Uddingston’s award winning effort to help keep the community safe

Our utterly altruistic Uddingston team were celebrated at this year’s Scottish First Aid Awards for playing their part in making the community a safer place.

Following the tragic passing of a member of the public in their retail park’s car park due to a heart attack, the Currys Uddingston team decided to take action themselves to raise funds for a defibrillator to be installed on the retail park.

Led by inspiring General Manager and trained First Aider, Allan Walker, the defibrillator was just the beginning of a series of initiatives devised by individual members of the team to raise awareness of the importance of effective first aid response: from in-store events to train customers in first aid, to going into schools and educating the younger generation on how to respond in an emergency situation.

"I'm unbelievably proud of this team who took home the national award for Community First Aid Champions and were shortlisted for in the Employer of the Year category. The dedication of the team in coming up with novel ideas to fundraise and help educate the community has been truly inspiring. They've all given up so much time to execute their ideas too" shares Allan.

Team Uddingston organised two in-store weekend events to raise money to buy the defib, which revolved around training colleagues, customers and passersby in first aid response with professional trainers using dummies, preparing them for what to do in an emergency.

A collaborative effort, the fire brigade as well as local schools attended the events, with hundreds of customers attending across two weekends. In addition to the first aid training, the retail park was packed with additional activities. The team organised for Google to bring their touring Google Bus, which houses the complete range of Google gadgets, for colleagues and customers to test. Alongside this, the team oversaw a tech raffle and a children's Easter drawing competition in which attendees voted for their favourite.

Impressively, more than enough money was raised to purchase the defibrillator, and the set up was supported by Vinci, a pre-existing Currys partner, who offered to install the potentially lifesaving device free of charge. The defibrillator was installed on the outside of the Currys store, to ensure it can be used by the whole retail park 24hours a day.

The remaining funds were put to good use through funding the St Andrews First Aid charity to go into the local Uddingston Grammar School and train 12 pupils up in a mental health and wellbeing qualification. Donations were also used to educate primary school pupils and teachers on De-Fib and CPR training.