We held the Virtual Wiston Steam Rally over the weekend of 11th July – 12th July 2020 to maintain our support of our nominated charity SERV Sussex (bloodrunners) who are currently working hard within the crisis response, providing a frontline volunteer service carrying blood and Covid-19 tests to hospitals nationwide. 

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We posted videos and photos from the last nine years of Wiston Steam Rally across our website and social media.  We also encouraged our exhibitors and visitors and anyone else to share their own videos and photos and we invited everyone who has enjoyed Wiston through the years to donate to SERV Sussex.

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In addition we also ran a free prize draw and giving away a selection of prizes, including a hamper of Sussex Themed Goods, to a randomly selected participants.

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The three winners of the Hampers are Rob Lane, Matt Hayler and Cat Cherry. Thank you for sharing your photos and videos over the week of the Virtual Wiston Steam Rally. We will be in touch with the winners shortly to get the prize to them.

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Over the weekend we had many kind donations and we have topped up the fund to make the final figure £2028.00 for Serv Sussex.  Our website and our group will carry on as an archive of the event.

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About Serv Sussex

 

SERV Sussex is a UK registered charity (Charity number 284455) that provides night time transportation of blood, blood products, time-critical samples and other urgent medical items for NHS Hospitals across Sussex. The service is provided free of charge to the NHS between the hours of 7pm and 6am, 365 days of the year via a committed team of volunteer riders and drivers. The service is run primarily utilising the volunteer's own vehicle; however, SERV also has a fleet of marked bikes and cars that are funded by charitable donations from the public, businesses and supported by local events and charitable trusts.

In addition to SERV Sussex covering Hospital Trusts in the whole of Sussex, we have dramatically increased our support of the national human milk banking service, collecting untreated milk from donors. This raw milk is delivered to Hearts Milkbank and then we transfer treated human breastmilk to the Trevor Mann premature baby unit and to other hospitals where premature babies are located. During the day, we routinely support the NHS Community Children's Nursing Teams in Sussex, delivering supplies to children in long-term care in their homes, freeing up time for nurses to carry out other essential duties.

Due to COVID-19, we have seen increased demands on all of our services in Sussex. To help out with demand, in addition to our night operation, we now operate 24 hour coverage at the weekends and we are available on weekdays anytime if the Trusts should require our services.