Jill Brooks

(Committee Member, Chairman)

Chairmans Message - Welcome to Upbeat

I was born in the Cotswolds in a small town called Burford - too long ago to remember and it was there where I grew up. On leaving school I trained as a nurse before marrying Ken and becoming a Royal Air Force wife. We moved around, both in this country and abroad before finally ending up in East Anglia.

We have two children and when they started school I retrained as a teacher, qualifying in 1971. At more or less the same time Ken finished his term in the RAF and retrained as a police officer.

Throughout my life I have always been interested in people, right from school being involved in setting up all kinds of groups, sports, young wives, PTA’s etc and fund raising initiatives.

In the early nineties Ken and I both had heart attacks followed by-pass surgery and were forced to retire from our public service employment. Ken later went back to work for a short period but, after being out of teaching for two years, I was wondering what to do.

In April 1995, quite by chance, I was invited to a meeting at the West Suffolk Hospital to look at the idea of setting up an exercise based support group to follow the Hospital cardiac rehabilitation. We decided to go ahead and I became membership secretary, fundraiser and general dogsbody of the new Upbeat. In 2003, much to my surprise, I was asked to become chairman of the charity and have been very much the working chairman ever since.

Upbeat is now a very large and successful group and my role is to be aware, as far as is possible, of every aspect of the group. Working with other members of the team, I try to ensure that, at all times, there is a management strategy to include duty of care and Health & Safety guidelines in place at all our centres and events. I also have a duty to support our nurses and exercise instructors and to be aware of their needs. I continually try to raise the profile of the group by being involved in the community, by public speaking, working on hospital and NHS committees and also with the cardiac pathway team and with the cardiac department.

My special interest is the psychological effects of heart disease. In the past I have had training in psychology and counselling and have some working knowledge of group therapy. All of this helps me to interact with both patients and carers and the professionals.

My experience as a female heart patient, and now very much a carer, gives me the empathy to understand some of the problems and to help to reassure those in a similar position. I would like to think that this, my leadership skills and commitment to the group are my greatest strengths.