Kingsley and Kingsley Holt Community Defibrillator Fund

Following is an article submitted to the Stunner Newspaper in Cheadle regarding a great community effort that has seen over £1000 raised in two weeks to fund the cabinets to house these devices.

We are now arrnaging free heart start courses ran by the Ambulance Service – the first course is on 27th January 2015 between 1900 hrs and 2100 hrs at the hall. If you are interested then use the contact form here to emauil us or use our Facebook page and use a comment on the relevant post.

Residents of Kingsley and Kingsley Holt have clubbed together to raise over £1000 in just over two weeks to house two defibrillators in the villages.

It all started when the West Midlands Ambulance Service Twitter feed announced that a device was available for relocation. Contact with them was made and developed to a point where two devices were made available, one for each village.

The project spearheaded by Kingsley Village Hall committee via their Facebook page saw residents mobilised to start a fundraising effort to pay for the secure cabinets required to house the devices. By Christmas Eve over £600 had been collected or pledged and since then money has continued to come in.

Local clubs, organisations and individual residents have all donated in what has turned out to be a real community effort that has been  full of the spirit  of Christmas. Local businesses have also stepped in to help and offers from electricians to install the devices for free have also been made.

The Blacksmiths Pub in Kingsley Holt who are to be the site for that villages device agreed to allow free entry into the pub on New Year’s eve but asked for donations to be made instead in a collection bucket kept behind the bar. When the bucket was opened this last weekend it contained over £530.

The devices are life savers and if used early dramatically increase a person’s chance of survival when compared with not using the device. The devices are simple to use and guide the user through the process – the device will not allow itself to  be used if the persons heart rhythm is not suitable for application.

As part of the installation process the Ambulance Service will deliver free basic heart start training to members of the local community.

Said Martyn Hordern Chair of the village hall ‘we are astounded at the reaction, our Facebook page has had so many views and this has captured the  communities desire to contribute,  it’s been so pleasing to see everyone coming together with a common purpose, these devices may well one day save someone’s life’

He added ‘the Blacksmiths have been a great help and have raised almost half the amount and the money is still coming in both there and from elsewhere in the area’

Now that the funding is all but in place the project will move onto ordering the cabinets and arranging the training  which is open to anyone over the age of ten.