Unfortunately, the level of income loss we’re seeing as a result of this crisis does get a little in the way of us offering services and fundraising in the way we used to. We know there is a huge amount you as volunteers have all been doing this year, from phone calls and Zoom sessions, to quizzes and choirs. We're so grateful for everything you’re doing for your local communities.

Now, more than ever, we need support from everyone to fundraise and bring in money so we can continue to support our community. There are so many ways to do this, even whilst we can’t go outside.

As explained in recent emails, we’re running a trial with a small number of our local groups to test the new paperwork and procedures which need to be in place for certain face-to-face activities to restart. We’ve now approved seven groups to restart, and others are working towards this. We’ll run the trial to the end of this month and then review feedback from those involved, to see whether changes need to be made before we roll the guidance out more widely. We need to know that the new procedures work in practice and that we can support groups effectively.

As you know, we’re having to make changes further than those we already had planned as part of our transformation programme, in response to the significant impact COVID-19 has had on our finances, to ensure the organisation can remain sustainable for the long term.

We’re set to be down on income by 30% or £10Million this year, and a further 15% or £5M in 2021. It’s therefore critical to make significant savings (£5M this year, £4M annually from 2021) so we can continue to support our community in the future.

Our new research shows that, too often, people with MS can’t get the support they need to stay active and independent – and this has only got worse during lockdown.

Thousands of people with MS rely on rehabilitation services, like physiotherapy, occupational therapy or continence support, to do the everyday things many people take for granted – like making a cup of tea or moving around your home safely.

2020 has been a challenging year, for all of us. As we’ve mentioned to you before, the coronavirus crisis has dramatically affected our financial position and has meant that we’ve had to face up to some really difficult choices.

We expect our income to be £10Million less than we anticipated in our budget this year and £5Mil less in 2021. And the outlook in 2022 and beyond is still uncertain.

We know it’s early, but December will be here before we know it!

The good news is that our beautiful MS Society festive cards are now available online. You can buy them from the Cards for Good Causes website here.

This year we have 10 beautiful designs to choose from. They have been selected based on our top sellers from previous years.

Before the COVID pandemic, we did a lot of work with volunteers to develop our new Volunteering Strategy, but it is yet to be completed. As we near the end of this difficult year, the role you play to support people affected by MS may never have been more important.

This session will focus on three important topics – our new membership offer, the reopening of face-to-face group services, and the staff restructure.

If you would like to hear more about any of these areas, or have any questions, please sign up here and join in the discussions. When you register, you will be able to ask questions in advance on these topics, and you will receive the Zoom information for joining the session.

If you process data as part of your volunteer role, and/or have access to personal data via the Portal, you will have completed our online data protection training course.

To fulfil our legal obligations (under GDPR) and ensure we continue to respect each individual’s right to privacy, we will be asking you to complete a refresher course early next year. In the coming weeks, we will be working with a number of volunteers to ensure that this updated eLearning focuses on what’s important for you to know for your role.

In our last email, we told you about the trial we are doing with a small number of our groups to test the new paperwork and procedures needed to restart face-to-face activities in a ‘COVID-secure’ way.

Since then, the law about meeting in groups of no more than six (with variations in each of the nations) has been introduced. This change will certainly make restarting things more challenging, but we will be studying the detail of the new guidance carefully. In the meantime, we will continue with the trial wherever possible.