When the post includes a Wall Street business card with scribbled on the rear "Thanks for the poems at the Doctors" clipped to a Twenty pound note, and a more plaintive letter "I have just picked up a copy of Poems in the Waiting Room, and I thought what a great thing. Full of thoughts of self and sorrowful me, it plucked me out of my doom and filled me with a moment of beauty. Whosoever you are, thank you; great idea!", you know that Poems in the Waiting Room happily meets a waiting patient's need.

To secure our future, the trustees of Poems in the Waiting Room (Registered Charity 1099033) consider that independent funding is essential.. With Friends funding, PitWR will become progressively owned and developed by its supporters, including NHS staff and patients and a growing group of poets. Donations of PitWR Friends together with grants from private charitable trusts in the present climate for art support is the preferred funding model which can preserve an independent editorial approach appropriate for an arts in health literary charity.

We plan to use new funds to restore our mailing list. At present, we serve almost 800 NHS waiting rooms and supply quarterly some 18,000 poetry cards, but have a waiting list of NHS units of about the same number, which once we supplied but were forced to cut due to withdrawal of funding. We also plan to increase the number of editions each year from four currently to six. The quarterly batch of twenty poetry cards is rapidly exhausted. In this way, PitWR becomes a more effective shop window for contemporary poets and their work, and more far reaching as an arts in health programme, giving a boost to NHS patients and staff. Our aim is to serve at least some 2,000 NHS waiting rooms supplying 80,000 poetry cards for patients six time each year.

PitWR is the most extensive arts in health programme in the NHS, and the most widely read regular national poetry publication. To date well over half a million poetry cards have been distributed and largely taken away and kept by patients.

We have concentrated efforts on NHS general practice. This often neglected sector provides particular advantage for all art in health projects. First, the individual units are small scale. There is therefore a direct involvement of practice staff in the activity. The enthusiasm of staff in promoting the poetry cards to their patients is a key to success. Next, general practice deals with the public as part of their daily routine, and who are not in some way isolated by their morbidity. Benefits flow directly into the community. Further, general practice is diffused in every community sector and so penetrates hard pressed problems areas that art activities rarely touch. PitWR has achieved a strong appeal across a wide spectrum of social and economic diversity. The poetry pamphlets are taken away as frequently by patients in the high-rise concrete wilderness as in the leafy suburb. PitWR reaches parts other arts cannot touch.

We will directly mail a copy of the quarterly poetry card to each of our Friends, so there is no need to feel ill in order to keep up with our popular series. We shall also produce a quarterly Friends Newsletter to increase involvement in PitWR through the story of our poets, arts in health especially in primary care and the broad run of poetry news and events. We also offer a complimentary copy of our Collected Edition (while stock lasts) and an elegant pen endorsed with Poems in the Waiting Room - Arts in Health.

Most importantly, as our Friend you will become part of our arts in health charity. You will help brighten a fellow patient's visit, and even plant a seed of hope which can blossom into full well-being

Poems in the Waiting Room is welcome across the wide range of social conditions, from the leafy suburbs to the concrete wilderness. It is hoped that the Friends will reflect its existing range of social diversity. For this reason, there is no fixed Friends subscription, since all are welcome. Some poems are long and some are short, but all are important. It is the same with donations;  the suggested range is Epic (One hundred pounds or more): Ode (Seventy-five pounds): Ballad (Fifty pounds); Sestina (Twenty-five pounds): Sonnet (Fifteen pounds)! 

You can join On-line with a donation, gift aided if applicable, through the Charity Choice web site. Type in Name of Charity - Poems in the Waiting Room, and follow the on screen directions. The donation form gives us the basic information we need to add you to the Friends mailing list. If you would like to sponsor a nominated NHS unit, just send us an email using the link below.

For standing orders and cheques please write to Cynthia Roberts, Chief Executive Friends of Poems in the Waiting Room PO Box 354 Sutton SM1 9FN, or email below to request an application form.

An enthusiastic and grateful reader in Richmond wrote to Poems in the Waiting Room. "I picked up your card of poems in the waiting room at the Surgery this morning and just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. It lifted my spirits and made the waiting time fly by. If you are in need of funds, I'd be happy to contribute."

DONATE NOW - BE A FRIEND