Volunteering and charity

If nothing else this period of virus lockdown will hopefully generate a more tolerant and helpful society. Our charitable giving has increased, it makes me feel better and hopefully others benefit in difficult times. No one should feel bad if they can't give in a physical way as there will be many worrying about their personal future. But to give  a smile, a hello, a thank you to stranger, to the postman the delivery driver all helps. I've given boxes of 'Heros' to both our post ladies  and the two bin crews all very gratefully received, more the thought than the item. I've given beer to the delivery drivers and put stuff out for collection to the many walkers from the village we've said hello to. We also put some water out for the doggies to have a drink on their extra walks !

Smiles are like an extra vitamins to me !

Last year we lost a good friend to a severe Leukaemia, she died very quickly, very young and far too soon. She was a beautiful soul, kind and just lovely. We were told she had received over 80 'bags' of blood products from all over the country to try and kick start her bone marrow after the Chemotherapy. I have no doubt much of that was brought to her by blood bikes.

Blood bikes is a charity I have supported in the past and do so now. Some of my biker friends are  blood bikers in the North West, south coast and Wales. I am a member of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire blood bikes. I joined up late last year but due to my mother in laws sad health issues and some of my own I never progressed past the induction phase and I am still in the process of doing my IAM training which is required to be able to ride their fleet of bikes.

Here is their web site - CLICK ME

Now we have no longer the caring responsibilities to Christine and I have had some positive news on my health issues I am rearing to go but cannot get the IAM training done so I have put myself forward for 'controller' training.  The charity needs controllers to take calls on a duty rota for hospitals for all sorts of things to be transported as quickly as possible at no charge to the NHS. Our charity is moving a lot of extra stuff right now including PPE, blood products, faecal matter, baby milk.... the list goes on. I hope to get the training remotely to enable me to be on the rota to do my bit. The controller tracks the bike from start of the job to turning the key off, to ensure their back is covered.

If we all do our bit we will make this whole episode so valuable. In my working days I really advocated learning by evaluation. Everything we do we need to reflect on to extract the positives and negatives the learning and therefor improvements for the future.... this is what this period of challenge is presenting to us.

I'll hopefully be able to share my engagement further as time goes on but if you see a blood bike on the road, give it some room to make progress, it will be on its way to helping someone out there  - maybe even someone you know or love !