Our community fundraiser Amanda, CSR & philanthropy specialist Tasha, and paramedic Andy had the pleasure of paying the lovely people of the Isle of Man a visit last week…
Their itinerary was jam-packed with meetings, catch-ups, collection box servicing, and even a radio interview.
We spoke to Amanda who shared the following highlights from their trip over the Irish Sea.
Tuesday
We arrived on the Isle of Man on Tuesday afternoon and our first stop was visiting the lovely ladies at Peel Charity Shop, following their amazing donation of £30,000 in May.
Their support to date for our charity has been phenomenal.
From there we went to collect our van from our lovely volunteer Brian, who kindly cleaned it and made sure it was up and running ready for our visit.
We then went to Energy FM where Andy did a pre-recorded interview to raise awareness of the importance of our service on the Island.
Later I met with supporter Matthew, who is taking part in the Parish Walk in aid of GNAAS after his daughter Issie was transferred by our helicopter from Noble’s Hospital to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, when she was a few months old. Thankfully she is doing really well now.
I then had a phone call with one of our volunteers to discuss the different opportunities available and she offered to service collection boxes in Port Erin.
Wednesday
Wednesday started nice and early with a meeting with Isle Of Man Advertising & PR to discuss our advertising plans going forward.
Afterwards we split up, and Natasha and Andy went to meet an existing supporter while I serviced some collection boxes. Along the journey I visited Murray’s Motorcycle Museum for a catch up as well as emptying their collection boxes.
We all met back up again to speak to a lovely lady whose family are taking part in a challenge in October to raise funds and awareness for our charity and then had a meeting with some of the team at Thomas Miller to tell them all about us.
We’re still working hard to raise our profile on the Isle of Man and ELS kindly let us use their facilities to host an awareness meeting.
Attendees included some of our volunteers and supporters who have fundraised for us, as well as a number of people wanting to find out more about us and how things are progressing on the Isle.
We started off with a general introduction and then delivered our community presentation followed by some photo opportunities and further conversations before finishing off with some volunteer information gathering and training.
We finished the day having an evening meal with Will Bellamy, head of Isle of Man Ambulance Service, and spoke all things GNAAS and Isle of Man and discussed future plans for our service.
Thursday
On the final day Andy had his own meetings, so Natasha and I headed up to Ramsey for a meeting with a supporter and did some collection box servicing while out and about. Along the way we met a volunteer and organised some banking to be done over the next few days.
After returning the van we headed to the airport and made our way back home, with plenty to work on and plan for, before our next visit.
Share
