Confirmed Trustees/Directors for CANCERactive
Larry Brooks from Fulmer in Buckinghamshire is an entrepreneur, running and owning international sales and marketing businesses for the past thirty years.
In 1976 Larry began to study and then coach personal development programmes that enabled people to harness the power of the mind, something that anyone suffering from serious illness can utilise. This linked with the business he started in 1994 providing non toxic personal products and effective nutritional support, led indirectly to his meeting Chris Woollams, becoming involved in the common cause of icon and his support of CANCERactive.
A great believer in the power of integrated treatment, both physically and mentally ~ Larry and his wife Jo’ who lost a parent and brother to cancer, are firm advocates of the system that keeps the patient and family fully aware, allowing them to make informed decisions and that is the driving force of CANCERactive.
Stephanie Woollams is Catherine’s sister, and she specialises in marketing, communications and digital media.
Stephanie started her advertising career at Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, working on clients such as IBM, Coca Cola, Samsung, British Airways and Volvo. She then transferred to Ogilvy London, and worked on an array of integrated marketing campaigns there and subsequently at DLKW Lowe and Leo Burnett.
Having gained both diverse and international experience, Stephanie joined forces with her sister Georgina whose speciality is PR, to enhance the digital arm and complete the integrated marketing offering at Katch International, where she is now Director of the London office. Katch is named after Catherine Woollams as Catch was Catherines nickname.
With over 5 years of TV, radio, press and digital experience, she can bring strong media understanding, digital marketing experience and web insight to the charity, as well as a deep-rooted commitment to the success of the charity through her personal relationship with its principle founders.
She also ran the Great South Run on 28th October 2012 in order to fundraise for CANCERactive, and in memory of her sister who tragically passed away from a brain tumour in October 2004.
Dr. Kate James is a medical doctor who supported both her mother and daughter with Integrative Medical care after their diagnoses with cancer. Seeing the impact first hand, her passion and belief in Integration grew. She now dedicates her practice to raising the profile of Integrative Medicine across the UK with a focus on Integrated care for cancer. She works with patients from all over the UK, including via Skype to formulate individual programmes encompassing both conventional and/or complementary and alternative elements.
www.drkatejames.com/treatment.htm
Sadly, In April 2020 Dr. Kate James had to stand down from the Trustees and Medical Board due to a heavy workload as a consequence of Covid-19.
We are very grateful for all her hard work.
Rebecca Simpson
Becky had triple-negative breast cancer, the sort for which orthodox medicine offers little in the way of specific treatment, let alone cure. However, she had followed Doctor’s orders while searching various sources, starting with the Internet, for ideas, alternatives, anything that made sense. She was, after all, a bright, intelligent lady.
When I first talked to her, she was incredulous. She had searched long and hard for over a year, and then suddenly found our charity, CANCERactive. “If only I had known” became her theme. She was incredulous because everything she had been looking for was there, on one website. Diet, complementary therapies, alternative therapies, their potential and limitations.
This angered Becky a little; perhaps ‘frustrated’ would be a better word. Because the second part of her theme that she developed during her research was,“Why did no one tell me?” She could not believe that all this research on diet, including natural compounds that could have a positive effect with triple negative breast cancer, was available on the Internet but no one at her treatment hospital had passed any of it on to her. Worse, of course, was that the orthodox medicine had not ‘worked’ for her, although, at the time she was in a stable condition.
And so she wrote to me, with the idea that she would set up a ‘Patient Group’ for people who deserved to know the research that was out there; she wanted it to be a central force for all the support groups in the UK. Inevitably it would highlight the unique role CANCERactive was playing amongst cancer charities in Britain. She became a Trustee of our charity with the personal goal of putting this ‘Patient Group’ in place.
“Becky really felt she was in a ‘unique position’, experiencing cancer and thus having a deeper understanding of what people with cancer go through” says Jo Jones one of her friends. “She felt able to offer a compassion that only comes with experiencing the trauma surrounding cancer. I spent a few hours chatting at the end of the summer last year on a beautiful day in her garden. This is when she told me of the patient group and how she really wanted to help people. She was such a vivacious lady and almost single-handedly kept the local cancer Support Group running. She also did lots of fundraising for the Primrose Unit, the breast cancer centre at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth. It’s all so sad, really”
I remember that she was invited to be one of the debaters at Dartington, along with someone from Peninsular Medical School, Exeter, the local MP and a Skeptic. She wanted information. She didn’t want my views –she was quite capable of formulating her own out of the raw research. After the debate she was even more angry and frustrated believing the MP had a closed, outdated mind and the Skeptic, with his coterie of sycophantic hecklers in the audience, was not merely ignorant on his facts but his attitude and actions could only misdirect patients away from learning the truth about treatments that could increase their survival times.
This made her all the more determined to help other patients along the path to the truth, and she started designing logos and writing copy for her patients’ website. Our CANCERactive ‘motto’ of “Don’t die of ignorance” mirrored her stance exactly.
Sadly, following a round of the drug Taxol, her health deteriorated dramatically.
Our sympathies go to her husband and family. Our sadness extends to everybody with cancer as they have now lost a true friend who was determined to help them. Because she cared. Passionately.
Chris Woollams, founder CANCERactive
Sadly Patron Rebecca Simpson passed away February 2013. The funeral held in March was incredibly moving and very original. 400 people attended and actually clapped both her husband Adrian’s words and when the coffin was carried from the church. This is Becky’s CV below written in her own words for the charity.
Rebecca Simpson, spent the first half of her career working in sports television. After a break to be a Mum she ran her own retail business which she sold at the beginning of this year. Rebecca has had an on/off battle with breast cancer for six years and right from the beginning, she knew she had to take control of her own health to increase her personal odds. Two years ago she discovered the CANCERactive web site and felt she had met her soul mate!! Rebecca believes that every patient should be made aware of the CANCERactive website following diagnosis. Information is key to any patient and so often what you are told by Doctors, doesn’t even begin to cover how much a patient can help themselves, CANCERactive does so much to help the patient empower themselves.
Living with Cancer has not stopped Becky leading as active life as possible. She is a Mum to three teenage boys and all that that entails. She is a keen runner, cyclist, and swimmer. She has recently taken up dingy sailing and paddleboarding. In September she is going to restart learning to play the drums, an ambition from childhood and although she knows she’ll never be Jon Bonham, playing the drums is a little bit of silliness that everyone needs in their life. Life gives you what you put into it and it is with pride that Rebecca is a Trustee of CANCERactive as it is one of the very few charities that actually promotes that idea. She looks forward to helping the charity give many more patients the knowledge to really help themselves.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-essential-trustee-what-you-need-to-know-cc3