Celebrating 4 years of Give Blood 4 Good (GB4G) at Blood Ball 2024
It’s hard to put into words how grateful we are to everyone who joined us at Blood Ball on May 4th and helped to make it the incredible success that it was. From those who purchased raffle tickets, to the people who bid on auction prizes, we can’t thank everyone who came enough for their kindness, generosity and support.
The event itself was a fantastic marker of how we’ve grown as a charity since our first Blood Ball in 2022, where 125 people joined us to celebrate 2 years of being a registered charity. At Blood Ball 2024, 325 people were in attendance. 325 wonderful people who helped us raise a total of £21,762.37 on the night - we are truly lost for words!
The money that has been raised is crucial for our development as a charity, and we’re so excited to invest this into growing our educational programmes and to ultimately encourage more young people across Scotland to give blood sooner.
Watch this space for more exciting updates on exactly how we’ll be using this money, but in the meantime, you can reminisce on what a wonderful evening we all had by looking through all the official photos from the event: GiveBlood4Good - Blood Ball 2024 | Flickr
We already can’t wait for Blood Ball 2026, and hope to see you all there to celebrate 6 years of GB4G!
In case you missed it - we’ve officially welcomed our first GB4G Ambassador, Ollie Smith!
We were delighted to announce Ollie Smith as our first ever GB4G Ambassador at Blood Ball. In his role, Ollie will be working with us to raise awareness of blood donation among young people in Scotland, through delivering school talks to high school students, sharing content on his social media channels, and participating in interviews to highlight his personal commitment to blood donation and why it’s so important to give blood.
Ollie has been donating blood for several years and has continued to do so in memory of his brother Patrick. Ollie has had a great start to his role as an Ambassador by being the keynote speaker at the James Gillespies’ end of year Sports Evening - more on this below!
Keep your eyes peeled to see what Ollie will be doing to encourage more young people to become lifelong blood donors!
We’ve already started growing as a charity since Blood Ball, and are thrilled to welcome our new Fundraising and Events Officer - Hannah Fenwick!
Hannah recently joined the GB4G team, and we are so excited to have her - she’s already hit the ground running!
During her time at The University of Edinburgh, Hannah was inspired by the work carried out by GB4G, especially the incredible work our BBUS does to encourage more young people to give blood. Hannah has enjoyed seeing the charity grow and looks forward to joining us on the next part of our journey, and hopefully inspire others to get involved and save some lives along the way.
Her role will include managing all the wonderful people who choose to organise events to raise money for GB4G, support us applying for grant applications to ensure we have sustained income to execute our growth strategy, as well as developing corporate and strategic partnerships where possible to help us to continue to grow as a charity.
We’re still looking for a dynamic, rigorous and motivated Finance Coordinator to join our team - if you’re interested, please read the full job description on our website and get in touch to apply: https://www.giveblood4good.org/joinourteam
We’ll be sharing details of more vacancies over the next few months, so keep your eyes peeled if you might like to join the GB4G team!
World Blood Donor Day
We were on Sky News!
Our #BloodyBrilliant Co-Founder Martha spoke on Sky News in June about the NHS cyber attack, and why it was so important that people with O-type blood booked an appointment to give blood. It was a fantastic interview, and we particularly loved her advice to first-time donors!
To listen to the full interview with Sky News, follow the link: https://www.giveblood4good.org/press-releases
We ran a giveaway!
To celebrate World Blood Donor Day, we held a giveaway on Instagram, where five of our fabulous new tote bags, coasters and notebooks were up for grabs. We asked people to tag their friends and share the post to encourage more people to follow GB4G and learn about blood donation, and we were so pleased to see over 50 people enter. Congratulations to the lucky winner Nicole Stanton!
We spoke to Lloyds Banking Group and Volunteering Matters to raise awareness of blood donation
Finally, we were honoured to be invited to speak with staff at Lloyds Banking Group and Volunteering Matters to celebrate World Blood Donor Day on June 14th.
The presentations focussed on the criteria for giving blood and how this has changed over the last few years for LGBTQ+ donors, as well as why it’s so important for people from all communities and ethnic backgrounds to give blood. During our talks, we also shared experiences of people who have received blood transfusions to reinforce the impact the act of giving blood can have on someone’s life.
Both talks saw lots of engagement from the attendees and we received some really positive feedback from the event. We’re excited to be able to offer this to more companies, so if you would be interested in arranging a talk from GB4G for your organisation, please get in touch at hello@giveblood4good.org for more information!
Our Communications and Engagement Officer, Megan, won an award!
We’re so proud of Megan for winning the Early Career Achiever in Healthcare Communications award at the recent Communique Awards in London.
Megan is a key part of our team and does incredible work to encourage more young people to give blood. We can’t think of anyone more deserving, and we’re so grateful for everything she does for GB4G every day!
Our BBUS have been nothing less than absolutely #BloodyBrilliant!
Since the beginning of the academic year in September, our 13 university volunteers have had a profound impact on the number of students across the UK giving blood. They’ve encouraged 752 people to pledge to give blood, of which 64% were first-time donors. That’s up to 2,256 lives saved or improved by the incredible work our BBUS have been doing across Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow university - where they’ve even supported students in Manchester and Cambridge organise blood drives!
Read on to learn more about what each BBUS has been up to this year to encourage more young people to start giving blood.
Edinburgh
It has been a truly incredible year for the BBUS at The University of Edinburgh. The team has grown significantly since last year with 9 passionate volunteers and plans to recruit many more students this summer.
A number of amazing events were organised, where Maddie and Eliza kicked off the year by working into the early hours of the morning at the annual Super Bowl Party, manning a face painting and temporary tattoo stand to raise money and spread awareness about the importance of giving blood. This event marked the beginning of a new partnership with the Edinburgh Mavericks American Football Club, with GB4G already set to sponsor the event again next year!
The annual pub quiz that was set up by last year’s BBUS continued with a fantastic night of laughs and learning about all things blood donation. Over 50 people attended and some excellent prizes were dished out (with Tunnocks tea cakes of course being included!), and £180 raised over the course of the evening.
A library stall was also set up each semester, where our BBUS answered questions about giving blood and handed out home-baked goodies when appointments to donate were booked. This contributed to 230 new blood donors at Edinburgh University, which is absolutely amazing! Overall, the team organised 16 blood drives where a diverse range of societies at the university got involved in giving blood, with 292 pledges to donate. The Edinburgh BBUS also supported sports clubs and societies at Manchester and Cambridge University organise blood drives, with 64 and 60 students pledging to give blood respectively. Overall, the fantastic work of our Edinburgh BBUS has resulted in an incredible 416 pledges to give blood - we’re so proud!
Finally, Rhona wrote a couple of brilliant articles for The Student Newspaper, spreading the word about the amazing work that GB4G does as well as her experience of living with a rare blood disease, reinforcing how blood donation is likely to touch everyone’s life at some point. The team is already discussing their ideas for next year, and the BBUS volunteers are ready to challenge themselves to do even more for GB4G!
Aberdeen
It has been a fantastic second year for the Aberdeen BBUS team, where Beth, Dillion and Innes have done some amazing work to encourage more university students to give blood.
They have worked alongside Kimberley at Scotblood to host an on-campus blood drive each semester - one in November, and one in February. As part of the team’s efforts to encourage students from clubs and societies to donate blood, they worked with members of these societies to raise awareness of the upcoming blood drives and used their personal contacts to promote blood drives - including on social media. In November, the semester 1 blood drive saw 141 donations, with 61 first-time donors. The semester 2 blood drive in February then saw 142 donations, with 53 first-time donors - more students wanted to take part, but unfortunately were not able to due to appointments booking up so fast!
Our Aberdeen BBUS also arranged talks with the hockey and rugby sports clubs before training sessions about GB4G, the importance of blood donation and how to get involved in their blood drives. In addition to their blood drives and talks to sports teams, they hosted a pub quiz in November and managed to raise a fabulous £250!
Glasgow
It has been a fun and exciting first year for our Glasgow BBUS, with Rosie working independently to raise awareness of blood donation among her peers. She has done an amazing job working to encourage more Glasgow students to give blood, where Sasha and the other BBUS team members in Aberdeen and Edinburgh have supported her throughout the year and ultimately helped Rosie to successfully run her first blood drive!
The biggest achievement this year for the Glasgow BBUS was running a blood drive and competition with Glasgow University's MedChir Society. The blood drive lasted 10 days and was run as a competition between all medic sports clubs. In total, 49 people pledged to give blood from 9 different sports clubs, with 34 people being first time donors! It was a fantastic first blood drive for our Glasgow BBUS, and the experience will help us to pave the way for more in the future.
This year, Rosie also spoke to the 3rd year medical students during their haematology teaching course to tell them about GB4G, the process of donating and why it is so important to regularly donate. For the next academic year, Rosie will be working closely with Fiona at Scotblood to try and organise an on-campus blood drive, which will be the first time this has been done since the pandemic. To grow our presence in Glasgow, we are looking for more enthusiastic fellow students to join Rosie for the 2024/25 academic year - we’re so pleased that Rosie will be continuing her role next year, and if you’d like to learn more about what you could do to support her, we’d love to hear from you!
Manchester
We mentioned earlier that our Edinburgh BBUS supported the Manchester University Water Polo Club to organise a blood drive in February, where 64 people pledged to donate blood, of which 49 were first time donors.
We are so proud of Kez and James who organised this blood drive, who won the Social Responsibility prize at the University of Manchester sports awards for their outstanding achievement, where they have saved or improved up to 192 lives.
They have passed on the baton to current water polo team members who are already organising another blood drive - we’re so proud of our BBUS for already growing their presence in England!
we're so proud of our young ambassadors!
We’re so proud of the 13 students at the Anderson High School (AHS), The Glasgow Academy (TGA) and Jordanhill who completed our Young Ambassador Programme this academic year. They have done some fantastic work to raise awareness of blood donation amongst their peers (with some even giving blood for the first time!) - read on to learn more!
Anderson High School
Our Young Ambassadors at the Anderson High School (AHS) ran a Bingo Night earlier this year to improve awareness of blood donation, while raising money for GB4G at the same time.
A total of £745.73 was raised during the fundraiser, which will go directly towards making improvements to our Young Ambassador Programme and encouraging more schools to sign up across Scotland. We’re so proud of the AHS students for organising such a fantastic event and raising an incredible amount of money - we think you’re all #BloodyBrilliant!
The Glasgow Academy (TGA)
Some of our Young Ambassadors at TGA organised a “Basketball in the Blood” event to raise awareness of the link between healthy lifestyles and sport, to being a fantastic potential blood donor.
Students competed against each other in a “killer” format, scoring baskets against one another and the clock. The winner, Aiden, won a brand new basketball, but nobody was left empty handed with all of the participants receiving sweets at the end of the event!
The atmosphere was competitive - but of course friendly! - and there were plenty of questions for our Young Ambassadors about what the event was for, and importantly who could be eligible to give blood in the future. This is very in keeping with the purpose of our Young Ambassador Programme, which is all about dispelling myths about blood donation, and establishing it as a normal part of being a 17-year-old, in the hope that these young students will become lifelong donors.
We were also so pleased to see a group of our Young Ambassadors visit the Glasgow Blood Donor Centre and donate blood while taking part in our programme. The students were joined by their awesome teacher, Katherine Graham, who earned her 50th donation badge, as the students proudly made their first donations. What an inspiring group of people - it’s amazing to see the impact our programme is having on these incredible people from such a young age!
Strathallan
In April this year, we were delighted to visit Strathallan school with our new Ambassador Ollie, to give a talk to the students about our Young Ambassador Programme and the importance of blood donation. We’re so grateful to the staff and students for being so welcoming, and are so excited to work with Strathallan to improve awareness of blood donation and hopefully encourage some of their students to give blood for the first time!
James Gillespies' Sports Awards Evening
At the beginning of June, Sasha and Ollie attended James Gillespies’ Sports Celebration Evening, where they celebrated students participating in sport and presented a number of awards.
Ollie delivered the keynote speech, where he spoke about his rugby career and the impact his time at Strathallan School had on him, as well as the hardships and setbacks he has experienced within the sport so far. Ollie also spoke about GB4G and why encouraging more young people to give blood in memory of Patrick is so important to him.
Thank you to James Gillespies for inviting us along! We look forward to continue working with you to raise awareness of blood donation in future.
Would your school be interested in taking part in our Young Ambassador Programme this year?
We’re so excited to have some of these schools participate in our programme for a second year running, and look forward to telling you more about the other schools who will be taking part over the next few months.
If you would be interested in hearing more about our Young Ambassador Programme, or having Ollie come and speak with your students about blood donation, we’d love to hear from you. Email mpetursdottir@giveblood4good.org to learn more 💌
Donor Spotlight - Lorna’s Story
During Lorna’s pregnancy in 2022, she experienced a life-threatening complication where she needed several blood and platelet transfusions.
Lorna puts her experience very simply - if it had not been for the blood transfusions she received that day, she would not have survived. We encourage you to take a moment to read Lorna’s story and learn more about the impact blood donation has had on not only her own life, but Lorna’s whole family.
Follow the link to read her full story: https://www.giveblood4good.org/lornas-story
What else has been going on at GB4G?
Rachel’s Blood Drive
To celebrate what would have been Rachel’s 23rd birthday on the 18th of December 2023, we were honoured to partner with Rachel’s friends and family to organise a blood drive in her memory.
Rachel sadly passed away in May last year following a three and a half year battle with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), a type of blood cancer. During her treatment, Rachel went through multiple intensive treatments, including a bone marrow transplant and too many rounds of chemotherapy to count. Rachel relied on hundreds of blood transfusions during this time - without donated blood, her treatment would not have been possible.
The response to Rachel’s blood drive was absolutely incredible, with 235 people pledging to donate blood in less than two months - that’s up to 705 lives saved or improved. We are so grateful to every single person who donated blood in memory of Rachel. She will always have a legacy of encouraging a new generation of people to give blood at GB4G, and it’s one of our charity’s proudest achievements yet to have supported her family and friends to create this for Rachel.
We’ve had three amazing people raise money for GB4G
As Eve isn’t able to donate blood at the moment, she instead decided to raise money for GB4G by running a half marathon in Dubai earlier this year. Eve has absolutely smashed her target, and raised £700 for GB4G! Eve, we think you’re #BloodyBrilliant and we’re SO grateful that you would choose us to fundraise for. Thank you!
At the end of May, Nadia completed the Edinburgh half marathon and raised an incredible £762 for GB4G in the process. Nadia chose to raise money for GB4G in memory of her cousin, Jordan, and the aim of her fundraiser was to encourage people who would not normally donate to book an appointment and donate if they can.
On Saturday 15th June, Max ran the Threshold series 100km ultramarathon to raise money for GB4G. As a passionate and regular blood donor, while raising awareness and encouraging more people to become blood donors during the event, he also wanted to raise money for GB4G. Max smashed his target of £500 and has raised £1,133!
Would you be interested in fundraising for GB4G?
As a small charity, donations like these have a huge impact on the work we can do to encourage more young people to give blood. There are so many reasons why people can’t donate blood, however if you’d like to follow in Eve, Nadia and Max’s footsteps and do something to encourage others to give blood, we’d love to hear from you.