NORTHUMBRIA BLOOD BIKES
January 2017 - Please feel free to print, copy, save or forward this newsletter to increase awareness of our charity!
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
More information on Page 13
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
The final Wish Tokens from The Evening Chronicle were printed on Saturday 7th January 2017. Now that the final tokens have been issued if you’ve been collecting them for us please post them to: 30 Sheridan Drive, East Stanley, County Durham, DH9 6YU. Tokens need to be with us by Monday 30th January 2017. Thank you to those of you who have already sent us some. Remember the more we get the larger the share of money we will receive so every token really does count. Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
The power of teamwork Just 1 example of the work our unpaid volunteers undertook over the New Year. Working alongside our neighbours, to the south of us, Bloodrun EVS.
Another example of cooperation with another blood bike group to support a very poorly child. The first relay we’ve completed with Derbyshire Blood Bikes but it certainly won’t be the last.
Most of our journeys tend to be between our hospitals and the area’s central Blood Bank in Newcastle, so typically around 40 miles each trip. However, we can and do go further if necessary. These are just two examples of our recent teamwork with neighbouring blood bike groups. Wherever items need transporting across the country we always try to liaise with groups in other areas. This partnership means that we share to load and then frees up a rider / driver quicker than if they had to complete the full run. For any of our newer shift controllers or those that have yet to experience a relay please take a Providing look ateffective the new members handbook > Policy: With Other Groups and timely transportation of essential blood andRelays medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689 (Ref: OOPS005). Login required.
A couple of our volunteers wanted to thank you for your support over the year. Mal and Chris are two active operational volunteers amongst hundreds of active volunteers we have in our group. None of our work is possible without the financial support of you. A bike costs money, fuel for the bike costs money, maintenance costs money. As much as our wonderful volunteers are on duty through the handover from 2016 - 2017, if we didn't have the funds to put fuel in the tanks tonight, the service would cease. Perhaps one new year resolution might be to make a regular donation to the charity to support this. This message is for you, our supporters, for being there.
Northumbria Blood Bikes relies entirely on the kindness, generosity and general good will of the public, be that by corporate sponsorship, collections at static locations, or donations. However, we don’t currently have a great number of individuals who wish to donate on a regular basis so we’d like to change that. Over the coming year, we are looking to you for your help. Can you spare a small amount of money (or a large one), on a regular basis, as a donation to NBB? We’d like to hear the resounding ‘yes’. We are looking to have people subscribe to donations every month, for an amount of as little as £1. For those who are able to donate, through Virgin Money Giving, as a regular payment, we will be very grateful. For everybody who signs up to donate, in return, you will receive our regular newsletter, and after 3 months of regular payments, you will receive a gift of NBB merchandise. We’d love to have you on board as a supporter, so please consider signing up Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products as a regular donor Registered Charity Number 1166689 http://www.northumbriabloodbikes.org.uk/vmg
As our charity increases in size year by year and our jobs are in excess of 800 a month it means that we are a much more frequent sight on the roads, well recognised and well respected by a lot of people. Just over a year ago not many people had heard of Northumbria Blood Bikes, and even fewer knew what we did. But times have changed and our vehicles are a regular sight on the roads in our region, the positive side of this is the increased public awareness of our charity and hopefully the increase in support. A simple post on social media proved that public awareness has increased and we thank you for all the kind words.
Something nice from a member of the public at Christmas - nice one Cyril Ord. “On my way to Iceland supermarket in Berwick yesterday morning I spotted a man on a motorbike at our pseudo-hospital. He was a rider for Northumbria Blood Bikes which I did not know existed. He explained that he had been on the go since 4.00 a.m. and at -3C the roads were a bit dodgy in places. He was going to make his way from Berwick to Alnwick and then to our new A&E Hospital at Cramlington, which is a few miles North of Newcastle. His name was Neil Gallon and he said it would be nice if I posted a photo onto Facebook to give the organisation a bit of publicity. I thought he and his motorbike made a handsome pair.” Cyril’s photograph and original Facebook post has been seen by 37k, shared 16,149 people and received comments by 3.1k Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
We were invited back to Sainsbury’s Washington for a second year to bag pack on Friday 23rd December. Many thanks for the generous donations we received. We raised a grand total of £1378.79.
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
We couldn’t quite fit our car into the store but we did manage to get a bike and mini moto into the foyer of Tesco Bishop Auckland. Many thanks to the store, especially John Bailey the community champion, for giving us this opportunity. Our Santa hat wearing volunteers collected £441.91.
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
The ladies of the Inner Wheel of Harton enjoyed one of our talks from Gary Loader. They presented us with a cheque for £100
We received a few Christmas cards this year and we would like to thank you all for the best wishes! Many thanks to the member of Heighington WI who included a cheque for £100 from the sale of her Christmas handy craft stall. We also want to thank Komatsu for their £200 donation. The Specials Lab chose us as their charity of the year and they have been busy fundraising throughout the year. At Christmas they made up 10 hampers with donations from Asda Benton, Tesco Consett, and Sainsbury’s Washington and from individuals. Their raffle raised £378 and they’ve also been raising money Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689 through a tuck shop which added a further £400.
Above: Tesco Consett Genesis Extra door collection. One day there was going to only be the mini moto then on the day we had a matching pair of our bikes. Thank you to the store for allowing us to stand in the foyer, it can get a wee bit nippy in Consett, and thanks to Kirsty Lawrence the community champion for organising the booking. We collected a magnificent ÂŁ602.98. Left: Tesco North Shields door collection. This booking came via the Rotary Club who had organized the collection with the store. Santa nearly had a change of transportation after trying out our bike. We really appreciate them choosing us to Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products benefit from the proceeds. Registered Charity Number 1166689
Member information‌ New Member inductions have now been arranged for 14th January, 4th March and 1st April. Inductions run from 9.00 until 12.00 at the Ellison Building, Northumbria University in Newcastle. Details are available from the website calendar where there is a link for members to register to attend via the website form. Riders and Drivers now have the ability to review and correct their entries made via the online activity recorder. When using the "view my jobs" report, each job now has an edit link which allows corrections to be made to the original entry. Members can now register for fundraising events directly from the website calendar. A [register] button will appear for all events that allow online registrations, and when clicked it will guide the member through the registration process for themselves or any guests they are bringing. Each event will also show a list of others who have already registered to attend the event. A user guide for the registration system is available in the library. It will be ICT031 - Online Registrations - user guide We've re-instated an old facility to get a quick view of who is on shift right now, without having to look in the OLRS. Members can go to: http://northumbriabloodbikes.org.uk/ops/todaysroster For a quick view of who was / is / will be on shift yesterday / today / tomorrow. It is with regret that I have to let you know that Mark Richardson has resigned from the committee with immediate effect. We are sad to see him leave the committee and I, along with all of the committee, want to thank Mark for his contribution. Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products We have received interest for the role and people have offered their Registered Charity Number 1166689 assistance. The new ICT officer and assistant will be announced shortly.
Back in October, Valley Gardens Middle School had a Halloween-themed nonuniform / cake bake in aid of Northumbria Blood Bikes. We managed to raise £748.50p. Malcolm Farley brought 'Claire' (our Triumph Trophy) into the assembly hall and gave a fantastic talk to over 350 students and staff before we had some photos with the winners of the best Halloween costumes competition. Thank you very much to the staff and students for choosing to support Northumbria Blood Bikes! We hope that you all enjoyed ‘Claire’s’ visit to your school! Last year we gave a talk to PMR-GCAuk North East Support. Then we received a request from Margaret Wright, their Vice-Chair, who very kindly asked if we wanted to write an article to include in their newsletter. They included us in their winter newsletter which went out in December not only in this country but to members abroad and via our web which we get over 4k visits per month from all over the world. It also goes into hospitals, doctors surgeries etc. We really appreciate this support from another local charity and thank you for sending us a few hard copies too!
www.pmr-gca-northeast.org.uk
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
Evening Support Shift As announced at the December Open Meeting, a change to our shift arrangements for riders and drivers - the Evening Support Shift – introduced on 1st January 2017. The Evening Support Shift will operate every evening from 19.00 through to midnight. We hope that this will encourage more members to book shifts as it should be suitable for those who work 'office hours' Monday to Friday. There, are however some limitations: The evening support shift may only be booked as the final vehicle on shift for that evening - i.e. there must be two full 12-hour shifts already booked before the Support Shift can be booked. Any support shifts booked without two full shifts already being covered will be removed. The rider / driver operating the Evening Support Shift must stand down between jobs at the RVI in Newcastle. The support shifts are booked like a standard shift in OLRS, simply choose the "shift type" of 'Ops Support Shift" when booking. You might also notice that you now need to need to choose a shift type whenever you book a shift. We've found that using 'ops bike nights' as the default shift type simply encouraged folk not to choose the right shift type, causing the OLRS display to be misleading. We're hoping this change will make it obvious that you must choose a shift type when booking your shift. All of the details for the new shift, and the resultant changes to the standard shifts, are described in these procedures: ROTA013 - Evening Support Shift Definition ROTA010 - Standard Shift Definition Which are available in the members' library on the website. (Remember, you'll need to be logged in to the website for these links to work) Can we remind you that all of the policies and procedures are also available in the "new handbook" view on the website available here or by choosing Members>>Handbook>>NewHandbook from the menus. Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
Recognition badges Many of our volunteers tell us that they don’t do shifts for recognition but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it. We value everything our volunteers do to keep our service on the roads. Behind the scenes the committee has been working on recognition badges. These badges will be presented to members, who have earned them at each quarterly open meeting. Total shifts will be determined from the OLRS system data and its predecessor. Currently this will include riders / drivers / controllers and we’ll be working on working on including fundraisers and speakers (however this may take some time as until recently we had no way of reporting those who attended). The badges can be seen below along with the shifts needed to earn each stage.
We have also created a pin badge that will be for sale to the general public as well as members who want one. Keep your eyes peeled for them being available to purchase in the near future. Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
Stats from 2016‌ We covered approximately 260,000 miles Which needed 30,184 litres of fuel Costing us £31,708 Our fleet had 22 bike services and 3 car services Our cars needed 9 new tyres We completed 9,217 jobs In December alone we completed 984 jobs Bringing the total number of jobs since we came operational in 2014 to 14,601 jobs!
New riders... Frank Soulsby Sam Quigley George Young Ian Judd Daniel Fleming Bill Walton John Williamson
Assessment rides... Alan Bragg Brian Slassor Andy Watson Sean Storey Alan Ross Paul Bainbridge
New drivers... Sam Quigley Ian Garrow Arron Gilbraith Steve Tulloch Alan Johnson (one of them) Kev Robson Raymond Kelly John Buxton John Williamson
Assessment drives... Craig Moodie Rob Wilks Peter Mcewen Malcolm Cramman Barry Bullas Graham Moor Alan Johnson (another one) Mervyn Hilton
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689
FUTURE EVENTS FOR YOUR DIARY: Lots of things happening, and we need your help to support them! If you can help, even if only for a couple of hours, please contact us‌.information is at the bottom of this page. NBB members can register their attendance for most of these events on our website (login required). January Saturday
14
th
Northumbria University 09:00 until 12:00 Induction Meeting (Full details on the event calendar login and registration required)
January
January
Saturday
Sunday
21st
22nd
January
January
Friday
Saturday
27th
28th
Dobbies Ponteland 09:00 until 17:00 and 10:00 until 16:00 We will be back at Dobbies to finish off our year as their chosen charity (Full details on the event calendar login and volunteers required) Tesco Langley Moor 09:00 until 18:00 Our first door collection in this store (Full details on the event calendar login and volunteers required)
We have numerous talks throughout the month in need of speakers. If you are one of our speakers or a trainee wanting to attend a presentation to watch please contact Nigel Barlow our Talks Co-ordinator via his email talks@northumbriabloodbikes.org.uk
February
February
Thursday
Thursday
February
February
Saturday
Sunday
2nd 4th
2nd 5th
Tesco Durham Extra 09:00 until 18:00 Our first door collection in this store (Full details on the event calendar login and volunteers required)
Dobbies Ponteland 09:00 until 17:00 and 10:00 until 16:00 Another weekend opportunity in the store to bring our year as their chosen charity to an end (Full details on the event calendar login and volunteers required)
www.northumbriabloodbikes.org.uk facebook.com/northumbriabloodbikes twitter.com/northumbriabb linkedin.com/company/2866951
FUNDRAISING HOTLINE:
0191 364 3113 - for any opportunities to increase our funding through sponsorship, locations for collecting tins, supermarket events etc‌
Providing effective and timely transportation of essential blood and medical products Registered Charity Number 1166689