Bedfordshire Dignity Network

Hi Clare,

If you click on the 'Champions' button (which you should find near the top of the webpage) then if you enter your area in a 'champions search', it will tell you the details of other Dignity Champions in your area. Some of these champions will have a link in their profiles which allows you to send an e-mail to them (via DIC for the out e-mail - then if they reply, it will be directly to you: at least, that is how Champions Searching worked the last time I used it, about 6 or 9 months ago).

It is a bit slow - you have to send e-mails out one-at-a-time (but you can make a 'standardised' e-mail in Word, and copy & paste into the champions search box) - but it is worth a try,

Best wishes, Mike

Thank you for the advice Mike that is very helpful and very much appreciated.

Clare

Clare,

If you do try that 'Champions Search' route, will you please 'come back in this thread' and let us know how well it worked out for you ?

I would be interested to know,

Good luck, Mike

Hi Mike,

I have currently emailed 145 Dignity Champions within Bedfordshire, i have currently had 1 reply.

We welcome ALL Dignity Champions within Bedfordshire, as the Bedfordshire Dignity Network is a first within the this region.

We are keen to learn what others are already doing to promote dignity within their environment. As a network we will share experiences, thoughts and ideas. There are many small steps that we can take that can have a big impact on improving people's lives.
We want Bedfordshire to be recognised as a place where everyone is treated with dignity and respect; creating a dignified community for an improved quality of life for all!
So we would love to hear from our local Champions, lets put Bedfordshire on the Dignity map!

Hi Clare,

If you checked out the 'role' and 'show' info before deciding who to try and contact, 1 in 145 seems a bit lower than I expected: I think if you try to contact people who 'seem to be the right audience' I would expect replies from somewhere between 1 in 10 (if you are really lucky) to about 1 in 50.

But it is summer holiday season - a lot of people might be away at the moment.

Anyway, I hope you get a few more responses.

I do think your quest to find other people, is illustrative of how difficult it is to get people involved. Even in a 'network'. I've got a sort of 'informal e-mail contact list' of people in the NHS/healthcare who I sometimes swap e-mails with, which can be very useful indeed - but it takes an age, to establish this 'networking'.

I do have an idea - I don't think either Dignity in Care, or Dignity in Action (Facebook webpage) would object to you doing this.

To get people interested in your recently formed the Bedfordshire Dignity Network, you could perhaps summarise the details of your meetings, activities, 'what you are up to', in a piece every so often (perhaps every couple of months), and post it in this discussion forum and on the Dignity in Action Facebook page. You can also upload files to DiA, so you could upload things like PDF newsletters. The thing I would suggest - this is probably very obvious - is to think about a title for those pieces and stick to it, if you decide to try doing that: so something like 'Bedfordshire Dignity Network - October 2016 update' where you keep the first part unchanged. Perhaps the first one, could be 'Bedfordshire Dignity Network - newly formed, and our aims are ...' or something like that, where you explain who you are, and what you are trying to do, how to 'join', etc.

Anyway, best of luck, Mike

PS You can set up a 'group' page on Facebook (doesn't cost anything to do - except 'getting to grips with Facebook', which I don't find very intuitive, so some frustration can be involved) - so you could set up a Bedfordshire Dignity Network page on Facebook. The Dignity in Action Facebook page is at:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/289089744481097/

At least, that is the address I've just copied from the browser address bar, when I'm looking at the DiA page.