Saturday 4 February 2023

A year of volunteering

On my pre retirement course ( thank you University of Derby, it was the only help I got as I approached early retirement ) one thing stood out and that was 'don't immediately start volunteering' as it's the easiest job to get and the hardest to leave ! 

With that good advice it took me maybe three and a half years before I hooked up with Shropshire Staffordshire and Cheshire blood bikes, I did the rider induction and then took ages due to the  pandemic and associated lockdowns to get my IAM - Institute of Advanced motorcyclists pass/award/certificate. Then I had to be assessed again by the charity before I could ride their bikes, then there was the bike inductions , then there was the buddy ride. 

If I recall correctly the timeline in the broadest of terms was something like ....

Charity introduction and registration  - Autumn 2019

Start to end of the IAM course  July 2020 - September 2021

IAM test and pass - November 2021

SSCBB assessed ride December  2022

Bike location and bike induction (waiting on Fire station pass also) January 2022

My first ride which was a buddy ride where I went out with an experienced rider ( Gareth) 4th February 2022

That was my first Blood bike shift and since its the 4th February when this blog post will appear ( at 6.30am when my alarm goes off for an early blood bike shift) I wanted to record my years statistics

Total shifts     26

Total miles    3839

Total drops*  93

Average miles per shift    147.7

Total hours riding 188.25

I'm not as dedicated as some riders but then again I have other interests. It's a nice thought I've helped so many strangers and the NHS also. The * is the number of stops - there may have been multiple samples left at one stop so the package count will be well into the 100....

I always wanted to ride blood bikes -I've some good friend who also volunteer. However when we lost our good friend Jean Emery to a very aggressive blood cancer, and I know she's have be on the receiving end of work done by unknown number of blood bikers maybe across the country - I wanted to do it in her memory and everytime I ride a shift I think of Jean. 

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