Pupils draw new blood to sessions

PUPILS organised a blood donor session at their school.

The NHS Blood Donation Service’s bloodmobile visited the Minster School, Southwell, on Tuesday.

Seven pupils, aged 12-17, from the school’s T5 tutor group, led by their tutor Mrs Helen Charnley, organised the visit.

Their interest in giving blood was sparked while researching the topic for an assembly.

The session was open to staff and sixth form students as the minimum age for a donor is 17.

About 40 people gave blood including more than 25 sixth form students and 16 staff.

More than 30 of those who volunteered were new donors.

Jack Chandler (15) one of the session organisers, said they tried to encourage as many students as possible to donate.

He said: “If one person donated blood they could save a life so we wanted to get as many people as we could.”

Lizzie Abell (15) said other schools should follow their example and ask the bloodmobile to visit.

She said: “Everyone should try to give blood.

“It was quite easy for us to get people to donate because when one person said they would, everyone else wanted to as well.”

The other pupils who help organise the donation session were Jake Saleh (12) Conor Graham (13) Rachel Glinn-McIntyre (14) Rebecca White (16) and Lewis Lindsay (17).

It was the first time the bloodmobile had visited the school and Mrs Charnley said she hoped it would visit again next year.

A sixth form student, Aimee Ferguson (17) gave blood for the first time and said although she was worried, it went better than she expected.

She said: “The assembly we had about blood donation raised my awareness.

“I had never really thought about it before but because the van was coming here I thought I would.”

Aimee thought it was good that the van came to the school.

She said: “It made people aware that giving blood was easy to do and the van was just outside the school so there was no excuse not to.”

Aimee said she would give blood again.

She said: “My mum and dad have always given blood and I think it’s a good thing to do.

“You see it in the news all the time that people need operations and have blood transfusions, and you just take it for granted that there will be blood there if you need it.”

Chris Keil (17) also gave blood for the first time.

He knew there was often a shortage of blood so wanted to donate.

He said: “I want to be a doctor so I thought this would be a good thing for me to do. It will help me empathise with people I’m trying to take blood from.”