Times will be: 11:00 - 17:00 Saturday, 10:00 - 16:00 Sunday.

Attendance is free of charge.

The meeting will be hosted at the home of Tim Gibson, whose address is:

7 Greenfield Drive
Greenhill
Sheffield
S. Yorkshire
S8 7SL

Like last meeting, our focus will primarily be on hands-on training, mostly down in the clinic room but some out in the ambulance as well. Training modules that will be covered include:

1) Medical Distribution System (MDS)
2) Portable Ice Bath (PIB), squid, and Cardiopulmonary Support (CPS)
3) Air Transport Perfusion (ATP)
4) Ambulance use and functions

We will also be introducing one new training segment not listed above.

It's especially important that we all keep up to date with this training, as we are a mutual assistance volunteer standby team. We need as many members as possible to be sufficiently skilled in doing these things that they can join the team.

There will be some discussion elements also to do with present and future progress with the organisation, though at this early time a specific agenda regarding the discussion aspect of the weekend is yet to be set.

If you would kindly let me know if you'd like to attend, that would help me greatly in terms of logistics! My email address is ds@cryonics-uk.com - Many thanks.

Warm regards,

Eternally,

David Styles (Organiser)
+44 7706 149 771

PS, here are some directions and hotel suggestions from Tim, our host for the weekend:

Sheffield Park Hotel, 2 mins away, www.pedersenhotels.com
Beauchief Abbey House, 5 mins away, www.beauchiefabbeyhouse.co.uk
Beauchief Hotel, 5 mins away, www.beauchief-hotel.com
Travelodge Richmond, 10 mins away, www.travelodge.co.uk

City centre, 15 mins away:
Travelodge Central, www.travelodge.co.uk
Premier Inn, www.premierinn.com
Ibis Hotel, www.accorhotels.com

And many more, just google!

Time and mileage saving tip:
If traveling from the South up the M1, exit at J29 and head for Chesterfield. When you reach Chesterfield take the A61 to Sheffield. When you hit the Sheffield ring road, you will be at a roundabout with a cricket club on your left and an Audi dealership on your right. Take a left at the roundabout, then first right (Greenhill Avenue), first left (Greenfield Road) and first left again (Greenfield Drive). It's the first house on the left with tall boxy hedges.

If coming up the A1 or down the M1, exit at J33 and take the A630 towards the city centre. Leave the A630 for the A6102 ring road and head towards Chesterfield. Look out for the Audi dealership on your left, go straight over at that roundabout, then first right (Greenhill Avenue), first left (Greenfield Road) and first left again (Greenfield Drive). It's the first house on the left with tall boxy hedges.

This weekend we were inundated with media representatives. One two-person TV crew, one print journalist and accompanying photographer, and one private film-maker, all with us to see what we do and also to visit our shiny new headquarters.

A handful of our members, myself included, consented to appear on film and in photographs. Personally, I view press activity as important, even if we place ourselves somewhat at their mercy as a result. Fortunately, press has thus far been mostly favourable, and the only article that misrepresented us at least brought us interest from different journalists who will hopefully represent us more fairly.

Because of group size, training was now split in two most of the time, with Tim taking one group and myself taking another at any given time. This seemed to work very well, as it gave everyone much more chance to practice, and also means that people have two different teachers; some people find they learn better from one person's teaching style than another's.

Another change to training was an increased use of Bob, our life-sized (and weighted) human body dummy. This really helps make more clear what is going on with activities such as perfusion, wherein the patient has previously been represented only by an imaginary space caused by connecting the apparatus to itself to complete the circuit minus patient. This time, we placed a blood filter between Bob's legs (to represent the fact that it the ATP would be connected via cannulation tubes inserted into the patient's femural arteries) and plumbed the circuit into that instead, such that the blood filter could represent the patient's place in the system.

Saturday's training included ambulance, ice-bath, thumper, Air-Transport Perfusion apparatus, with most segments repeated for the benefit of a) cameras b) late arrivals c) better yet comprehension.

Sunday's training included administration of medicines appropriate to cryopreservation, followed by refreshers on the work from the previous day. We were also pleased to be joined on Sunday by Shannon Vyff, formerly a volunteer Readiness Coordinator for Alcor in the US, before moving to the UK.

Sunday afternoon also held a committee meeting, with other members sitting in as is customary. Everyone's input is important. We discussed legal and financial matters, more on the ongoing improvements to the ambulance, our happy situation of now having VM-1 (Vitrification Mixture One) supplied by CI, administrative issues, and PR issues.

Saturday night's social evening consisted of dinner in local Italian restaurant "La Scala".

If you didn't make it to this meeting, you missed out, but we look forward to seeing you at the next, in March! See the top of this page for details.

Eternally,

David Styles
Organiser

Saturday kicked off with a tour of our new HQ, the home of Trainer / Facility Manager Tim Gibson in Sheffield (after many years of it being located at the home of our President, Alan Sinclair).

We now have a large subterranean room that can be used as anything from a training room to an operating room, and when we're not using it it'll be an acupuncture clinic. Aside from that, Tim's home is a delightful environment in which to conduct the rest of our business, ranging from committee meetings, to discussions pertaining to the theory of cryonics, to social chats.

That said, Cryonics UK is now focussed far more intently on the practical side of cryonics. At this most recent meeting, everyone enjoyed three hands-on practical sessions, relating to three of our four main training modules.

The first, on Saturday afternoon (the morning having been dedicated to some necessary discussion elements), was our new area of training, the ambulance. Rather than have too few people know how to operate everything in the ambulance, as had previously been the case, Alan Sinclair, our president, personally headed a session to ensure that all team members in attendance understood all main elements of the use of the ambulance and its intrinsic technologies. This will now be included as a regular training module, as the ambulance is an important part of our resource toolbox.

Sunday morning was devoted to training in / practice of the use of the Air Transport Perfusion (ATP) kit. This is the equipment by which the patient's blood is replaced first with washout fluids and later, with some modifications to the kit, with a perfusate intended to minimise tissue damage.

Sunday afternoon was spent practicing the use of the portable ice-bath (PIB) and the oxygen-powered cardio-pulmonary support (CPS) equipment, also known as the Thumper. The only practical training module not covered in this weekend was medications, and this was ommitted at this meeting simply because the relevant equipment (and indeed everything else) had only just been moved up to Sheffield from our former HQ down near Brighton, and would take some more hours than we had to prepare a sufficient number of dummy kits for training purposes.

At the next meeting, in December, we will include all four main practical training modules (Ambulance, Meds, PIB, ATP).

Covered in discussion elements at this meeting were steps to maximise our financial sustainability, administrative elements, a call for a new constitution, a discussion of the pros and cons of the potential use of various perfusates by Cryonics UK (glycerol, M-22, VM-1), and a collaboration towards producing improved, more user-friendly, instruction manuals for team members.

And most of us also enjoyed a very pleasant meal in Piccolo's Italian restaurant. Well worth a visit if you're passing through Sheffield.

If you didn't make this meeting, we look forward to seeing you at the next, in December!

Eternally,

David Styles
Organiser