Saturday 27th February is Anosmia Awareness Day and Fifth Sense is once again proud to be supporting this important date.
Anosmia Awareness Day was created by Daniel Schein in the US with the aim of raising awareness of a condition that, as we know, is ignored and marginalised, not least by the medical profession. Please visit the Anosmia Awareness Day Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AnosmiaAwarenessDay
Fifth Sense has been supporting Anosmia Awareness Day for the last three years. We hope it will continue to develop as an event that highlights the need for further research into olfactory disorders and also acts as a celebration of the importance of the sense of smell itself.
Let’s talk smell and taste
For 2016 we are releasing a video entitled ‘Let’s talk smell and taste’ that was filmed at our 2015 members conference by Fifth Sense member and volunteer Sarah Page. It’s a short video consisting of interviews with people who attended the conference talking about why the senses of smell and taste are important and need more recognition. There are some really insightful comments from the participants and the video gives us a powerful tool that we can use to help us make our case going forwards. We’d like to take the opportunity to say a big thanks Sarah and everyone who was interviewed for the video. It will go live on our website on Anosmia Awareness Day itself.
New Fifth Sense website
We’re also going to be launching our newly designed website in time for 27th February. Not only has the site had a major visual makeover but it features new content, including more information on smell and taste disorders. We hope you’ll find it much easier to navigate too. We will be continuing to update the site and add new content as the year goes on.
FlavorActiV CEO in fifth gear for Fifth Sense
Richard Boughton, Chief Executive of our partners FlavorActiV, is a self-confessed car nut. He has just embarked on the 2016 Winter Challenge Rally, driving his classic 1972 BMW 2002tii from Woodcote Park in Epsom to Monte Carlo over the next few days. Richard decided to promote the partnership between FlavorActiV and Fifth Sense by having it emblazoned on his car. Cars in the 
rally don’t generally feature any logos, but Richard is planning to use this as a conversation-starter with other drivers; as he said, you never know who you might end up talking to who may wish to support Fifth Sense in some way. We’d like to thank Richard for this and we hope he’s first to the chequered flag!
How you can support Anosmia Awareness Day
Wear red! If you’re already familiar with Anosmia Awareness Day you may be aware that this is what people are asked to do. If you decide to wear something red on Saturday then please take a photo and share it with us on twitter or Facebook. Alternatively email it to us at anosmiaawarenessday@fifthsense.org.uk and we’ll share it for you!
Last year Fifth Sense member Claire Mulligan got all her work colleagues involved (left). It is of course happening on a Saturday this year which might make this a bit difficult for most people, although if anyone goes into work in the name of anosmia awareness we’ll be highly impressed!
(The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that Richard’s BMW happens to be red – we’re reliably informed this is a coincidence and he hasn’t had it re-sprayed specially for the occasion…)
Donate! As we did in 2015 we are taking donations that will be added to our research fund and used to support future research into smell and taste disorders. If you’d like to make a donation you can do so between now and midnight on 5th March via our BT MyDonate page at https://mydonate.bt.com/events/anosmiaawarenessday2016/
…and finally…
There’s another exciting piece of news that will be announced on Anosmia Awareness Day itself. This will be published on our website and Facebook/twitter pages so please do visit us online on Saturday to look out for it!
Fifth Sense News 