Charity Launch July 2025
Stewart Payne • August 21, 2025

Over 80 people attended the launch on July 13th

Progress Charity Launch at Gate Street Barn in Bramley Surrey

The geographic focus of the charity is broadly within Surrey, Sussex and parts of North Hampshire from where patients being treated at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford are likely to come from. So it was appropriate that the launch took place at the beautiful rural venue of Gate Street Barn, in the Surrey Hills countryside near Bramley, fairly central to many patients.

The Board comprises of four medical Trustees and four patient Trustees. Now up to full strength and registered with the Charity Commission in accordance with our Constitution, PROGRESS can now move forward with its ambition of supporting people diagnosed with oesophagael and gastric cancers and raising awareness of the condition.


Details of all Trustees can be found here.

Progress Charity Trustees

Patient Trustee Stewart Payne made a short welcoming speech and then handed over to Mr Nima Abbassi-Ghadi, consultant Oesophago-Gastric Surgeon and one of the four medical Trustees, who gave an overview of the illness and outlined latest research and advances in treatment and surgery.

Progress Charity Launch Canapes

The event was a fund-raiser in itself, with all present asked to make a donation to attend and a raffle with some excellent gifted prizes was well supported. 


Event (tickets and raffle) raised £3,334 and donations at the time of the launch raised a separate £1,615 with more having donated since.


A complimentary drink on arrival was supplemented by canapes and music and the venue provided a pay bar and staff to hand out food.


Once the formalities were over, guests spilled out into the gardens with many seeking out the Trustees who were available to explain more about the charity and the work ahead. 

Recently released statistics, which received widespread news coverage, confirmed that oesophageal cancer remains one of the most deadly, along with pancreatic and lung cancers. 

Advances are being made all the time, as Nima outlines in his launch speech. Nevertheless, patients diagnosed with OG cancer and their families face enormous consequences; medical, surgical, mental, physical and often financial. 


Our new PROGRESS charity has the express aim of supporting them in whatever way it can. Please follow the charity website to read more and use the contact form to get in touch. It is early days. Fund raising events will follow, and suggestions and offers of help will be welcomed. 


We expect the demands on the charity to be many and varied. PROGRESS, its Trustees and supporters stand ready to assist in whatever fashion its resources will allow.

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