Yesterday, on a cold January morning the Race Against Blood Cancer team held their first donor drive of 2018 at the Telford 10K in Telford Town Park, signing up 34 potential life-saving donors.
Donor Drive volunteer team in January at Telford Town Park
The team would like to show their appreciation to Telford Athletic Club for allowing us to host a donor drive at the event. We’d also like to say a massive thank you to our community engagement officer Gemma Elsmore and her fab team of volunteers Natalie White, Rebecca Richards, Kayleigh-Jamie Millis, Sarah Elsmore and Danielle Hoyle.
And finally, a big thumbs up to Joe Bates, Tom Sheppard and Andrew Pugh for running and representing the charity!
Remember if you’re organising an event this year and would like us to be involved by hosting a donor drive then please get in touch!
On 29th July 2017, Race Against Blood Cancer helped organise the event “Remembering Khaleel”, in loving memory of Khaleel Khan, a 12-year-old boy, who sadly lost his battle to Leukaemia earlier in the year.
The event took place at The Duke in Telford and ran from 1 PM – 11.30 PM. The event included a number of stalls such as a tombola, a bouncy castle, hook-a-duck and live music acts every hour up until 8PM. As a boy full of love and life, the day’s events were then followed by a karaoke disco in the bar until 11.30 PM.
After such difficult times, seeing Khaleel’s family and friends enjoying the day and help educate others about blood cancer was vert heart-warming. Over 60 people attended the event and helped us raise £738 that will help Race Against Blood Cancer continue its efforts in giving every single blood cancer patient an equal chance.
We would like to give a special thanks to The Duke’s team for allowing us to use their venue for our event, Craig France for supplying the PA system and entertainment and Simon Holding for S.P. Holdings for the lorry trailer.
We would also like to thank all the music acts who dedicated their time to make this event a success and the local business for their raffle donations.
To Sarah Elsmore, Beth Elsmore, Jonathan Pickering, Liane Elsmore, Matthew Elsmore, Stuart Mcglynn, Carrieann Pickering, Jodie Thompson, Lindsey Jones, Louise Hurcomb, Alivia Elsmore, Jamie Sault, Kirsty Vernon, thank you for volunteering on the day and making it a success.
Khaleel’s family were very thankful for all the support the charity had shown as well as the donations and support from the community through Khaleel’s Leukaemia Journey.
On Sunday 2nd April 2017 Race Against Blood Cancer will have several runners taking part in the Lilleshall Monumental 10K run to raise valuable funds to further our cause.
Even more importantly we plan to run a donor drive on the day in aid of the #Match4Khaleel campaign, which is an ongoing pursuit to find a lifesaving stem cell donor match for 12-year-old Khaleel from Telford.
For anyone interested in taking part in the event, it’s worth noting that the course is arguably Shropshire’s most scenic multi-terrain 10K, which is set in a rural village just outside Newport and is now in its 8th year. The course is mainly off road and with the kind permission of private landowners, it takes in woodland and tracks, passing several historic landmarks.
If you’re interested in joining our team of runners or would like to come down on the day to help us sign up donors to the stem cell register please email ben.westwood@racagainstbloodcancer.com
Media Madness sees our Community Engagement team set a new record at Teads London office.
Teads, a global leader in the video advertising space warmly welcomed our team on Tuesday 6th December. This marked the second drive of Media Madness with the previous record of 97 bone marrow and stem cell donor registrations currently held by Bauer Media.
On the day itself the team registered a willing 60 new donors which was an incredible achievement considering there are only 70 employees in their London office and 65 were in on this particular day.
Despite Bauer Media still topping the Media Madness leaderboard in terms of numbers, Teads set a new record for the per person ratio of those people onsite who came forward to sign up at an impressive 92%. The team at Race Against Blood Cancer couldn’t be any happier with the way the day went, with Teads truly raising the bar in terms of active participation.
A massive thank you to Elle Panes and Jonathan Nash who organised the donor drive for us on the day and did a great job rallying the troops.
November 8th marked our 20th donor drive of a busy 2016 where we were warmly welcomed by an enthusiastic team at Bauer Media UK.
As one of Europe’s largest privately-owned media groups, Bauer Media is an entertainment network of iconic, multi-platform brands.
This particular donor drive was a long time coming and is somewhat fitting that in the end the drive kicked off Media Donor Drive Madness! The highly competitive 4th quarter is where we have several media companies lined up to do end of year donor drives, with each company we visit trying to top the leader board with the most donors signed up on the day.
A massive thank you goes to Ryan Hawking-Skeggs. Not only was Ryan instrumental in organising the donor drive he took Alex our lead on the day from desk to desk to sign people up to the register.
The team would also like to extend its appreciation to everyone who supported on the day and to an extremely willing audience. As a result of such goodwill Media Donor Drive Madness had a hugely impressive start with 97 new donors registering on the day.
The amazing team at Latimer invited Race Against Blood Cancer to their event “Latimer Live” on 27th October held at the ever popular Oval Space in Bethnal Green, London.
Latimer live is an event bringing together the UK’s top emerging talent for a night of live performances and DJ sets. Previous acts have included grime stars Stormzy and Lethal Bizzle.
For those new UK music lovers who have never attended these events before, they come highly recommended. This year’s event had performances from Abracadabra, winner of Best Song at this year’s MOBO awards for Robbery remix with Krept & Konan, Mez, Kojey Radical, Knucks, Snoochie Shy, Chennessey and many more.
The night itself was filled with high energy, good vibes and a lot of dancing. The team signed a total of 32 new donors up which was also great considering the lead time we had in arranging the event. Throughout the night, we also met a number of people who have been affected by blood cancer and were interested to know more on how they could help beyond joining the registry.
This was a great night, full of talent and energy for Race Against Blood Cancer to be present at. We would like to say a massive thank you to Louise, Jack and Alfred at Latimer and to all the people who signed up on the night to help save a life.
Colourful. Fun. Informative. Educational. And Positive – these are the adjectives that describe the Carribbean Culture Festival that Race Against Blood Cancer attended on 3rd July.
Thanks to a few connections and good words on the work that we have done so far, we were kindly invited to join the celebrations at Millennium Hotel on Gloucester Road and run a donor drive as part of the Match4Tommy campaign.
The drive was a roaring success and allowed us to go home fuelled with smiles, love and energy as we managed to sign up 70 new donors to the register, what more with no prior advertising. But thanks to the captive audience, brilliant event organisers and the microphone that we were given to go on stage and talk about our work, our vision and why signing up was so important, we were able to win everyone’s hearts.
As a family friendly environment, a number of people came up to us and mentioned how they felt the Match4Tommy appeal was so important and that it was one of the contributing factors as to why they signed up.
As part of the event, Race Against Blood Cancer was surrounded by great performances, brilliant food and amazing people.
We can’t wait to take part in the event again next year and would like to say a massive thank you to Natasha, Eon and everyone else who helped make the day possible and supported us throughout.
The May Bank holiday weekend was a crazy time for our engagement team as they completed two donor drives within 24 hours and 155 mi apart!
The marathon started on Sunday evening as the team headed to Myyst nightclub in Birmingham to join eager clubbers to raise awareness of the charity.
In our white t-shirts amidst the dressed up crowds, our team definitely stood out! Response was really great though as clubbers happily interacted with us, despite having been queuing in the cold for ages. They also managed to register just under 50 new donors, the majority of which from ethnic backgrounds, making it a very successful event.
The team wrapped up just before 2 AM and drove back down to London for a few hours’ sleep but were back up and running before they knew it as they headed to the Guyana Folk Festival in Croydon.
The tiredness quickly subsided as the music and carnival feel took over and the team started interacting with the festive crowds. With live music, performance, awards, extremely good food and various stalls, it was a great event to celebrate life and get people to sign up as new potential donors. After a brief speech on stage, Alex even ran into Ram John Holder, Porkpie from Desmond’s, backstage which confirmed that it was a great day.
This was a last minute drive and the response we got was great. While dancing and festivities made it hard to register many donors, we did manage to get 26 new registers. The team will also be back for the Guyanese tea party in July where, now that we are known, we expect to see great engagement and a lot more fun to come!
Alex Morrison & Ram John Holder at the Guyana FestivalSingers and dancing at the Guyana FestivalPresentations, speakers and animation at the Guyana FestivalMusic entertained the crowds at the festival
Earlier this year, we headed to Capital Xtra Radio to support the #match4tommy and #match4rilind campaigns. We also got to interview Tommy and Rilind’s mums who keep fighting the battle for their sons everyday.
Watch some of the footage and help spread the word for these amazing little boys who are both still waiting for suitable donors.
Positive energy and colourful vibes were what drove our Race Against Blood Cancer team to the Flagz Mas Band Carnival in Shoreditch in March to raise awareness for the #match4tommy campaign.
There was no better way to change the future of those in need than by engaging with the crowd, dancers and families that came to the event. Our first ever video of the event says it all. Check it out!
