Fantastic World AIDS Day Fundraiser for GHT!

posted: 19/10/2011

We’re delighted to announce that the wonderful people at TheGayVillageOnline.com have nominated George House Trust as their charity for this year’s World AIDS Day fundraiser.  it's a Tooty Booty competition, with the grand final being held on the 2nd December at Cruz 101.

In conjunction with Poptastic and Hot Village Magazine, the competition aims to discover the best behind in the village!

Village bars and clubs will all nominate a member of staff from their teams to take part and you get to vote for the winner by text. All cash raised from voting and £1 of each entry purchased for the grand final will go to supporting our vital work here at George House Trust.

For more information visit the Tooty Booty webpage They also have Facebook page, so please show them your support!

Icon Bar are organising a very special Deal or No Deal style night at their bar on Friday 2nd December, where George House Trust have been invited to attempt to ‘beat the banker’ to raise money for our charity.

The evening starts from 8.30 p.m. and GHT would love to see as many of our supporters there as possible, to cheer us on! For details of the venue, visit their website

Poptastic have organised their Annual Big Red Ball on Tuesday 29th November 2011, which will be raising money for George House Trust for World AIDS Day.

Entry to the event at Club Alterego is only £3 before midnight. For more information, you can visit Poptastic’s website

The Tooty Booty, Deal or No Deal and the Big Red Ball event are one of many activities being promoted as part of TheGayVillageOnline.com’s Raising4Red campaign, which encourages local businesses to support  HIV related charities in Greater Manchester, over the World AIDS Day period. They have set a target of raising £10,000 and George House Trust is one of the charities that will benefit.

If you’d like to get involved or want to find out more, you can visit their website
or join their Facebook page

George House Trust’s is extremely grateful for this amazing support.
 

World AIDS Day, 2011

posted: 23/09/2011

World AIDS Day is marked on the 1st December all over the World – raising awareness and raising money for people living with HIV and AIDS. The noise that we make about HIV and AIDS on this international day is vitally important, as it challenges stigma and discrimination too.

How can you get involved?

Hold a fundraiser

You may choose to fundraise at your workplace or with a local community group.
As a basic fundraising package, this year George House Trust can provide you with Red Ribbons, Collecting tins and HIV awareness leaflets and postcards
If you are interested in fundraising, then contact us with a rough idea of how many people you want to fundraise with.

Sell our red ribbons in your shop or café

If you would be interested in selling red ribbons in aid of GHT, we can provide you with a counter display box and collecting tin. Contact us to arrange.

Volunteer!

Every year - we’re out on the streets selling red ribbons in Manchester city centre with our team of volunteers. If you are interested in joining us on the streets of Manchester, then get in touch.

Attend the Candlelit Vigil

Also in December we organise a candlelit vigil in Sackville Park / Gardens in Central Manchester which is an opportunity to remember those people we have lost to HIV. Any proceeds from the Vigil go to organisations supporting local people living with HIV.

Make An Equality Stand

posted: 14/04/2011

People who want to protect the rights of people living with HIV and stand up for Equality should post a comment on the government’s website called the RedTapeChallenge. We have no idea why, but the Cameron government seems to think Equality law and Human Rights are just bureaucratic red tape regulations that should be swept away. They ask people to
 

"Tell us what you think should happen to this Act and why, being specific where possible:
• Should they be scrapped altogether?
• Can they be merged with existing regulations?
• Can we simplify them – or reduce the bureaucracy associated with them?
• Have you got any ideas to make these regulations better?
• Do you think they should be left as they are?"

We encourage people to stand up for HIV, Human Rights and Equality for all. This law provides vital protection for people with HIV among many other groups.

Some excellent responses on the RedTapeChallenge website make the point that the Equality Act is a very recent law (2010) passed by Parliament and not regulations at all.
 

There are also many uninformed and hostile calls for the whole law to be scrapped.

People concerned about equality and HIV need to make their voices heard.

Please – now
Go to the website and write a short note with your views on the Equality Act.

Some points to make

• the Equality Act is primary legislation, not regulations;
• say how wrong it is to pretend this is about regulations when the entire Equality Act 2010 appears to have been put up for grabs;
• ask people to say positive things about the Equality Act – it’s for everyone, whether women or men, whatever people’s race, beliefs or faith, sexuality, age, marriage or civil partnership, disability (which includes HIV and cancer), pregnancy and maternity, or gender reassignment. The Equality Act helps make the country more civilised, people respect our differences and organisations to provide services without discriminating.

Message the link / use Facebook / Twitter and other networks to people to add their voices
 

Making a quick comment only takes a moment

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Web HIV Treatment Expert

posted: 08/10/2010

A free ground-breaking web tool is now available to help doctors and people with HIV choose the best HIV treatment for each person. RDI, a UK-based not-for-profit research group, have launched a system for predicting how each individual would respond to different drugs. The experimental system is called the HIV Treatment Response Prediction System (HIV-TRePS).

Uses all the evidence
HIV-TRePS uses complex computer models which are trained to be experts by using all the data from the experience of treating of tens of thousands of people with HIV. HIV doctors log in to the site, then enter data like CD4 and viral load, the HIV sub-type and its mutations, previous HIV treatment history and any HIV treatment preferences. Within seconds, the software produces a report of the next treatment combinations that have the best chances of success, based on all the evidence. It is designed to help with the complicated problem of working out what to use next, when treatment change becomes needed; it is not for choosing the first HIV treatment combination, which is much simpler.

This easy-to-use system has proven to be a significantly more accurate predictor of response than the current system of genotyping with rules-based interpretation to help drug selection.

Better treatment around the world
Studies conducted by the RDI and its partners have demonstrated that the system can potentially improve the health and lifespan of people with HIV and reduce the number of drugs used and therefore the total cost of treatment.

"This is a very exciting development: the system literally puts the experience of treating thousands of different patients at the doctor's fingertips," commented Dr. Julio Montaner, Past President of the International AIDS Society and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV & AIDS, based in Vancouver, Canada. "This has the potential to improve outcomes for people living with HIV and AIDS around the world, particularly where resources and expertise are scarce."

Takes the headaches out of HIV prescribing
Selecting and changing treatments for people with HIV in order to keep the virus suppressed is complex and challenging. There are approximately 25 HIV drugs available, and normally a combination of three or more are used to suppress the virus. However, the virus mutates and this can cause resistance to the drugs used against it. This requires a change of the treatment combination to keep containing the virus.

Random Forests for accuracy
The computational models used inside HIV-TRePS, are called "Random Forests," and base their predictions on a range of more than 80 different variables. These include mutations in the viral genetic code, the drugs used to treat the patient in the past, CD4 cell counts (the type of white blood cell that is attacked by HIV) and the amount of virus in the bloodstream.

The software estimates the probability of each combination of drugs reducing the amount of virus so it becomes undetectable, based on what the system has 'learnt' during its training with thousands of real clinical cases. The system's overall accuracy during development and testing was approximately 80%.

Developing world version on the way
The RDI is already working on a version of HIV-TRePS for use in resource-limited settings where there are fewer treatment options and where health care workers do not have all the information that this software requires.
 

HIV Treatment Response Prediction System (HIV-TRePS)

Body Positive Blackpool Saved

posted: 05/10/2010

Body Positive in Blackpool has been saved by two local councillors who donated £6,500. Body Positive in Blackpool feared it would only survive until next year after it discovered its employee Bianca Campbell had stolen £4,127 using its bank card to buy things for her own botox company, Fresh Face.
Redundancies and cuts

As a result of Campbell's theft and a £15,000 cut in local authority funding, Body Positive Blackpool made two staff redundant and cut its services.  But last week the charity was giving a reprieve after Labour councillors Simon Blackburn and Gary Coleman donated £6,500 to keep the charity running.
Bianca Campbell, who was sacked in March when her theft was discovered, pleaded guilty to fraud at Preston Crown Court.
 

The court heard Campbell used a Body Positive Blackpool bankcard to order products for her own business. Campbell was given a total of six months prison, suspended for a year, with 12 months supervision.
 

Body Positive Blackpool 
 

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