Question:
How do you get a support group started in your area?

I have not been able to find a support group in Huntsville, AL and am wondering how to get one started. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also if any one is in the Huntsville area and is interested in being in a support group please email me at [email protected] Thank you.    — Amy T. (posted on October 16, 2001)

October 16, 2001
Well, you could go to the "find peers" page of this website and go to your state.Find some people listed in your town and send them an email to see if they would be interested. If you get enough people interested you will have to find a place to have it. I would start by asking the hospital if they have a room you could use. They should be able to help you out. Once the group gets started you could have your surgeon tell his patients about it and word will spread.......
   — Kim B.

October 17, 2001
Hi there. I started one as a pre-op. We had 7 people at the first meeting and 40 people at the last one. I wanted to have one for people who'd had surgeries from the various hospitals in the area and not be biased towards 1 surgeon or procedure. Anyway, I started by getting a room at the library and a date (first Tuesday of each month). Then I went on the peers page and made an address list of all the people who were thinking about or interested in surgery. I just let them know the time and date and I also had the author of a WLS book (Michelle Boasten) as a speaker. Then I sent an email to [email protected] to advertise the meeting on here. Since then it has been word of mouth. Good luck and God bless!
   — Kimberly L.

October 17, 2001
I did it a bit like some of the other people here. I booked a room at the public library (free), made flyers for my surgeon's in-service meeting, and put an ad in my employer's weekly newsletter. We had 35 people at the first meeting with three weeks' notice! We decided to continue meeting every other Tuesday, and we now have a rotor of 13 topics. I started a Yahoo! Group so that we can have "continuous" support, and there are 96 members. We've had about that many unique people to the support group since June. We usually have anywhere between 16 and 35 people in attendance; I'm glad it's not more because it's hard to get a bigger room.<br><br>At each meeting, we have mingling and clothing exchange, then we go around to introduce ourselves, then we talk about the topic of the meeting for 30-45 minutes, take questions for 10-15 minutes, then break into small groups for more direct support. We meet for 2.5 hours.<br><br>We are talking about starting a monthly spouse/partner/support person meeting as well. Getting adjacent rooms has been the tricky part, but I think there's a need. Feel free to email me if you have more questions. Good luck! It's worth the effort!
   — Julia M.