Club Chronicle

18 April 2024: St John Ambulance

Sarah Baron visited us today to talk about St John Ambulance. She is a volunteer fundraiser covering London and Essex.

St John Ambulance can trace its origins back to the founding of the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem in 1104. An English priory was established in 1140 in Clerkenewll, where the Order of St John Museum can be found today. The Order is an international organisation to which St John Ambulance England is affiliated.

St John Ambulance relies heavily on its 44,385 volunteers. In England there are 1,306 Units of about 20 volunteers each, organised into four Regions. It runs training courses, including courses for workplace First Aiders, and attends community events such as football matches and the London Marathon, providing a rapid response and relieving pressure on the NHS ambulances.

In addition to the familiar St John ambulances, there are Cycle Response Units. These cost £15,000 each and are effectively mobile First Aid units on two wheels, manned by highly trained, experienced and dedicated volunteers. On standby at events like marathons, they can quickly access places ambulances can not get to easily and treat people on the scene.

There are also Community Support Units, costing £75,000 each. These are not ambulances, although they look similar. They are used to transport First Aid equipment and volunteers to events and act as an on-the-spot bases for the volunteers.

In addition to the adult volunteers, St John has two youth groups, Badgers for those aged 5-10 and Cadets for those aged 10-17. Obviously they cannot provide the same First Aid services as adults. Badgers are encouraged to learn First Aid, make new friends, learn how the body works and how to stay healthy, and develop leadership and communication skills. Cadets take part in interactive programmes leading to the St John Grand Prior Award.

Spring Jumble Sale 2024

We held our annual Spring Jumble Sale on Saturday, 20 April 2024 - at the Danbury Village Hall as usual. Members attended in the morning to sort out the jumble into categories and set up the tables and the auction for the more valuable items. The photograph shows the hall when this work had been completed.

The jumble sale itself took place in the afternoon, manned by volunteers from our Club and from the Village Hall. The total sales came to £517.20, an excellent result. Our thanks to all who helped on the day setting-up, helping on the stalls and clearing up afterwards. It was a very successful day.

Rotary Young Musician District Final

The District 1240 Final of Rotary Young Musician was held at Brentwood Cathedral on Saturday, 2 March 2024. There were nine competitors sponsored by Clubs around the District, including three sponsored by us. Others in attendance included the Mayors of both Brentwood and Chelmsford, the District Governor and District Governor Elect (our own Anne Moriaty), many other Rotarians and others who had come to support competitors.

The performers’ standard was very high indeed. The adjudicators had a difficult task deciding on placings. The winning vocalist was Rose Buggle (sponsored by us and by the Rotary Club of Brentwood). The runner-up was Katherine O’Hanlan (also sponsored by us). Our instrumentalist was unplaced.

Writtle Christmas Tree Festival

We again entered a Christmas tree into the annual Christmas Tree Festival at All Saints Church, Writtle. This took place over the weekend of 2-3 December 2023.

We didn’t seek to impress with the beauty of our tree or the design that went into placing the decorations. Instead we used the opportunity to publicise our Club’s concern about the disposal of used blister packs from pills and tablets. We loaded the tree with decorations handmade from blister packs.

An accompanying display card explained why we had done so and the extent of the problem caused by the difficulty of recycling blister packs. (We had to close our own recycling project due to the increased cost.) It certainly created some interest. Hopefully it also made more people aware of the situation.