Mingling with the CAM community

Earl’s Court London hosted CAMexpo 2012 over the weekend of the 20th and 21st October. Organised by Diversified Business Communications, it’s the biggest annual event for practitioners, therapists, students and retailers in the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) sector on the UK calendar. The team from ANH-Europe were out in force and, as always, it was inspiring to have face to face contact with so many of our existing supporters, as well as the opportunity to meet potential new ones.

While there may have been slightly less footfall in this year’s CAMexpo courtesy of these austere times, there was no doubt in our minds that those who were there were deeply dedicated to the cause of helping people achieve the highest possible levels of health using natural means. As a side note, it was also apparent that the expo is now drawing greater international participation, not only from other parts of Europe, but also from places further afield such as the USA and Australia. As you may have read in our piece from last week on proposed imminent amendments to German national laws, CAM sector representatives in natural health’s no. 1 market — Germany — are deeply concerned about what is afoot.

Getting the word out

We've created a brand new range of A5-size information leaflets that relate both to natural health in Europe and our core work. Following the reaction to the launch of the set of five 4-page leaflets at CAMexpo, we think you’ll find them an invaluable tool to help enlighten others to some of the key issues facing the practice of natural health in Europe. They are, of course, available to download and distribute. As ever, dissemination of information by our supporters is a key part of raising awareness about the issues and we urge you to help us spread the word!

Our new range of leaflets is as follows:

If you’d like to distribute some hard copies of our leaflets from a clinic or health store we have a limited number available. Please contact Sophie Middleton at [email protected] to arrange postage.

What’s your natural health index?

If you’re like many of the practitioners visiting CAMexpo, you’re likely to be of above-average health. You’re also likely to know quite a bit about keeping yourself that way. We launched a simple 12-question questionnaire called What’s Your Natural Health Index? at CAMexpo and found that the majority of visitors who answered the questionnaire scored an index value we rated as ‘good’, being the second highest of 4 bands. The factors most likely to stop CAMexpo visitors achieving an ‘exceptional’ score tended to be factors linked to excess stress or pressures from work which got in the way of adequate sleep, relaxation or time outdoors.

We’re not saying you can’t be healthy if you exercise indoors only, but we also know there are many additional benefits that come from outdoor exercise, that affect emotional as well as physical health. And remember, this is a natural health index, so it’s focusing primarily on some of the most important natural elements of diet and lifestyle.

Why don’t you find out what your natural health index is? You might also find the questionnaire useful to help those you know to improve their life/work balance if this is something they’ve struggled to achieve – so please share the link widely.

The ANH-Europe team (from left to right) in the booth at CAMExpo: Dr Robert Verkerk, Yvonne England, Meleni Aldridge and Sophie Middleton

ANH-Intl merchandise

If you attended the CAM Expo the weekend before last, you may have noticed we had some new items up, or at least on, our sleeves — quite literally! In our efforts to inspire and be creative with our messaging, we collaborated with designer Colin McBride, Creative Director at Bright Blue Interactive, whose office is just two doors from our own at the Atrium Business Centre in Dorking, Surrey, UK. With a tight design brief, Colin designed our new range of t-shirts, leaflets, a 2GB USB memory card and ANH campaign wristbands.

Given ANH-Intl’s 10 years of campaigning on natural health issues, we felt the time was right to introduce some products that would mark this special anniversary. The leaflets (see links above), wristbands and USB cards are available now — just in time for Christmas! And the t-shirts will be available within the next couple of months via a dedicated section of our website.

Check out three of the designs below – and see them on members of the ANH team at CAMexpo.

The male model is wearing our ANH leaf design. The leaf is made up of a variety of inspirational positive words. The female model is wearing our Eat a Rainbow Every Day design (based on the Institute of Functional Medicine’s Phytonutrient Spectrum), and the little girl is wearing our ANH Love Nature, Live Naturally design – inspiring a new generation of healthy eaters!

As you can see, the t-shirts will be available in a range of colours, but not necessarily exactly the ones shown.

If you’re interested in buying a t-shirt (or several, of course!), please email Sophie at [email protected] and she’ll let you know as soon as the merchandise section of our website is up and running.

On the 2GB USB card, we still have a limited number available for a cost of £10 (equivalent in other currencies), plus postage. We’ve uploaded the first two issues of the What Doctor's Don't Tell You magazine (to which Dr Verkerk contributes a 'Politics of Health' column each month) along with Dr Verkerk's presentation given at CAM Expo, entitled Scientific and Regulatory Gems to Help You Revolutionise Your Practice. You can download these on to your hard disk and use the 2GB memory card for any other purpose. It’s the same size as a bank card, so will conveniently fit in to your purse, wallet or pocket so you can have data storage in an ultra-convenient format wherever you go!

We’ve greatly enjoyed working with Colin to create this merchandise that helps to spread the ANH message to a wider audience. Every product purchased also includes a much needed donation back to ANH’s campaign funds which are reliant solely on donations. We hope that you will enjoy wearing, using and reading these products as much as we’ve enjoyed creating them!

If there are any other items that you’d like to see produced, or if you have any creative ideas which you think would help us to expand people's awareness of the work we do here at ANH-Intl, please do get in touch or use the contact form on our website.

 

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