Cheque Presentation

Caravan and Camping Club Cornwall District Association

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On 7th February myself and my wife Joy attended the annual dinner of the Caravan and Camping Club Cornwall District Association at the Ponsmere Hotel in Perranporth.

The event was black tie so Joy was very happy to see me doing my impression of a recently trussed up turkey in my dinner suit.  David, this years Chairman was unfortunately indisposed as he had recently injured his ankle so was sat in the dining room on his own because it was very difficult for him to move around the hotel on crutches.

Introduction over we were shown to the top table for our meal.  To be honest I thought that there would be more than one recipient of a donation during the evening but it was apparently only us…  The guests filed in, hands were shaken and just as we sat down the Chairman leaned across and muttered in my ear.  “Oh I forgot to tell you that we don’t have a guest speaker so if you could chat a bit longer we would be very pleased’.  Gulp!  Yes no problem.

The meal was great and as a practitioner of the art of eating I was very happy, puddings done with and on to the presentation and a huge surprise.

We were presented with a cheque for £1080.84 which completely threw me as I was not expecting such a large amount.

The speech went well they laughed in all the right places and wiped tears away when required so from my perspective it was a great success.

The evening carried on with a band in the function room and lots of enquiries about what we got up to as Blood Bikers so all in all it was a great evening and if I’m honest the dinner suit wasn’t that uncomfortable…

A big thank you to the Caravan and Camping Club Cornwall District Association for their support.

Mark.

Blood Bikes

Happy Birthday Keith

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Up until the middle of last year Keith and Debbie were a regular sight outside supermarkets. Usually freezing cold clutching the little red collection pots in there hands, raising money to keep our bikes on the road.  In addition to that Keith was an avid Blood Bike rider, member of the local advanced motorcycle group CAM and motorcycle instructor.

In 2014 Keith suffered a sporting injury to the head, after surgery at Derriford he started the road to recovery. Unfortunately Keith had been left with sight problems amongst other things and had to surrender his driving licence.

With Keith’s birthday approaching Debbie wanted to do something special for him. Knowing he missed biking she enlisted the help of Terry and Malcolm to take him out the Friday before his birthday.  That’s where we came in. Always looking after our Blood Bike family we sent the fleet bikes along with several members on there own bikes. Everyone using there own fuel so as not to impact on charity funds.

We met up with several members from Cornwall Advanced Motorcyclists (CAM) and the Royal British Legion Riders (RBLR) at Malpas car park in Truro, while Terry and Malcolm collected Keith. They were due to arrive at 10:30 but at about 10:20 I received a text from Terry saying they would be a little delayed as the washing machine had broken down! I was wondering how on earth they were going to ride a washing machine as I was sure Terry and Malcolm both had VFR’s.

At 10:45 Malcolm and Terry pulled into the car park with Keith. We could see the smile on Keith’s face from the end of the car park at the sight of about 20 of us! After he had been round and spoken to all of us we got kitted up and headed off on a ride to Wadebridge via Laddock, Fraddon and Winnard’s Perch which are some of my favourite roads.  Stopping for lunch at Strong Adolfo’s cafe on the A39 we found the perfect time to take some photos. After a very nice lunch we headed back. First heading towards Padstow and then following the coast road to Newquay. Some excellent roads as well as some beautiful coastal views and great weather that made for ideal riding conditions.

At Newquay the Blood Bikes left the convoy and headed for Chapter 1 Diner at Indian Queens, a regular stop of ours for a quick coffee and chat with Darren before returning home to wash the bike ready for tonight’s shift serving the Cornish community.

Happy birthday to you Keith.  It was a real pleasure to see you and spend some time with a great friend of Cornwall Blood Bikes.

James

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BMW 4 Joins our Fleet

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It was a cold Friday morning when Stephan picked me up, being that I am a slightly larger chap it suddenly dawned on me that my genius plan of getting Stephan to drive up and I would ride the bike back, was a little flawed as his MG sports car pulled up.

Anyway, after cramming myself into the passengers seat, luckily without the use of an over sized shoe horn or crowbar, we were off.  About 20 minutes into the journey I discovered another issue with my plan; choosing to wear full bike gear to save getting changed at the other end was not the best of ideas in a small cramped hot car!

The drive to the far side of Bristol was quite interesting.  We saw a car fire, a jack-knifed caravan and lots of roadworks.

Eventually we arrived and were greeted by Pete from the Freewheelers who showed us to our new bike.  We were amazed at how clean it was, it was sparkling, it looked brand new.  I was just about to jump on it and ride off when Pete said “that’s our new bike”!  Well it was worth a try wasn’t it?  Anyway next to it was the bike we had come for an; 07 plate BMW R1200RT.  Stephan and myself had a good look round it and found it to be in far better condition than we had expected.  After a cup of tea we picked Pete’s brain about how they carry out there operations and Pete was most obliging and gave us lots of info so we have lots of things to look at and work on.

Now for the ride home.  The first thing, starting the bike, the switch configuration is different to our other BMW so this had me stumped.  Pete kindly pointed out the starter switch as well as pointing out the gear lever brake pedal and ignition just in case I had issues with those too; didn’t I feel silly!  My thanks to Pete for the warm welcome and being so helpful.

The sun was out and we were on our way back.  We got onto the M4 heading for the M5 South with me in front and Stephan following behind in his car.  With the traffic was moving freely we were making good progress.  After a few miles of driving we came across a sea of brake lights and the journey ground to a halt, well it did for Stephan anyway.  Now here’s where riding a bike has its advantages, carefully filtering where possible I was still making progress all be it slowly.  I made my way through the 3 miles of stationary traffic before coming to the roadworks which I made my way through and it was back to normal road speed again.

The ride back to Cornwall was uneventful and the bike preformed superbly with no issues whatsoever.  The weather was lovely until I got to Fraddon on the A30.  30 minutes from home and all of a sudden I came across the worst hail storm I’ve ridden in.  It just went white in seconds and all the traffic slowed to a crawl.  As quickly as it had started the hail storm stopped and I was left cold and slightly damp.  I was now only 20 minutes from home I carried on in the drizzle and rain.  What a welcome back to Cornwall!

I got home just as it started to get dark tucking the bike away for the night or so I thought, but that’s a story for another time!

James.

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Steve Double Visits

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Ladies and gents, a cold, overcast morning greeted no less than 10 Cornwall Blood Bike riders at the Chapter One Diner outside Dameralls on the morning of Saturday 14th February.  What can I say about the dedication? Tremendous!  Although I was respectfully early, I was beaten by Messrs Forder and Polowski boosting Darren’s profits with a couple of Olympics.

The reason for requesting a turn out?  Well, in the spirit of getting our name out there, I had arranged for us to meet the Conservative Candidate for St Austell & Newquay, Steve Double and his wife Anne whom I had made contact with a couple of weeks ago.  It soon became apparent that they had not heard of us even though they had seen the bikes around the County and were under the impression, as most people are, that we were part of the NHS.

After the greetings had been made, we made our way into the Diner to warm up and get a coffee, and it was now that their eyes were opened to all the aspects of the Charity, especially when shown the statistics and money involved with running the Charity and the amount of cash that we save the NHS Trusts within the county.  They showed great enthusiasm to support us, not only through word of mouth, but by also requesting our permission to use a few pictures of us in their literature which has been allowed.

Steve has a couple of Charities that he raises money for and would like to include us at some stage with his money raising efforts which I believe should be fully supported; so Anne Double produced a very Gucci camera and did the honours.

Later on that night, I received an email from Anne to say that they had been very impressed with the guys, the bikes and the invaluable service that we provide.  They shall be at the April gig; I can only hope that the weather warms up and at least it won’t be Valentine’s Day, so I won’t get any more agro from the wife about who I love more….Blood Bikes/Wife….let me think!!

Heather Wells is running for Cornwall Blood Bikes

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Heather Wells is in preparation and readiness for this year’s The Fifth Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) half marathon near Bodmin on Sunday 22 February 2015 which she will be hoping to complete as this is a gruelling course.  Heather enjoys running as on a leisure basis only, and is not affiliated to any clubs.

With that in mind she has already completed about half a dozen half marathons, various other charity events topped of, (excuse the pun), climbing to the heights of Kilimanjaro raising in excess of £10,000 for Cornwall Hospice Care.

Now she has got her sights on the Bodmin Half Marathon, and with your help and support she has decided to run for the Cornwall Blood Bikes.  She has had first-hand experience of the valuable and precious service the volunteers undertake 365 days a year being a nurse herself and married to Steve who is also a blood bike volunteer.

Heather is pictured here all kitted up ready to take on the role of relief runner, (a new branch / service of Cornwall Blood Bikes –  ahahaha), complete with her bio-satchel in case of a call.  She is fully committed to run all over the county with her new satchel hoping to beat down response times without using all of her shoe leather, although as you will agree she needs some time to prepare for the race!!

We will give you all an update and some pictures of the day’s events, and I am sure that you will all be behind her all the way to the finish.

If you would like to sponsor Heather please download the sponsor form, every pound counts.

Meeting BBC Radio Cornwall

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A beautifully sunny lunchtime greeted ‘our hero’ Mark Holroyd QCB at the studios of BBC Radio Cornwall today (Monday 9th February 2015).  Mark kindly toted the BMW to Truro and it got a tremendous amount of interest from the BBC Staff who took the photo’s you see here.

Our photogenic hero impressed the ladies and gents with the on-board equipment and stats and figures (his own included).  The volume of the sirens were a shock I’m told.

Mark also bumped into a reporter from BBC Spotlight who is keen to report on us in lovely digital pictures on the big flat screen.  As a spin off, Mark has been invited to recant his own varied adventures in the Royal Navy with another reporter for another day.  Even the boys fancy him!

After putting out a Press Release to Cornish Radio and Media, the interest has been quite overwhelming.  BBC Radio Cornwall, Cornish Guardian and Pirate FM are all putting pen to paper to help launch our profile and put us firmly in the media spotlight.  Like so many others, some had no idea we existed, some even thought we were NHS employees and did not realise that we are all unpaid volunteers.

Ian Butler

A New Beginning in 2015

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We were previously known as Cornwall Freewheelers EVS and have changed our name to Cornwall Blood Bikes.  We felt that a change of name was appropriate for our charity as it reflects more accurately the name by which we are generally referred to by members of the public, our partners and our members.

We are nearly always referred to as “The Blood Bikers” as our livery on our bikes displays the word ‘Blood’ in large lettering as well as on our reflective jackets.  We are associated with the National Association of Blood Bikes (NABB), and we feel that our new name provides a more appropriate and accurate identification.

Cornwall Blood Bikes is going from strength to strength.  The amount of jobs we carry out is increasing month on month.

We also have some very exciting things in the pipeline, so keep checking back to see whats happening.

We are very proud to launch our new website which is full of information about our service, including ways in which members of the public can become involved and help us to continue to provide an excellent service for the people of Cornwall.