Over the years I have taken part in some interesting things for Breast Cancer Care. I have shaken buckets in shopping centres, collected enormous cheques, talked to women about their breast cancer experiences and helped out at courses.
But the most out there thing I have ever been asked to do for Breast Cancer Care was a pink conga up and down Bournemouth Pier on Saturday 28 September!
On that cold, blustery Saturday I was joined in front of the pier by a dance group from the Hammond Academy of Performing Arts and The Pink Champagne Breast Cancer Dragon Boat Team, a rowing team who raise a lot of money for Breast Cancer Care.
We were dressed head to toe in pink in support of Breast Cancer Care's Pink Fridays campaign. We slapped on our smiles, switched on Black Lace's classic Do the Conga and started to shimmy our stuff down the pier.
Onlookers thought we were mad as about 35 of us skipped along with the music pounding from a megaphone. The local paper came down to get a snap of us in all our glorious pink attire!
And it was great fun. We were all singing along and hopping around to get as much attention as possible for such a wonderful cause. We then went out to conga on the beach to make sure no one missed us!
I had a bright sparkly wig on but it flew off as I was congaing along! I managed to catch it though. I was humming the 'Do do do do the conga' tune for days after!
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 23 years ago, things were very different to nowadays. There were no breast cancer nurses and the bedside manner of my consultant was appalling! I had noticed a dip in my breast and after a scan, he said: "Well, I'm 99% certain it is something nasty but we will know within the week." As you can imagine I walked out feeling sick!
I had a mastectomy and lymph node removal. Afterwards, when I was given a leaflet for the Mastectomy Association (as Breast Cancer Care was known back then) I thought helping people in a similar situation was something I could do. So I trained for the charity's peer to peer support service, which matches up someone going through breast cancer with someone who has been through a similar experience.
After a couple of years, I wanted to get involved in the charity even more and now I help out in all sorts of ways.
For example, I help out at Breast Cancer Care's Moving Forward courses, which supports women after they have completed their breast cancer treatment. I recently had a chat with a lady who was suffering from really bad mood swings because of her treatment and was becoming very irritable with her husband, I reassured her that she had nothing to worry about, I was exactly the same with my husband after my treatment! It was completely out of character for me and her feelings will pass just as mine did. She found talking to me really helpful and that meant a great deal to me.
Breast Cancer Care couldn't run these services without the support of the public and one way people can show their support is by a holding a Pink Friday events. Pink Fridays is running all throughout October and the charity is encouraging people to dress pink, eat pink, party pink or work pink on a Friday this October - it doesn't matter if you raise £50 or £500, every penny counts.
You can bake pink cupcakes, hold a pink pamper party with your mates or get the office boss to dress up in a pink wig and feather boa. It doesn't matter what you do, just get involved in this fabulous and fun campaign!
Visit breastcancercare.org.uk/pf to register online and receive a free pack of Pink Friday goodies to help you plan your event! October isn't over yet so as long as it's pink, what you do from there is up to you!