News:- Multiple Sclerosis News Surrey

On Wed 9 June 2021, we had a lovely visit from the Mayoress of Guildford, Marsha Moseley and her consort, Nigel Manning. A full tour of the Guildford Waterside Centre was given, including seeing kayaking activity, meeting a few of our Samson Centre members etc. I was happy to pass on a copy of John Hambly’s book ‘Samson Rising’ to the Mayoress at the end of the visit.

A big thank you to the Mayoress and her consort for taking the time out to see all the activities that go on here.

A great sponsored walk took place on Saturday by Caroline (our Tues & Friday Oxygen Therapy Coordinator) and her 4 friends. 30km achieved in hot weather via a lovely route from Northchapel and including Petworth Park and Lurgashall.

Caroline has raised nearly £1500 for the Samson Centre as a result of her walk. Thank you so much to everyone who supported her.

We had another brilliant online quiz night on Sat 20 Feb thanks to Megan and John Hambly. Thanks so much to everyone who joined in with the quiz night – an amazing £1937.50 was raised!

The 3 lockdown quiz nights that Megan and John have run have raised over £6,100 for the Samson Centre! A great format and lockdown or not, we hope these fun evenings continue. A huge thank you to Megan and John for organising such a great evening and to everyone who supported this really helpful fundraiser.

Our very own John Hambly, Vice-Chairman and founder of the Samson Centre for MS, has been awarded with an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for 2021 for his services to people with disabilities in Surrey and the home counties.
We would not have the Samson Centre if it wasn’t for John and his initial desire to develop a specialised centre in Guildford to help those living with Multiple Sclerosis. Due to his own diagnosis of MS in 1999, John recognised the need for a dedicated place that would provide support and therapies for people like him. With huge help from so many people, the joint collaboration with the Wey Kayak Club and some incredible fundraising, the Samson Centre was built in 2005.
John is an inspiration to so many of us and we are very proud of what he has achieved. John – you are a star.

o on Saturday evening we held our online quiz thanks to Megan and John Hambly who did a brilliant job organising and hosting this. We raised an incredible £1150 on the night and then had an amazing additional anonymous donation of £2000 on top of what was raised!

Thank you so much to everyone that took part in a really fun evening and of course to Megan and John for putting in the hard work. Here’s to the next one!!

20 mile sponsored walk to cover the full length of the River Wey Navigation done and dusted yesterday!

Thank you so much to all those of you who have sponsored me.

You can still donate via www.virginmoneygiving.com and type in Jackie Payne into the ‘Support a friend or charity’ box, then you will see my fundraising page.

Over £2200 raised for the Centre so far which is just great. Your support and donations spurred me on yesterday.

A lovely route from Weybridge to Godalming and a big thank you to my husband for clocking up the miles with me, all in aid of the Samson Centre for MS.

ITV programme next Tues 21 July – featuring John Hambly from the Samson Centre receiving a well deserved award.

Some of you will recall that John Hambly, our Vice-Chairman and member of the Samson Centre, received an award back in March from Sport Gives Back. It was a very special evening at the Royal Institution in London and several sports celebrities were there.

John received an award for the huge amount of work he has done in
having the vision to create a MS Centre in Guildford to help those who live with Multiple Sclerosis. He had the support and backing of a great team of volunteers to aid the massive fundraising effort to have the Centre built around 15 years ago. John’s rugby club – the Actonians, have been amazing in their ongoing support for the Samson Centre with huge amounts of fundraising and money raised over many years for the Samson Centre.

You now have the chance to see the Sport Gives Back award programme on ITV next Tuesday 21 July at 10.45pm. Do watch it if you possibly can.

So good to be able to re-start oxygen therapy again after 3.5 months of the Centre being closed.

Cyril, one of our longstanding volunteer Lead Operators is with one of our oxygen users, demonstrating new use of masks and visors at the Centre, additional hygiene protocols and a socially distanced timetable.

Lovely to have most of our oxygen operators back with us again and happily helping those who come in for their oxygen therapy.

So we are back in business after lockdown.

As you know, things will look and feel a bit different to normal. Our physios will be wearing scrubs which have kindly been donated. They are also required to wear masks, gloves and aprons when carrying out their work, so we thought it would be good for you to see these photos. Your temperature will also be taken by an infra red thermometer. and there will be a register and hand sanitising station all set up.
We really look forward to seeing some of our members in person very soon.

The Hambly family did it again! What a great evening on Saturday for the online quiz that Megan and John Hambly organised for us.

Thanks so much to everyone who joined in with the quiz. A brilliant £815 was raised!

Here’s to the next online event! Thanks so much Megan for organising a really slick and fun quiz and to John for being a very entertaining quizmaster!

Alice Collins has set up a lovely fundraiser – taking doorstep photographs of you and your loved ones.

Please contact her direct via

Thanks so much Alice for this lovely idea to help the Samson Centre for MS.

Click the image to Visit our YouTube Videos

Exercises and stretches for people with MS. A focus on posture, stretches, breathing and gentle movement.

Led by Sara McGowan, Lead Physiotherapist for the Samson Centre for MS. Our new YouTube channel was created to enable members to do some gentle exercises at home during the covid-19 pandemic.

The exercises are just as applicable for anyone looking for stretches and posture xercises for people with limited mobility. Please subscribe to ensure you’re updated with all the latest videos from us.

Please click the above Image to see the full document

The Samson Centre for MS – how we will survive the Covid-19 pandemic to prosper beyond it

Statement by the trustees, May 2020

What we do – our role

Thank you.

One of our members, Catherine has done her own ’round and round the garden’ challenge and walked round her garden 26 times

She raised a brilliant £576 for the Centre in the process!

The photo shows Catherine on the final lap of her garden. Thank you so much Catherine for what you have done. So helpful to us at this time.