Busy times for Arklow Community First Responders
IT’S been a busy time for the Arklow Community First Responders who have been on the receiving end of some great support recently.
The group recently accepted a €500 donation from the annual Liverpool and Manchester United fans’ charity banter match and wishes to offer sincere thanks to John Scanlon, Joseph Byrne, Derek Nolan and Andrew Giles for their support.
The event is organised by Club Managers John Scanlon and Joe Byrne (Manchester United) along with friends Derek Nolan and Andrew Giles (Liverpool) and players travel from across the county to take part hoping to win the prestigious ‘Banter Cup’.
While this year’s match was cancelled due to bad weather, this is its fifth year in operation and it has grown in size every year raising money for a nominated charity, to date this event has raised over €8,000 for charities like Arklow Cancer Support, Ronald McDonald House, Sinead Stem’s of Hope and The Sri Lanka Orphanage. This year’s chosen charities are Arklow Community First Responders and Arklow RNLI.
Links were also forged with Rossendale Community First Responders in North West England while Arklow chairman John Summers was on a visit to the area.
‘I met with Dawn Taylor and Brian Pickup MBE from Rossendale Community First Responders. It was very interesting to compare notes on how both of our groups function and what we could learn from each other. Rossendale CFR have been supporting their Ambulance Service in UK since 2003, both Dawn and Brian have been volunteering since 2004 and 2003 respectively. Their CFR group have installed 25 Public Access Defibrillators in their locality and delivered the BHF Heartstart programme to 1,100 school children over the last academic year. I have continued to keep in touch and there are talks of a possible visit by some of their members to Arklow sometime later in the year,’ said John.