Rotary District 1220 makes Prepared to Save a Life Pledge

Rod Knox, Chief Executive of Virtual College, the UK’s leading provider of online solutions was guest of honour at the Rotary District Assembly at which Cheryle Berry MBE was inaugurated as the new District Governor. Cheryle will be responsible for heading up the Rotary District 1220 which has 67 Rotary Clubs and over 2000 Rotarians. It covers a very wide area including: Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, plus parts of Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire and Staffordshire.

Rod and Cheryle have been working together for over 12 months to create an online training solution with the mission of getting a life saver on every street corner. Cheryle is passionate about developing a national network of life savers and has plans to embrace Rotarians to help kick start this initiative.

Rod and Cheryle took the opportunity to present the Prepared to Save a Life model to the 67 incoming Presidents and 10 Assistant Governors, who were given a sneak preview of the free learning programme which is due to be launched in October 2018.

Rod made a very moving and impassioned plea to the audience by asking “Are you Prepared to Save a Life’ and the resounding response was “Yes”. So each club is being set the challenge of getting their members fully trained during the next 6 months and early successes will be celebrated at the annual conference event being held in Scarborough this October.

Cheryle is planning on visiting all of the 67 clubs during her year of office and has also started a dialogue with the national committee for the Rotarians. She has set her sights on rolling the Prepared to Save a Life solution out on an international basis next year. So watch this space!

At the end of the District Assembly event Cheryle said:

“The UK's live saving position is relatively poor with less than 6% of the UK population being appropriately trained in basic lifesaving skills. This compares to over 60% in the rest of Europe.

“Working with Rod, and the Virtual College team, we can make a real and substantial difference.”

“Through our Prepared to Save a Life initiative we have created a simple and effective online training solution to provide everyone with a basic understanding of what they can, and should, do in the event of a life threatening situation. A solution that’s free to all. In doing so, and in partnership with a wide range of supportive organisations, we hope to achieve our objective of getting a life saver on every street corner.”