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May Awareness Month 2023

Posted on by Tara Apperley

May Awareness Month 2023

This year EDSNZ held two nationwide fundraising events, our third Annual Distance Challenge and our second annual Read-A-Thon. As a community, members participated in our online events, as well as support calls from EDSNZ, and took to social media to share awareness materials on a variety of topics created by EDSNZ and used the hashtag #EDSNZMAY2023  to get the word out!

EDSNZ are incredibly proud of our community in all their varying methods of raising awareness this May and thank you to everyone who participated in our event! Read on for more information about this year’s Awareness Efforts!

 

EDSNZ Distance Challenge 2023

Our third annual Distance Challenge kicked off May Awareness Month. Our goal was to see how far our community could travel when we band together, because together we dazzle! We picked routes of varying lengths, with the option to choose your own distance as well as method of achieving your goal – walk, run, swim, ride or roll to your goal was our motto.

We had 18 individuals sign up this year to take the challenge, 10 more than last year, and 6 teams were created, and they were amazing – as a collective we traveled 2,102km!

Our participants took some amazing walks through beautiful parts of the country which you can see below, gorgeous beaches, still lakes, incredibly forests, it makes one so feel happy to live in such a beautiful, and diverse, country and you can see some of the incredible photo’s they took on their walks below.

In total our participants raised $2471 to help EDSNZ continue providing support and resources for kiwi’s across the country with EDS. Thank you so much everyone for joining us!

EDSNZ Read-A-Thon

We had 3 people sign up to take the challenge, and they were amazing – Books read included Iron Widow, The Luminaries, Empire of Storms and more! Our participants got to lose themselves in fantastic worlds or learn new things all curled up in a nice cosy place while the weather raged on outside.

Thanks to the amazing fundraising efforts of everyone who participated who also raised an incredible $520!

EDSNZ Virtual Quiz Night

On the night our participants got to show off their movie trivia by being the fastest to answer correctly and be in to win some great spot prizes courtesy of our sponsors. The quiz lasted about 40 minutes in total, and everyone who joined had a great time! Congratulations to our spot prize winners, who won a Kylee and Co merch pack each, and the wining quiz team who won an EDSNZ merch pack including a phone grip, lanyard, awareness band, cooling bag, $10 MTA Voucher, and Whitakkers Sante Bar. While entry was free, our participants generously donated $75 in koha.

Social Media Challenge

This year for the first time ever we did a Social Media Challenge. Particpants were encouraged to share their story using our Social Media Challenge Prompts and share online using the #EDSNZMAY2023 hashtag. Our participants were all entered into a random giveaway draw and won a Kylee and Co merchandise pack with a Whitakkers Sante Bar.

Art Competition

Another first for EDSNZ, we decided to hold an art competition for the artists in our community.

We had 19 entries in the Under 16 category, and a further 5 in the Over 16 category. Entries were uploaded to the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes New Zealand facebook page for the whole community to vote on. Congratulations to our two winners who won a Lego Creator 3-in-1 Set!

Sponsors

This year we were delighted to bring some fantastic sponsors on board who helped us out with supplying some wonderful prizes for our participants. Thanks to our sponsors for making this an incredible year to remember!

Thanks to our generous sponsor Kylee and Co, we were able to giveaway spot prizes in our events, as well as teaming up with them on a weekly giveaway that tied to into the topic of each week in May.

We also had support from Getting Lost NZ with a copy of their Getting Lost Everyone Edition, 2 Tea Packs from Dilmah Tea,  Whittakers Chocolate gave us Sante Bars to giveaway to every winner, MTA Vouchers courtesy of Mobile Gas Station in Featherston, and EDSNZ Merch Packs.

We had our prize giving early on the 6th of June and you can find a list of the winners, and their prizes, below.

Prize Giving

Congratulations to all our winners, we hope you had a fantastic time joining in our events, and that you enjoy your prizes.

This year we used Random Picker to generate our winners.

Distance Challenge Winners
Murray PDilmah Tea Pack  
Lauren JGetting Lost Accessible Edition  
Greer PKylee and Co Merch Packs  
Liam CKylee and Co Merch Packs  
Yvonne PKylee and Co Merch Packs  
Megan LKylee and Co Merch Packs  
Shannon SEDSNZ Merch Pack  
Jean BEDSNZ Merch Pack  
Bri CEDSNZ Merch Pack  
Bea GEDSNZ Merch Pack  
Rick MMTA Voucher  
Courtney M

MTA Voucher

Read-A-Thon Winners
Ruby TREDSNZ Merch Pack  
Heather LKylee and Co Merch Pack  
Julie NDilmah Tea Pack 

In total, through our communities’ various efforts to raise funds for EDSNZ we were donated the grand total of $3106! This was more than we ever expected to raise and quite frankly everyone at EDSNZ is grateful and in awe of how our community came together this May to support EDSNZ and help us with our various causes and discuss some interesting topics.

Again, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone for the support and for everyone’s efforts to raise awareness this month, we’re looking forward to next May already!

Performance Report 2022

Posted on by Tara Apperley

Performance Report for Ehlers-Danlos Society New Zealand Incorporated, also known as Ehlers- Danlos Syndromes New Zealand.

Year ending 31 March 2022.

Full Performance Report available in PDF Here, with a preview of the contents below. Please feel free to leave a comment via the contact form below if anything needs changing.

Contents

Non- Financial Information

  • Entity Information
  • Statement Of Service Performance

Financial Information

  • Statement Information
  • Statements of Resources and Commitments
  • Notes to the Performance Report

Entity Information

Who we are? Why do we exist?
…………………………………………………………………
Legal name of entity : Ehlers-Danlos Society New Zealand Incorporated
Also known as : Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes New Zealand
Type of Entity and legal basis (if any) : Non-Profit Charitable Society
Registration number : CC55826
Society number : 2704932
…………………………………………………………………

Enitity’s purpose or mission:

Our mission is to improve the wellbeing of those with Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes/Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders in Aotearoa New Zealand by raising awareness, improving knowledge by health professionals and providing support to patients.

Ensuring that medical professionals and patients have access to the correct information, and that patients are able to access support, and that patients know their rights and know how to advocate for themselves.

Entity Structure:

Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes New Zealand’s Leadership consists of the President, Secretary and the Treasurer. Our Committee size has fluctuated during this year. We had a total of 7 committee members at 31 March 2022.

The main Sources of the entity’s cash and resources:

This year we have received donations from fundraisers, personal donations, and as birthday donations, all of whom have been thanked for their donations. We held our first ever nationwide fundraiser, the Distance Challenge, to raise awareness and funds for EDSNZ. We have also done a merchandise-run of T-shirts, lanyards, phone-grips, cooling towels, coffee cups, and earrings. We have also connected with Techsoup to tap into their non-profit resources, have a Non profit discount with Xero, and have connected with Reward Hub after this resource became available since COVID-19. We purchased two Kevin Muldowney books “Living with EDS” for professionals to borrow

The main methods used by the entity to raise funds:

The main way we actively received money through our own efforts was through our first ever Distance Challenge, which raised $2,164.11, and our secondary source was from merchandise sales which raised $1,690.00.

Because of this pandemic, it has been made blatantly clear where the holes are in the system, and in turn where improvements can be made. It is also shown us how accessible things can be made for us. We hear what our community needs are and we are joining with other communities to ensure our voices are heard. The accessibility that has opened up for us here in New Zealand, means that we have been able to join much more international conferences than we ever have had in the past.

– Kelly McQuinlan, EDSNZ President.

May Awareness Month 2022

Posted on by Tara Apperley

May Awareness Month 2022

This was our biggest fundraising awareness month since the inception of Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes New Zealand in 2018, then known as the Ehlers-Danlos Society New Zealand.

This year EDSNZ held two nationwide fundraising events, our Second Annual Distance Challenge and our first ever Read-A-Thon. As a community, members participated in our online events, as well as support calls from EDSNZ, joined in on zoom calls with Dr. Leslie Russek continuing her Hypermobility 101 Series and took to social media to share awareness materials on a variety of topics created by EDSNZ and used the hashtags #EDSNZMay2022, #MyEDSChallenge and #MyHSDChallenge to get the word out! Our community also supported EDSNZ by buying merchandise including the May 2022 Fundraising Hoodie and other goodies such as reusable Zebra Mugs, phone grips and more found in our shop.

EDSNZ are incredibly proud of our community in all their varying methods of raising awareness this May and thank you to everyone who participated in our event! Read on for more information about this year’s Awareness Efforts!

Second Annual Distance Challenge

Our second annual Distance Challenge kicked off May Awareness Month. Our goal was to see how far our community could travel when we band together, because together we dazzle! We picked routes of varying lengths, with the option to choose your own distance as well as method of achieving your goal – walk, run, swim, ride or roll to your goal was our motto.

We had 8 individuals sign up this year to take the challenge, and 2 teams were created, and they were amazing – as a collective we traveled 716km!

Our participants took some amazing walks through beautiful parts of the country which you can see below, gorgeous beaches, still lakes, incredibly forests, and wonderful open fields, it makes one so feel happy to live in such a beautiful, and diverse, country and you can see some of the incredible photo’s they took on their walks below.

In total our participants raised $3900 to help EDSNZ continue providing support and resources for kiwi’s across the country with EDS. Thank you so much everyone for joining us!

Map of NZ with distance travelled

First Annual Read-A-Thon

We had 3 people sign up to take the challenge, and they were amazing – Books read included Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Chocolat series and  Ayureveda: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Healing and more! Our participants got to lose themselves in fantastic worlds or learn new things all curled up in a nice cosy place while the weather raged on outside.

Screenshot Overview of Read-A-Thon 2022

Thanks to the amazing fundraising efforts of everyone who participated who also raised an incredible $699!

Sponsors

This year we were delighted to bring some fantastic sponsors on board who helped us out with supplying some wonderful prizes for our participants. Thanks to our sponsors for making this an incredible year to remember!

We had some amazing goodies from Spirit Sparkplugs, a store owned by one of our community members. They provided us with a Migraine Mask valued at $90, along with 12 zebra themed masks, zebra earrings, zebra tweezers, zebra pegs, zebra socks, zebra keyrings, zipper pull loops, bottle caps, glasses buttons for face masks, anti-fog glasses wipes, and so much more. Thank Spirit Sparkplugs! We really appreciate your generous donation, and can’t wait to check out what else you have in store!

We also had support from Zespri NZ who generously donated 6 trays of kiwifruit, 2 Shakti Mats from Skakti Mat NZ, a copy of the newly released Getting Lost Accessibility Edition game from Getting Lost NZ and various goodies from EDSNZ.

We had our prize giving early June and you can find a list of the winners, and their prizes, below.

Raising Awareness

EDSNZ decided to go just a bit bigger this year than we did last year, and we themed the entire month with awareness topics specifically for our community!

Week 1 started with the topic of Comorbid conditions that are commonly diagnosed alongside EDS. We touched on the gut, and how many different conditions affecting the gut EDSers are commonly afflicted with such as IBS, Gastroparesis and Reflux (GERD). We also discussed Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Mast Cell Syndrome and the various Neurological issues that can be found with EDS. EDSNZ put together a host of infographics that could be shared on social media by the community and finished the week with an online video chat with members of the community about how comorbid conditions affected them.

Week 2 we focused on Knowing Your Rights, specifically those posters we’ve all seen at medical practioner’s offices. Knowing one’s rights can be a confusing topic so infographics were put together to break down what our rights are and explain some of these in further detail. We also put together a resource packet on Knowing Your Rights according the Health and Disability Comission and the UN’s definition. You can explore this topic more in our resources section. Kelly, our president, also put together an incredible presentation for our community in an online video chat about tips for getting the most out of a doctors appointment. This presentation was informative and fun, and included a Q&A session at the end. You can see the presentation here or read more about Getting The Most Out Of Your Doctors Appointment in our resource section.

Week 3 focused on Exercise and Movement and we got helpful advice from Kylie Staples, Podiatrist and owner of Core Clinic, on the best kind of shoes to wear to suit our needs. We were also joined by Dr. Leslie Russek who continued her Hypermobility 101 Sessions with EDSNZ with an open online video chat and presentation on Hypermobility 105 – Posture and Joint Protection. If you missed the video chat, you can rewatch it here, along with any previous sessions you may have missed. Jeannie Di Bon also created a presentation with some fantastic tips about exercise and movement for EDSNZ to share with the community, and generously offered a discount to our community members to her Zebra Club!

Week 4’s topic of discussion was the rarer types of EDS. There are 14 known variants of EDS but only three are commonly talked about – Hypermobile EDS, Classic EDS and Vascular EDS – so EDSNZ shared infographics with the community about what the other types are and the common associated characteristics of those types. We were joined once again by Dr Leslie Russek on the topic of Cervical Instability Part 1, where once again we enjoyed a presentation on the topic as well as an informative Q&A session at the end. If you missed the live video call, you can watch that here. We also dressed up in red for Red for vEDS day to highlight Vascular EDS.

Week 5 lasted only two days, but we focused on resources which can help the community and wound up the month with a Mental Health support call on the 31st of May. There were some interesting questions raised, and some great laughs had by all by the end of the call.

Social Media

EDSNZ created our own hashtag that could be used all over Social Media to promote May Awareness Month #EDSNZMay2022 while Ehlers-Danlos Society created the hashtags #MyEDSChallenge and #MyHSDChallenge. These hashtags were used on Facebook, Lindkdin, Instagram, Tiktok and Fitbit to promote awareness about EDS and how it affects each person individually. Thank you to everyone who took the time to promote not only EDS but also EDSNZ this month. You’ve all done an amazing job.

Prize Giving

2022 saw us host our first every prizegiving. Eligible participants from our two events and social media awareness campaign were entered automatically in the draw to win some fantastic prizes from our sponsors. Below is the results of our prize giving.

Winners – 

Kiwifruit Green from Zespri NZ

  • Rick McZany
  • Emerald Maz
  • Wheely Wives

Kiwifruit Gold from Zespri NZ

  • Hazel Watson-Smith
  • Emma Cochrane
  • Kerry-Anne Turner

Shakti Mat from Shakti Mat NZ

  • Evelyn Philip
  • Lenette Breytenbach

Getting Lost Game from Getting Lost NZ

  • Renee Hodgson

Easy Tie Shoelaces from C1 South

  • Lenette Breytenbach

Migraine Mask from Spirit Sparkplugs

  • Jenny Cosgrove

In addition, each participant in our May Events won a small prize pack consisting of a set of 2 Zebra Striped Masks and 1 set of Glasses Clips for wearing masks from Spirit Sparkplugs, and 1 EDSNZ Phone grip and 1 EDSNZ Lanyard from EDSNZ!

Thank you again to all our participants, we couldn’t have had such a successful May Awareness Month without you all. 

Prizegiving was done via WheelOfNames.com.

In total, through our communities’ various efforts to raise funds for EDSNZ we were donated the grand total of $4619! This was more than we ever expected to raise and quite frankly everyone at EDSNZ is grateful and in awe of how our community came together this May to support EDSNZ and help us with our various causes and discuss some interesting topics.

Again, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone for the support and for everyone’s efforts to raise awareness this month, we’re looking forward to next May already!