This is our fundraising page for Donate for Defib Weston-Super-Mare in partnership with the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC), where you can chip into the pot (or put on your own fundraiser!) and support the work of our local air ambulance charity at the same time.

The team behind the project:

Senior Management Team - all roles are voluntary. 

Josh Bell  - Project Lead of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project 

Josh is a former student paramedic who co-founded the project. Josh is now a Customer Relations Advisor for Howards Motor Group, based at Peugeot Taunton. Josh supports the day-to-day operations of the project with emails, operational status, and project management, alongside the Senior Management Team 

Christina Chell - Deputy Project Lead of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project

Christina is a Registered Nurse who supports Josh with the day-to-day operations of the project with emails, day-to-day operations of the project, and various schemes that the project has running and liaising with the team at Great Western Air Ambulance Charity 

Elizabeth Bell - Volunteer Lead of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project

Liz supports the day-to-day operations along with fundraising events as the project expands and drives for more volunteers to join the team. Liz will be supporting the volunteers in their new roles along with various other schemes that we have linked to Great Western Air Ambulance including education, recruitment, and day-to-day operations. 

John Bell - Maintenance Contracting Lead of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project

John will arrange and coordinate the installation of new defibrillators with the electrical teams and contractors that we have as our proud sponsors who volunteer to install them. John also supports our fundraising events and enables the successful installation of our defibrillators and also enables that if there is a maintenance issue within our Project Office, he is often able to fix the problems.  

Peter Elston - Project Lead Ambassador of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project

Peter is our Project Lead Ambassador who coordinates and liaises with local press, companies, organisations, and supporters / proud sponsors. Peter is also a professional photographer and supports the project by taking photographs for the team at events/conferences and arranging meetings with companies and supporters. 

Jay Isaac - Website & Social Media Lead of The Donate For Defib Weston-Super-Mare Project

Jay supports the project, by creating and updating our Social Media & Website. He is currently a college student in Bristol but supports us in his spare time. He has a talent for Social Media / Website Design and is an asset to the Team. His dad, Andy is the owner of The George & Dragon Pub in Weston and they have installed a defibrillator and enabled this to be publicly accessible, which is a great achievement.

Aardvark AVO Electricians

Huge thanks to Matt and Dan from Aardvark AVO Electricians who are kindly installing the defibrillator cabinets for free, as a wonderful contribution to this project. 

AMS Electrical  

Huge thanks to this company who are also supporting the team to install more defibrillators around Weston.

Prof. Graham Stuart, Consultant Cardiologist

Adding professional credibility to the project, Prof. Graham Stuart, a former consultant cardiologist, was welcomed to the team in December 2023.

As the project's clinical lead ambassador, he offers important clinical insight, and the latest research to further inform the project's work.

Sarah Tester & Shas Bricknell 

Sarah & Shas are both Paramedics and work with us within our clinical support team to enable Basic Life Support (BLS) to have further awareness through being our Paramedic Lead Ambassadors.

Malcolm Bowen

Malcolm has years of nursing experience and also runs M De C B Medical within the local area as a First Aid Training Provider, which also supports us and is our Clinical Support Ambassador.

Maya (Defib Dog Mascot)

Maya is a 3-year-old Sheepadoodle and is the project mascot. Maya  loves attending all the fundraising  events and meeting people 

Lucy and Jason Swan 

Lucy and Jason are Maya's owners and both also support the project, Lucy is Maya's PA and an Ambassador for the project.

How you can help

We are currently raising funds by undertaking fundraising events and asking local businesses and groups to donate.And we hope that you can make a donation through this page.Our goal:There are not enough defibrillators in the local community of Weston-Super-Mare and it is vital that a defibrillator is accessible for anyone at any one time. So we’re raising money to fund public access defibrillators, to get as many installed as we can and hopefully ensure that every pub has one or has one very near by.  We need your help to help make this possible. A cardiac arrest can happen to anyone at anytime and with awful survival rates in this country, we can do something about this.CPR & defibrillation before an ambulance arrives can increase the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest from one in 10 to seven in 10. So, to reduce avoidable and needless deaths our goal is that anyone who suffers a cardiac arrest will receive immediate CPR and then defibrillation within five minutes. Each 1-minute delay decreases their survival chances by another 10 percent, so defibrillators need to be close by, publicly available and used. 

Can you help us raise £1705 for each defibrillator?

Along with our public defibrillators, we can continue to raise funds towards the ongoing consumables necessary to keep them rescue ready and any surplus funds will go towards supporting the excellent work of GWAAC.

This extraordinary team of doctors and advanced paramedics respond to the 1% of 999 calls where sending the skill and equipment of a hospital Emergency Department to the patient can save lives. Going to the most serious medical and trauma incidents in Bristol, South Glos, Gloucestershire, North Somerset and B&NES means the team respond to a huge volume of cardiac arrests. In fact, around 25% of their jobs are to this medical emergency.

But they receive no day to day Government funding or National Lottery support.

So let’s dig deep and give what we can to help fund not only our own public access defibrillators accross Weston but the subsequent care GWAAC can provide those suffering a cardiac arrest and anyone experiencing their worst day.

For more information about the defibrillator package: https://greatwesternairambulance.com/what-we-do/aed/