A DEFIBRILLATOR has been installed at Avon Bowls Club after the town’s Singalong Group raised the outstanding funds for the club to purchase the equipment.
The defibrillator was installed on Friday 1st March, after the Singalong Group, who meet at the Avon Bowls Club every week, raised the outstanding £620 of the overall £1,399 cost of the defibrillator.
“My 30+ singers sang our way to success and donated £2 per session each for around three months, which helped raise the rest of the funds,” explained the leader of the group, Dee Phesse. “People were really happy to be singing and raising money for a good cause.”
The defibrillator has been purchased and installed after one of the Avon Bowls Club members died from a heart attack a few years ago. “A defibrillator may have made all the difference,” said club secretary, Richard Bell. “After an initial time when donations came in fairly steadily and reached over £700, we were undergoing a dry spell of no donations. Dee and the singalong group offered to make donations to the club and it is a magnificent achievement.
“The new defibrillator gives a bit of security and gives us knowledge. The age of many of our members makes them more likely to have a heart attack than perhaps a younger group of people. If somebody does collapse with a heart attack, the equipment is there now until the arrival of the emergency services.”
Members of the bowls club and the Singalong Group have also received online training to learn how to use the equipment.
The locations of defibrillators in the town are: Melksham Riverside Centre; AVAD Convenience Store, Forest Road; Water Meadow Pub, Cranesbill Road; Melksham Assembly Hall in the Market Place; Melksham Fire Station, Semington Road; Melksham Store, Beanacre Road; the SSE Building, Spa Road; and the pavilion in King George V Park.
Defibrillators in rural areas can be found at: The Pilot Pub, Bowerhill; the pavilion at Bowerhill Sports Field; The New Inn, Berryfield; Berryfield Village Hall; Shaw Village Hall; Whitley Reading Rooms; St Barnabas Church (entrance porch), Beanacre; and at Westbury Packaging on Lancaster Road, Bowerhill Industrial Estate.
If anyone is interested in joining the Singalong Group, please email Dee first, rather than just turn up, due to limited space. Email is singalongwithdee@gmail.com
To contact Richard at the Bowls club, email abc-secretary@hotmail.co.uk