News from the Effingham NFR Group at the end of a busy 2006

The NFR group in Effingham was formed in November 2006. Between that date and 31st December 2006 we responded to over 26 emergency calls in the local area. We attended calls such as asthma attacks, chest pains, falls, allergic reactions and a cardiac and respiratory arrest. On all occasions our responders arrived within 3 - 4 minutes of the call being passed to them by ambulance control in Banstead.

Since our launch we have had some very generous donations from many different people and organisations. We recieved two donations from residents of the village, a large grant from Surrey County Council and some funds from St. John Ambulance Surrey.

Recently the sixth form of The Howard of Effingham School, Lower Road, Effingham have been fundraising on our behalf, by having a mufti day and giving us some of the proceeds from their Christmas ball. One of our responders Craig Chitty visited the local Rotary Club at one of their meetings in December 2006 and gave a talk on the NFR scheme in Effingham. They are holding a large fundraising event in March that they have promised some of the proceeds will be directed our way.

We have now bought one whole responder kit including a defibrillator, oxygen kit, entonox pain relief kit, and an extensive first aid kit. We have purchased a second defibrillator, oxygen kit and first aid kit and hope to raise enough money to make this into a full kit soon.

Our aim for 2007 is to subdivide the Effingham responder scheme into 3 areas and have 3 responders on duty at any one time. One for Effingham, one for Bookham and one for Horsley. To achieve this we need to keep fundraising to buy one more responder kit and even more importantly we need to recruit more members! So if you are interested please contact us as courses are running all the time at St. John Ambulance county headquaters.

May I take this opportunity to thank the following people / organisations for their help in setting up the Effingham NFR scheme. Grafix Printing in Mayford, Surrey County Council and our local councillors, Bob Hutton, James Nicholls, Normandy NFR Scheme, the local shops of Effingham and everyone else I have failed to mention.  I would also like to welcome on board our first responder in the Bookham area, Chris Bridges.