December 25th, 2024

Dear Volunteers and Members of Barts Guild,

This is my first message for the festive season to you all in my new role as Chairman of Barts Guild.

I would like to start by thanking you for all your tremendous hard work over the past year which has seen the Guild build on its previous successes and continue to be a highly valued supporter of many causes for our patients and staff of the hospital.

It was a great pleasure to see so many of you at our volunteers Christmas party this week which we held in the Maggie Centre on the Barts campus. I think the venue itself and the facilities on offer were much appreciated.

It was a real bonus for me to be able to meet so many of you in person and be able to express directly our heartfelt thanks for everything you do for the Guild and especially the continuing provision of the shop and trolley service which I know from personal experience are very much appreciated by our patients and their families and carers.

We anticipate this will be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship between ourselves and the Maggie Centre who do amazing work supporting our patients receiving cancer treatment.

We also have plans in hand to hold our future meetings on the Barts campus and the venue for our next meeting in February is already secured.

Of course we look forward enormously to the reopening of the Great Hall and associated rooms in the North Wing which remains on schedule for the summer of next year.

Professor Charles Knight, CEO of the hospital, and his executive team are very strong supporters of the Guild and I have no doubt will be generous in affording to us options to use the refurbished venues including the Great Hall itself.

I believe we can look forward with confidence to a successful 2025 underpinned by everything you all do to enable the Guild to continue to prosper and support our patients and staff.

I wish you all an enjoyable festive season, a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.

Best wishes,
Steve

STEPHEN EDMONDSON
Chairman, Barts Guild
Chief of Surgery, Barts Health NHS Trust