It's been a bit non stop this week! I had a quiet day on Tuesday (Fran's birthday) and went into meet Andrew for lunch on this break. Wednesday I went to pick up the organ donor kit at 8am then I was presenting a case for teaching at work, then busy clinic and then drove straight into town to start assembling the desk for Thursday morning. You could get access in the evening to park nearby to transfer items for your stand and to start building this, otherwise you needed to be there at 8am and have it done for the health and safety check at 8.30am but with no unloading at the site. Luckily Andrew met me and provided his flat pack building skills to put together this podium that you post completed forms into (on loan from Scottish Government) and to pull all the banners up (which I am too small to do) and carry heavy boxes I can't lift! They had upgraded us to a bigger desk which was good because we had lots of stuff to spread out :-)
Thursdsay morning I got the train in and realised when I got there I had forgotten a table cover (these weren't included) so had to leg it up to John Lewis for it opening and buy some paper ones. The desk looked fab once we had it all set out though. We had the two LLTGL banners and also the purple Scottish government one for organ donation. It was myself, Victoria and Kirsty in the morning and then after Kirsty went to work, Gregg came to help for the rest of the day. It was absolutely mobbed - they have about 15,000 students through the doors over 2 days! The encouraging thing was that a massive amount of students had already signed up through their provisional driving license, Boots card or when registering at the GP after moving to uni. For those who hadn't signed up we had a lot of good chats, gave out info and made people atop and think. The students went a bit mad for the logo bugs and we gave out all 300 (having to hold them back to make them last the two days).
Day two was marginally quieter but busier for us as we were able to stop more people and have a chat - when it was too busy it was harder to do this. It was mostly myself and Victoria, although Gregg managed to come down again and help. We got all the people at one of the other stalls to sign up and promised them a logo bug for each person they got to sign up after that - they brought us quite a few as a result! It was good fun although I was utterly exhausted - we were there from 9-5pm both days and I didn't sit down at all. It was also the freak heat wave and inside the tent (with no air con and next to a stall making popcorn) we were melting! However in the two days we signed up 121 people on the spot and gave away hundreds of leaflets to people interested. So it was definately worth it and I think Team Glasgow did well! For pictures go the the Team Glasgow Blog, where Victoria has uploaded them.
I didn't slow down for yesterday as we had a big group of friends over for the night, but it was great fun and I had a fab night. I just tend to cook something easy for people to help themselves so we had chilli con carne (with my portion having no spice haha) and rhubarb crumble. More importantly this year we had a fridge almost entirely dedicated to beer which was rather useful ;) Everyone has just gone home now and I might just need to go for a nap soon...!
Only one day at work then it is my holidays and I can finally stop for a while :-)
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2 comments:
Hi, I am shattered just reading your blog!! Well done Team Glasgow. That's a fantastic result and you all deserve a medal. I hope you try and get a rest now and have a fantastic holiday. lol Anne and John xxxx
Do you also talk about the need to discuss people's wishes about organ donation with their family? I was so surprised at a recent meeting that several people who died in our unit, and were potential organ donors, had been signed up to the register but their relatives declined to consider organ donation when approached by the SNODs (specialist nurse in organ donation).
Seems tragic, to me, that people who wanted to be donors were denied that opportunity because their families declined, frequently stating they didn't believe their loved one would have agreed to it. It is equally tragic for those on the transplant list, desperately waiting and hoping they get a second chance at life.
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