The 472nd meeting was held at Badgemore Park on 12th April 2022.
Reports to the meeting were provided by the Chairman, the Treasurer, and the Friendship secretary.
The guest speaker was Kamran Irani who is Chairman of the Blood Bike Service for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire (SERVOBN):
- This voluntary service provides an ‘out of hours’ urgent delivery service between NHS hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays using a fleet (135) of motorbikes and 2 four wheeled drive vehicles.
- The Blood Bike service originated in London in 1962 and SERVOBN is now one of 36 services in the UK which form the National Association of Blood Bikes; the association through its services provides a medical transport service to the NHS, free of charge. All services are funded by public donations and are staffed by unpaid volunteers.
- SERVOBN itself has 26 hospitals in its area and during 2021 received 3500 calls. Its corporate sponsors are BP and the AA.
- In addition to the distribution of blood SERVOBN is also heavily involved in the collection and delivery of human donor milk to/from the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford which is 1 of 18 milk processing centres in the UK
Kamran was an excellent speaker, and the talk was very well received by the Club members.