Partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant

During 2021 a partnership between Get Golfing and the NHS Blood donation team was created by the Community Outreach team.

Its aims were simple:

• Raise awareness of the Need for Blood Donors across our sites both within Membership and our Visitor groups.
• Actively engage and sign up donors at our sites.
• Offer our sites as recruitment venues, know your blood type facilities and potential blood donation centres.

We delivered 3 different recruitment events in 2021

Mill Green

The recruitment team were on site for two days (sat/sun) with a putting challenge and Nearest the pin competitions running over the whole weekend. The Sunday competition was rebranded as the Blood Donation Trophy. It saw a high level of engagement and recruitment of over 50 new donors.

Hampton Court

The recruitment team were on site for one day and offered a Whats Your Blood Type (wybt) service where following a finger prick test you could be told your blood type and obviously further information about your blood types role in helping others. The aim at HC was to not only engage golfers but members of the public using the park. There was also a NP competition open to everyone playing the 17th hole and a putting challenge.

Arkley

The recruitment team were on site for one day with wybt and the club running a 9 hole mixed pairs scramble Blood Donation Trophy that included food with the entry.

In total the team recruited over 110 new donors at the events, dispelled a lot of myths about blood donation, promoted the new more inclusive rules for blood donation and had a great impact on the sites.

An expansion of this partnership is planned for 2022 following its success.