As 2025 comes to an end, grab a cuppa, get comfy and have a look back on another year at Alopecia UK...

January

We kicked off the year by releasing tickets for our Big Weekend 2025, set for September — our first since March 2023.

February

February introduced the first of our 20 Stories for 20 Years, featuring Neha’s powerful journey.

We also celebrated Poppy Bulmer’s inspirational appearance on Gladiators, where she competed without her wig and spoke openly about alopecia.

Alongside this, we delivered four Kids Activity Sessions in Edinburgh, Bristol, London, and Manchester, plus an online escape-room adventure for teens aged 13–17.

March

We shared news of an important genetic discovery related to frontal fibrosing alopecia.

Four remarkable runners — James, Ewan, Rosie, and Tom — completed the Bath Half Marathon, raising over £4,700 for Alopecia UK. An incredible effort.

April

273 people joined us for our milestone 10th annual Alton Towers trip, filling the park with blue T-shirts. Poppy Bulmer joined our lunchtime session, delighting young attendees with a Q&A about her time on Gladiators, and our Youth Voice Board delivered an inspiring talk.

We were also pleased to attend the opening of Aderans Trendco’s new London clinic, represented by Trustee Steve Lindsey and Ambassador Joanna Rowsell MBE. Aderans Trendco are a long-term supporter of Alopecia UK and celebrated their 60^th anniversary in 2025.

Alopecia UK welcomed Ian Barney as the new Chair of our Trustee Board.

April was also a huge month for fundraising. Five London Marathon runners — Rajan, Kerrie, Rachel, Sarah, and Nick — raised funds, generously using their own ballot places. Meanwhile, Maisie and Scarlett ran the Manchester Marathon; Lauryn and Charlotte completed the Brighton Marathon; Casper took on Paris; and Leo travelled to Milan. A brilliant surge of support for our small charity.

May

We opened nominations for the Hannah Dennis Alopecia Awareness Award, celebrating inspiring young people aged 3–23. The award launches annually on Hannah’s birthday.

We were thrilled to attend Isaac Qureshi’s True Crowns exhibition in London, showcasing 48 portraits paired with personal reflections on resilience and self-acceptance. Alopecia UK is proud that we were able to support this brilliant exhibition.

On 16 May, Kevin — husband of our CEO, Sue Schilling — began an epic Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle. He completed the 19-day journey with an impressive £4,179 raised.

Our Research Manager Niels and Lay Research Panel member Joe attended the inaugural scientific “hair club” at Imperial College London, exploring research on the connection between hair biology and psychological stress.

Also in May, we joined the “Partnership for Change” coalition in calling for better NHS care coordination, submitting recommendations to inform the next NHS 10-year plan.

June

We celebrated the vital contributions of our incredible volunteers during Volunteers’ Week. From support-group leaders to event volunteers, we shared stories and celebrated the efforts of our fantastic volunteer community.  

We published our new three-year strategy (2025–2028), placing support at the centre of our mission. Our three strategic goals are: improve our support model; expand our reach; and strengthen our infrastructure. 

June also saw the release of our report Health Inequality in Plain Sight, revealing that 64% of people with alopecia are dissatisfied with NHS care. The work was supported by a grant from Pfizer Ltd.

At the end of the month, our CEO Sue Schilling attended the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF) conference in Chicago, strengthening connections with our peers in the US, learning ways we can support each other.

July

We were delighted to announce two PhD bursary awards from the legacy fund for alopecia areata research:

• Professor Milling (University of Glasgow) — Identifying the cellular interactions of immune cells that cause alopecia areata.
• Dr Fabio Zucchelli (University of the West of England) — developing a framework for effective, inclusive and psychologically safe peer support.

We attended the 105th Annual Meeting of the British Association of Dermatologists in Glasgow, where, as well as having our charity stand, we also showcased portraits from True Crowns. Our Communications Manager Amy Johnson presented our Health Inequality in Plain Sight findings to attendees as part of a ‘hot topic’ presentation.

August

Recruitment began for our September Charity Champions ahead of Alopecia Awareness Month.

A brilliant team of runners from The Treatment Rooms, London — Dr Puroshini Pather, Dr Dilan Fernando, Dr Roshan Vara, Karu Vickneswaran, Oladimeji Oke, and Lily Allué — completed the Hyde Park 5k and raised an amazing £5,386.

September: Alopecia Awareness Month

We opened the month by announcing the 2025 Hannah Dennis Alopecia Awareness Award winner: 8-year-old Phoebe Brooke, recognised for her creative awareness and fundraising efforts.

Thirteen runners took part in the Great North Run and the Junior & Mini Great North Run, collectively raising more than £9,650.

Forty fantastic Charity Champions embraced our ‘Strength in Numbers’ theme and raised more than £33,000 for Alopecia UK with a variety of activities, including running events, mountain climbs, coffee mornings, sponsored swims, walks, Zumba, burlesque, pole-dancing, star-jumping, sky-diving, raffles, craft-making, and even a learn a language challenge. You name it, they did it! We also celebrated our official 20th birthday with a virtual birthday cake filled by messages from the community.

We celebrated our official 20^th birthday in September and invited our community to add a candle on our virtual birthday cake and share messages of what Alopecia UK means to them. 

In September, we were delighted to relaunch our Online Youth Network sessions, welcoming four new volunteers to help create safe, supportive spaces for young people affected by alopecia to connect with others who understand. 

To close the month, more than 270 people joined us for our Big Weekend 2025 — a weekend of inspiring talks, exhibitors, wellbeing practitioners, and community connection, topped off with a Birmingham city-centre flashmob:

October

October marked the final of our 2025 zoo trips, with a meet-up at Chester Zoo (following Bristol Zoo in August and Edinburgh Zoo in September). Across all three visits we welcomed 117 attendees, including 30 children, young people and adults with alopecia.

We also had a presence at two very different events:

• The Royal College of General Practitioners Annual Conference, where Trustee Lynn Wilks and support-group leader Sally represented patient support groups, and raised awareness with GPs.
• Salon International, the leading hairdressing trade show, where our Events Manager Naomi Hall joined the It Never is ‘Just Hair’ panel.

November

We opened ticket registration for our 2026 Alton Towers trip, taking place on Saturday 11 April 2026 — our 11th annual visit. If you would like to join us next year, you can get your ticket here. We would love to see you there! 

We also launched our 2026 Research Pots, offering £30,000 in funding for research into the causes and cures of alopecia areata, thanks to legacy support.

December

We ended the year with our No Wrapping Required Christmas appeal, encouraging supporters to give the most impactful gift a small charity can receive: a regular monthly donation. If you would like to support our work in 2026 and beyond, we would be very grateful if you would consider setting up a monthly donation here. 

Our Research Manager Niels published his Alopecia Research Winter Update which you can read here.

The above is just some of the highlights from our year at Alopecia UK. On top of all that we held 133 support groups across 27 locations throughout the UK and Channel Islands. In addition, we continued to support adults, teens and children online via 19 volunteer-led support sessions on Zoom. And our brilliant Facebook group moderators contributed a whopping 2,244 volunteer hours in 2025 moderating our valuable peer support spaces. 

---

Thank You!

Let us take this moment to say a big thank you to everyone who helped Alopecia UK in 2025 — all our amazing volunteers (including trustees, event volunteers, support group leaders, online support facilitators, Facebook group moderators), Charity Champions, donors, fundraisers, event sponsors and exhibitors, Service Directory businesses, partners, and supporters — who made 2025 another remarkable year for Alopecia UK. Your passion, voices and commitment fuel our mission to provide support, community, and education, and to improve the lives of those affected by alopecia.

Looking Ahead

As we look to 2026, we will be doing a lot of work in the background to make sure the charity is sustainable. We will be reviewing our support pathways, and will be asking for our community's help with this. Internally, we are working to ensure our legal structure and fundraising models are fit for the future. If you would like to take a more active role in supporting the charity with any of this work, perhaps you have what it takes to volunteer your time on our Trustee Board? Check out our Trustee recruitment page here.