As you all know, we set out to raise £1000 last year to purchase a community defibrillator for Twynholm. We reached our target, and we have in place a community Defibrillator – which anyone can access in an emergency. If we’re closed, just hammer on the front door!!
We’ve also had 2 HeartStart sessions in the village, which has shown people how to carry out emergency first aid & see how easy it is to use the Defib machines.
The good news was that we were able to purchase a refurbished machine from the Stewartry Voluntary Service for £250, which meant we had money spare (£1151.95) – it was then agreed that this was to be used towards setting up a First Responder Team in the Village. We have a number of volunteers willing to be involved and we have been awaiting news from SVS about the training and setting up the team.
After waiting for a long time, I decided to contact the Ambulance Service directly, to see if I could speed things up. The cost of the equipment is about £3000, so I needed to check exact costs, timing, so that we could apply for additional funding through the SVS.
Well, I’ve finally got somewhere… to cut a long story short, it doesn’t seem that there is a need for a First Responder Team in Twynholm – which I suppose is excellent news for all the residents!!
However, this does mean, that we have spare funds, which we need to ‘redirect’. I suggest a meeting of anyone involved/interested to discuss possible options. I can also give details of the conversation I had with the First Responder Team Coordinator about the First Responder Team.
Tuesday 11th March – Star Hotel at 7pm
I will also ask the Shop, Burnbank & Garage to display posters asking people to attend the meeting – if you could all pass on the day/time to anyone you think might be interested, that would be great.
