, so going around the room with introductions and everyone's story is easy. As we grow, that becomes more time consuming (and redundant) for the regulars. What I thought we could do, was simply wear a name tag and all "sign in" on a board I'll have. You can write whatever you want about yourself there (your surgery status, weight lost, current weight ... , etc.) Obviously through our discussions we're going to learn about each other, so we'll all tell our story sooner or later. Please feel free to tell anyone you'd like about the meeting. Bring along whoever you'd like. I only ask that if you know you will be bringing someone give me a heads up so I'm not terribly unprepared should I have any handouts or whatever. Forward this e-mail to anyone you think might be interested. Because this is a support group and important that we have each other's undivided attention, I'd ask that no children be brought. I have a 10 year old and I know the restraints of sitters and the like, but it is only fair to us (and them) that we don't have interruptions and distractions. Most important, remember this is OUR group and every one of us has the power to make it great. Thanks Maribeth