Gilda's Club North Texas offers a wide variety of activities, support and networking groups, lectures and workshops and social events. Please click a link below for more information.
Lectures & Workshops | Support & Network Groups | Social Activities
Family Focus | Team Convene | Noogieland
Lectures & Workshops
"Gilda's Club is a place where people get together and renew their interest in life.
And most of all, they take hold of the reigns of this horse that they're riding called life."
– Gene Wilder, Founder
Lectures and Workshops offer Gilda's Club members activities that provide opportunities for acquiring new skills, tools, information and techniques to learn how to live with cancer. The larger purpose of that learning is to increase a sense of control of one's life and, as a consequence, to deepen emotional and social well-being. Since all lectures take place at the clubhouse, members build mutual emotional and social support together by sharing a variety of activities over time and in the same place.
Typical Lecture Titles:
• "Ask the Doctor:" Colorectal Cancer
• A Survey of Complementary Treatments
• Women, Sexuality and Cancer
• Talking to Your Children About Cancer
• Cancer as a Catalyst for Change
• Current Treatments for specific cancers
• Managing Pain
• Eating Your Way Through Chemotherapy
• Participating in Your Medical Decision-Making
• Everything You Need To Know About Health Insurance
• Using Hospital Resources To Get What You Need
• Emotions and Cancer
• Breast Cancer Expert Panel
• Talking to Your Doctor About Pain
• Genetics and Cancer
• Inside Tips From an Oncology Nurse
• Cancer and the Workplace
Typical Workshop Topics:
• Cooking and Nutrition for Cancer
• Exercise After Breast Surgery
• Keeping a Journal
• Art Workshops: Painting, Scrapbooking, Rubber Stamping, Knitting
• A Sampler of Meditation Techniques
• Music and Meditation
• Yoga/ Tai Chi/ Chi Gong/ General Exercise
• "Laughing Matters:" Role-Playing for Fun
• Mental Imagery for Relaxation
• Body and "Soul Cooking" for Cancer
• Expanding Body Awareness
• Correct Breathing for Health
• Make-up, Hair, Wig Workshops
These activities are meant to be of broad interest to people with cancer and family members, and to cover a wide range of topics. They will be as interactive as possible, with members exchanging information and perspectives. Lectures and Workshops take place exclusively in the clubhouse; popular topics are repeated, and new topics are introduced regularly.
If you are looking for scheduled lectures and/or workshops, checkout the calendar of events. The calendar lists all of Gilda's Club's events.
Support & Networking Groups
"Gilda's Club is not a cancer support group, it is a cancer support community — a unique meeting place
to build friendship and hope. Free of charge, too, because you can't buy
what goes from heart to heart." – Joanna Bull, Founder
Wellness Groups*
For adult men and women, ranging from those who are newly diagnosed to those with advanced illness; people may be in treatment or have completed treatment and are learning to live with cancer .
Family & Friends Groups
For adult family members (family as defined by the member) and friends, who are supporting a person newly affected by cancer or who are veterans of it.
ph&d Post Treatment Groups
For adults who have previously been in Wellness Groups and now define themselves as more interested in "post-cancer" matters than treatment issues.
The mix of newly diagnosed and more experienced members allows all to share a range and variety of issues common to everyone living with cancer. Newcomers receive support from earlier "generations" who become experts for those new to the group, modeling ways of handling issues, helping them to anticipate developments and to learn from the past. Such "experts" themselves enjoy recognition of how far they have come in learning to live with cancer and how much they have to contribute.
* The term "Wellness" is used to communicate a sense of well-being, social and emotional health; it is not intended to imply that "recovery" is the focus of the Gilda's Club program.
Networking Groups
Networking Groups meet monthly to bring together members who have specific interests that are unlikely to be shared by others who are not in a similar situation. The focus in Networking Groups is narrower and more specialized than that of Wellness Groups. Many members select a Networking Group and later move on to a Wellness Group to explore deeper emotional and social issues. Networking Groups particularly serve members who have been in support groups elsewhere, and come to Gilda's Club with the routine expectation of meeting with people who share their exclusive interests.
Typical Networking Groups include:
• Amigos Unidos: Latino Support Group
• Brainy Bunch Networking Group
• Breast Cancer Networking Group
• Café con Leche: Latino Support Group
• Gynecological Networking Group
• Leukemia, Lymphoma & Myeloma Networking Group
• Lung Cancer Networking Group
• Metastatic Cancer Networking Group
• Pediatric Oncology Networking Group
• Sisters Network
If you are looking for scheduled events, checkout the calendar of events. The calendar lists all of Gilda's Club's area events.
Social Activities
"I don't have to be isolated anymore. The comedian inside of me peeked through
the little door and thought about making people laugh again."
– Gilda Radner
Social activities are among the most popular offerings at Gilda's Club, a fact that reinforces our belief that having a place to gather with people who are going through the same thing builds community and belonging. Social pressures to behave one way or another, myths about cancer and individual and familial stress call for the remedies that members provide one another when sharing social activities at Gilda's Club. Most social events include a potluck supper held in the community room.
Typical Social Activities:
• Karaoke Nights
• Joke Fest
• Comedy Night
• Community Meeting
• Musical and Dance Performances
• Sing Along (with song sheets)
• Bingo, "Pictionary" (game nights)
• Movie and Video Nights
• Gilda's Club Birthday Party (anniversaries of openings)
• Seasonal Parties (winter holidays, Valentine's Day, ect.)
• Noogie Fest (children's Noogieland Halloween party)
• "Dessert and Demos" (opportunity to meet workshop providers)
• Storytelling for All Ages
• International Night
If you are looking for scheduled social activities, checkout the calendar of events. The calendar lists all of Gilda's Club's events.
Family Focus
When you request a Family Focus, you are reflecting the Gilda's Club belief that your entire family, however you may define its membership, can be a significant force in helping everyone involved learn together how to live with cancer.
From the moment of cancer diagnosis, the family is impacted. Whatever the family rules and roles may have been before, life is no longer the same for anyone. Myths and beliefs about cancer abound, very often unspoken. Each individual in the family has concerns- but just what are they? How do you handle them? Not every family sits down at the kitchen table to develop a game plan.
Gilda's Club invites you to assemble your family at the clubhouse - parents, grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins and anyone else you call "family", to focus on utilizing strengths and making life with cancer work for everyone. If caring friends are "family," they're welcome to join you at a Family Focus session, too.
Goals of Family Focus:
• Help the family learn together how to live with cancer
• Identify family beliefs about cancer
• Identify critical family issues
• Identify immediate practical problems as well as possible solutions
• Express hopes and fears of the family
• Identify family rules and patterns, alliances and exclusions
• Encourage democratic partnerships
• Identify and reinforcing family strengths
• Help the family see themselves as "experts" in their own family life
• Create or restore intimacy among family members
Team Convene
An original concept at Gilda's Club, Team Convene reaches out to include everyone in the life of the person with cancer. Your extended family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, clergy and congregation members and anyone and everyone else you may wish to invite - come to the Clubhouse for a special meeting that's just for you.
Wondering how to get to chemotherapy? Is it hard asking for help or knowing whom to ask? Your customized Team Convene sorts out and assists with these practical matters. Plans are made, tasks assigned. A "Team Point Person" volunteers. We get things going you and team take it from there.
Issues Covered at Team Convene:
• Transportation
• Food Preparation
• Shopping
• Child Care
• Housekeeping
• Laundry and Dry-Cleaning
• Accompaniment to Doctors Visits and Treatments
• Communicating with Doctors
• Serving as an Advocate at the Hospital
• Researching Information
• Emotional Support
• Visiting at Home or Hospital
• Fielding Telephone Calls
• Driving to the Movies
• Supplying Dinner
• Repairing Household Items or Fixing/ Maintaining/ Selling an Automobile
• Helping with Paying bills or Preparing Taxes
• Organizing a Yard Sale
• Giving a Back Rub
The ideal time to schedule a Team Convene is at the time of diagnosis, but a meeting can also be schedule at any time to strengthen support and enhance communication among family and friends.
