Visual PR LIVE! Ep. 4 – “Visible Brand, Deeper Connections”

Are you ready? What's. Greetings. Welcome to, what are we at? Episode 4 of Visual PI. Hopefully you just picked up the audience in the background there because we're going to have multiple guests coming on. In a moment, we've got the legendary land. There we go. Forget about the mic. Legendary land. Naomi's just wetting herself about that one now. And Naomi Barker from Wiltshire Air Ambulance. And I'm live from Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

We've actually closed the blind at the moment because it's very bright out there and it was affecting the camera. They've been doing all sorts of maintenance work on the helicopter. That's been up and down and whirring and all sorts of noise. So hopefully you'll continue to hear us through this one. But welcome.

Don't forget, if you are watching, if you've got any comments or questions as the show progresses, make sure that you drop the comment, whether you're watching it on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or indeed on Twitter, although I don't know whether I get those comments through, but the rest of them I do. Feel free, ask. If we've got the guests on and something comes to mind, I'll be able to put it up on screen and you will be able to get them answered.

And it's much better when it's interactive, these shows. But today's topic is visible brand creates deeper connections. Visible brand equals deeper connections. That's the key thing. And one of those that really struck me and why I created Visual PR in the first place with my media work and my commercial work sort of coming together really was that we all use images and we advertise in different ways and they are vital 100% and I'll never stop doing them.

Same as written PR, it's all vital stuff. but there's no personal connection to that. It's getting that information across, but it doesn't necessarily enable you to connect personally. If you are reading a script to camera or even just being stereotypically interviewed, I know Naomi and I were talking about this earlier, how it just doesn't feel natural to the person on the camera. And it doesn't feel natural when you're watching it either.

So we really tried to make this a conversational piece, you know, even now where it is only me at this stage and I'll prove it. I'll go to the group. It is currently only me, but this will change shortly. It just doesn't feel natural to everyone. Once we have the conversational, the integrity rises, the flow rises. Heck, we can go on to subjects that we didn't plan to talk about because it was interlinked. People know me, know that will happen a lot.

Even if you are just recording pieces to your phone, you're grabbing this conversational piece, chatting to your phone. It can give you that natural content, so consider it. But what happens, the problem with that is that people dry up because they're trying to still just present to camera and there can sometimes be, is it professional enough? Well, there lies why we do what we do here in reality.

If someone is asking you questions and you're getting into a free flow and you're going to start remembering things that you might have forgotten if you were just reading the script to camera, even if you were trying to freestyle it a little bit. If we've got people interacting with comments and questions, it's a much more engaging. And people start to really connect to you, connect to you as a person, connect to you as an organization, you as a brand. All of those things suddenly make sense.

And the reason why Visual PR is called PR is not because I suddenly do all the written PR. I work with PR legends that know what they're doing with the written word. It is about the sales message not being in your face. It is not overtly, buy my product, buy my service. I'm brilliant. My people are brilliant, et cetera. The sales message is under the surface, and you're educating them.

You're connecting with them in various different ways that resonates at the right time, resonates at the right time, and you suddenly reach out to them and go, you had that show when you were talking about X, Y, and Z. I hadn't thought about it, but I've got that problem, and I really want to speak to you about that. That was incredibly helpful. So you get this variety of information that makes sense at the right time. Customers have choices.

Now, if they see images of your products, if they even see videos of your products, they can go and look at that product or service from someone else. There's no personal connection. They've just seen your version of that product. Even if it looks different, they're just looking at different ones. They'll go and look at a different one. Then they'll get prices. Then they'll work out where they're going to go. People buy from people. It's a mantra that's been around forever.

And so if you give them that opportunity to connect with you as a person, and that's the royal you, whether it's just the one person or whether it's multiple members of the team, that you enable them to be brought to life, that is where they can go, that's where I'm going to buy the product or the service from.

we create you know the the ability to connect with you with your people with the company with the brand philosophy experts that know your industry well so that you're getting an outside view you can have them on as guests um giving them education insights training demonstrations tours you name it anything is possible and you do all of those things you've now created multiple touch points And Mike probably talks about touch points in branding and marketing.

That's one of the buzz phrase, although he's looking blank at me now. So it would appear that he doesn't necessarily. But it lets them see and feel the real you. There is a phrase that we buy on emotion. We justify on logic. Well, how about when you have these shows, suddenly we're able to address both those points at the same time. Normally, it's whilst it's emotion, you get them to sort of want to buy it from you emotionally.

They then go away and think about it before coming back to make a decision.

They're normally thinking it through logically to try and justify that, yes, it's OK for me to buy this product or service. Well, because we're creating that connection, you know, not just here's the product, here's the service. We're creating the connection. You're able to address both those things at the same time. So it opens it up. We then obviously take this full show and we create the clips.

And this is important for you is that I always advocate is that if you're going to do something longer form, we flip it on its head here. We create the longer form first and we create clips from it rather than coming up with a whole string of clips to use later.

in your social media your digital marketing efforts take the longer form get these clips that are good sound bites whether it's oh that was a really powerful comment or that was quite funny and it's going to interact whatever it is the clips are created for you the trick is make sure you're then posting them you put some content in the in the texture part of your message that helps it get found you're going to have hashtags in it They're going to watch the videos.

We know videos are the bigger one over text and images, et cetera. But you'll always put, watch the full video here, the full episode here. And you're taking them to your YouTube channel or your Facebook page with it or your LinkedIn page with it all on so they can watch that full episode. We can rip the audio out and you can also point to your podcast. But then your podcast points to your YouTube channel, your YouTube channel points to your podcast. Everything's fertilizing each other.

Am I allowed to say that? Yeah. All right. I've been given a nod. That's OK. So it's fertilized each other. And equally, you remember that blog page on your website, you know, the one that's not been touched for, what, 18 months or more? not add any content on it, and yet Google love it because it's free, you know, updating content. Well, suddenly every single month you're going to have a description of the episode and you're going to embed the video whilst also linking back to the audio again.

Everything interlinks and you're suddenly the missing piece between PR and marketing. takes off but I recommend you always try to make sure that you link your different bits of marketing and PR and all that heck even in the written PR we can have branded QR codes that take you you know we'll automatically update that QR code that's either in a written PR or it's printed on your banner, we can update it to always point it to your latest episode.

You don't need to throw the banner away, sorry, Mike, and start again, but it will automatically, we update it to always point to the latest episode if that's what our client wants.

so that is my tips about making sure that visible brand deeper connections let them feel you and your brand and your people and your knowledge and all of that so that they will have a deeper personal connection with you and then they'll reach out to start those conversations and that's what we're looking for don't think of it as as trying to sell in this content think about driving the conversations towards you Hence, visible brand, deeper connections.

That's enough of me waffling on for my part because I hope you get the message. What I really wanted to do is, as I flip over, because I've got a very special guest that's going to come up next. Oh, no, sorry, it's not. It's Mike. No, I'm only joking. I called you legendary land already so I can get away with it. someone whose speciality is brands and about what that brand means and how you get it recognized and known. I'm delighted to introduce Mike Bland from Nickel Design.

As if by magic, here he is. I told you that we would have someone in the hot seat eventually. So we've got Mike Land. Thanks so much. Nice to meet you, mate. Thanks, Chris. I haven't seen you all day. Oh, wait, yes, we came together. You've just been sat there being abused and everything else as usual. But thank you for joining us, mate. I mean, this is your expertise, isn't it, is the brand. I mean, before we go into the minutiae, who are Nickel Design and what do you do?

uh lots of ways describing what nickel design is uh we are a creative agency uh you could describe this as a design and branding agency um in the past we were labeled as a marketing support service but basically we are a group of designers that get together and create wonderful solutions for you I mean that almost feels like you're doing yourself an injustice there really because I love how you kind of take this I mean, I know you've opened up in a presentation numerous times where you go,

what is a brand? You ask the audience. And invariably, it will be a logo. And whilst that's a consideration, it's not the be all and end all, is it? No. When I talk about the brand, what is a brand, people instantly think of, they identify the first thing they think of when they think of a brand. So if I said BMW, you're probably not thinking of the whole car. You might not be thinking of a model of a car.

You're probably thinking of the logo because it's the first thing that crosses your mind, pops into your head. But it's not the products you sell. It's not the services. It's not the item. It's an experience. You're selling an experience. You're selling a solution. And when you say experience, I've seen it often referred to as experience. It's the feelings that you have as soon as someone mentions that. Yes, it's emotions. So when you wear certain shoes, is it the shoe's comfort?

Is it how it makes you feel? Maybe it's where you wear that shoe. I mean, you know, the age-old thing of Christian Louboutins are restaurant shoes because it can take you from the car to the restaurant. You're posher than me, Mike. Sorry, but you're not going to walk down the road. You're not going to go on a stomp about to hand-win them. So, you know, it's that experience. And it's also identifying to you and everybody else.

So when you see somebody cross their feet and you see those red soles of the shoes, you instantly know it's Christian Louboutin. So it's those identifiable or it's the label on the jacket or the style or the buttons or whatever it is. I mean, how do you... Really think about that, though, when you have an SME or a startup coming to you, which is going to be a regular thing, presumably. We've talked about some big household names there and you kind of go, well, I can't relate to that.

I've got to start somewhere but you need to be sort of thinking that far ahead don't you yeah I it's very easy for me to talk about um bigger brands the the blue chip stuff um but we all have a similar issue and that is to get our brand message our brand communication over to our customers and clients yes Now, whether you're selling a product or service, you as an SME or a one man band, you still got to engage with your clients, your customers in a certain way.

So Apple and a painter and decorator still got the same issues now. difference is they've got to there's a difference in overheads print costs the amount of customers they need you know shareholders whereas a you know painter and decorators to thinking about uh the amount of paint he uses the amount of time he needs to do the job and stuff so there's about overheads difference in overheads about yeah yeah yeah of course But equally, and I'm going off on a slight tangent probably too early here.

Yeah, you know I do this all the time. But equally is that I'm sort of almost there thinking of there is a creating a brand, but there is a rebrand, and that presumably is something that you get where suddenly hindsight plays a part, that you kind of go, oh, my message has slightly changed, or I've learned my business a little bit more, and therefore I want to portray this in some way. And they have to throw these ideas at you, and you've got to assimilate that into something.

that those were the ideal questions or answers that we need uh basically when people come to me and say I'm looking for a rebrand we ask them why do you think you need a rebrand and the amount of times that people said my sales have dropped my messages is not getting through now that might not be your rebrand it might be your marketing it might be your message it might be who you're targeting so if you think about who you target for car manufacturers for painting decorators aiming

as a paint and decorator to a teenage level is not going to be the right age bracket for them. They need to be thinking about who's moved into a house, who's got a flat, who's decorating a business or a house or a room. It's about those different levels. So it's about making sure that your message is going out to the right people.

Then there's a whole plethora of things, what message, what platform, um what time um how you're approaching them the tone of voice yeah there was so many things to consider and that's before you think about does my logo look right and when we talk about brand most people think I want a brand refresh because they're thinking of their logo yes it might be just the tone of voice And there lies a tricky one.

And I always feel for you people in that space, because I kind of relate to a number of different industries that sort of like cover, you know, aspects of this, is that us as business owners come and go, yeah, this is my business. This is what's amazing. This is what's great. This is what I want to do. But you have to take that somehow. And it could be, you know, it could be the logo. It could be the colours. It could be the wording.

I mean, we were touching on things that seem as simple as a banner, a pop-up banner. Yeah. If I was not controlled, I would just vomit words all over this banner and it would do no good to man nor beast. So you have to pull that back and kind of pick out, right, okay, based on that, what we really need to do is just do that. Even where on the banner that it appears can make a difference.

But you also said when we were driving down here is that there could be a place for your banner to just exist with your logo on and presumably contact details. But, you know, the be all and end all is your logo because you're trying to create that almost subliminal connection to. I think Mike Land, I picture that nickel design, I see Chris Dawes, I see the visual PR.

it's amazing how the mind works and you've got to play with that yeah yeah which I guess is fun as well well yeah it's great fun because obviously every day is different every client is slightly different um thank God because otherwise everything will be quite plain yeah but you think about it all we're trying to do is get them to say I want to know more that's the only question And there lies the mistake is that, again, me as a business owner, and I'm terrible for this, is that I feel like I'm

trying to fully educate them, fully sell to them right now. And it's like, no, no, no, just no. And I guess that's why I'm saying even with these shows in reality is that it doesn't need to be absolutely everything given away straight away. It's like, look, you're trying to make people go, I want to come speak to you to find out more. There is a conversation there.

Well, you just think about all of the bigger brands that will ask you a very simple, I mean, we could go all the way over to perfume adverts where you watch a perfume ad on TV and you're not sure what you're watching. You have no idea about the smell because obviously it is an experience. You need to be there to smell what that perfume does, what it feels like, the smell and everything else. You're not going to get that on the TV advert.

And they spend a lot of money to make you go, I need to know more. I want to know more. um so that's the same for most businesses a painter and decorator he might do small big large whole rooms whole buildings might have 20 staff but all he needs you to do is to inquire make an inquiry do you have a challenge where people overlook the importance of if I call it branding. Yes. Do you have a, I mean, cause it's very easy.

We already said that people just think it's logo including like maybe the color of it, but that there's a whole lot more to it. Do you have a real challenge with people not appreciating scope of what you do? Yeah. I think that's probably the hardest, hardest part of being a designer, being part of this creative agency is trying to educate other people and the importance of brand and There's so many people. I mean, you just think about it.

The amount of times you go out to a business meeting and you'll meet half a dozen financial people. SJP, they might be independent. What will make them different? You touched on it earlier where you said people buy from people. Yeah. But because of the pandemic and the way we use the Internet, we spend most of our time staring into a screen, into a mobile phone looking for information.

So basically what's going to make you stand out is that looks more attractive or that one's closer to me or I want to know more about what he can do.

or she can do and it's I like that it's even relevant isn't it yes you know it can be as simple as that at times I was a um a networking event recently and I won't name names but this particular person said look I accept that in my industry there's all these other people you could go and speak to I know just as much, if not more than all of them, that they can say the same about me. It will come down to whether you like me, whether we fit, whether we connect.

Yeah, I mean, there is other parts to it. I mean, how unique your service is. Or, correct me if I'm wrong, I've also learned more recently is how you portray. So it might not be actually unique, but the message could be unique. Because I've seen some people, and I think it came under the rebranding, is that they kind of go, right, I'm actually changing my product line. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Provide the same service, but if you actually market in a different angle.

You know, I mean, we were chatting is that obviously off the back of what we do with all this, you know, the media setup is that, yeah, absolutely. We can do all sorts of video work. Looking forward to Tom joining me next month as my video editor and producer, growing the team. And we'll be able to offer even more. I won't start marketing myself as another video company, another media company.

It's like, yeah, of course we can say yes when we work with people, but we're going with a brand along the line of this. Some people might say, well, isn't this a podcast but with video? Yeah, I guess so. But we supercharge it. We can make it live. We do the peripheral services of post-production. And so it's about the message could be unique. Yeah, the message. The people hadn't thought of it that way or whatever. The tone as well. The tone is so important, especially in branding.

the way you talk to your customers, I think the one that springs to mind for me is Harley-Davidson. Harley-Davidson went off with this huge campaign about, are you adventurous enough, big enough, strong enough, tough enough to own a Harley-Davidson? Which is a great way of marketing a thing. I feel that I'm tough enough to have a Harley-Davidson, but now they've realized that a third of the market, I think it is, are female riders. Really?

Yeah. Now, I'm not saying that women aren't tough, but they had to think. They had to change the message. Yeah. So basically, it was more about being adventurous. How far are you willing to go? I mean, you hear it now. Mini, I think, is a mini adventure, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So they advertised as the mini adventure. And then you start, and it's only when you start to get into the messaging side of it, you realize how clever some of these companies have been.

Yes. I know most people probably switch off, go make a cup of tea when the adverts come on. It's that gap between a program where they can go chat, nip to the loo, go and make a cuppa. I love adverts. I love watching the advertising. companies have spent thousands of thousands trying to hone, trying to sharpen that message. So it really cuts deep. So you understand you want to know more and you're willing to stop what you're doing.

Look on your phone, have a flick, write it down in a pad to say, I must, you know, check my insurance. I must phone up the thing about the roof. Yeah. Yeah. It's just those, those touch points, like you said earlier. Exactly. Yep. The, the, the touch points are important.

Yeah. Um, so one of the other messages that I think because you and I have obviously had many discussions over the last 12 months because there's a real nice link up with what what we attempt to do and what you're doing as well and one of those key ones is that making sure that sales message you know we've just been very you've given some great examples there but it's not always about the sales message being slap you in the face And although I put it down as the PR mentality, that PR,

the sales message is under the surface, not going, do your deal, son, come and buy my product. You need that message to just keep connecting with people. And I mean, I'm picking up on what you were saying there as well, is that isn't there like a cyclical thing to this where you kind of nail it? You know, I mean, you mentioned Mini. I'm not sure they use that Mini Adventure anymore. I think that's been and gone. Yeah, probably. But there's a great example is that that was brilliant. It worked.

I mean, crikey, I still, for those of you who know me, I commentate on motorsport professionally as well. And if it's like a Mini race, I still come up with that line during them. You know, it's stuck. But they haven't stood still and just kept ramming that down our throats. They've changed it. I'll tell you one that's just suddenly come to mind that's brilliant with this cyclical thing. Tango. Yes. The you being tangos come back. Yes, I know.

Because they stopped that because I think there was the controversy over people were suddenly doing that. I think it was kids in the playground slapping each other. But they then killed that off for a while just this last week. You probably saw a tango out there. Yes. And I'm like, my daughter, 12-year-old daughter, would have never seen it in its original guise with the slapping. And I think it was a prison guard trying tango in a prison cell after he confiscated it off her. And that's now.

But See, recognition, recall straight away. I knew what you were going to say. So that goes the other, you know, even deeper on that cyclical. I was about to I was originally just going is that you have this great success, but you don't then just necessarily stay with that for the rest of your life. Is that you then go, right, we now need to go somewhere else with it as well. Doesn't mean that's failed. It's like we've got to refresh, rebrand, remessage, go with something different.

but you can go back to those as well in the future there's probably a load of brands so if I said nike yeah the strap line for nike just do it there we go yeah mcdonald's did it oh no that's the music sorry are you loving it yes yeah uh howdy the vorsprung technique yeah no one knows what it means but It's designed by technology or something like that.

I knew you'd know, Mike. Those little bits, and even though they change their message, so the Audi adverts won't drill into the Volkswagen Dirk technique, but it'll pop up as a reminder on an advert because people have remembered that line. You'll know it's Audi straight away. You don't even need the Audi logo anymore. You know it's there.

yeah I know it is good I mean where do you so at what point should people be coming and advice from someone that's an expert in that branding and what journey what will you work on and create with them uh I know we've said logo but you know beyond that what else uh branding So branding is tailoring the message. So you have your brand, which is the company experience. Now, everybody says about the logo being the brand. So you've already said the logo isn't your brand, but it is a visual item.

And then there's the message. So the message, the logo, the visual identity, colors, visual stuff, that's all part of the branding. That's how you tailor your message. So it's about tailoring that message. So that is the element that we would love to work on. Obviously, if we can get to the start, I work on your logo, your brand, voice, tone, everything from the very beginning. Which is great because we had Joe Starr on. Was it last episode of Lost Track? Oh, wow.

Yeah. uh and of course that was very much about the brand voice which is is again sort of like intrinsically linked to your thing that then you're kind of like okay how do we now bring that brand voice that we've identified to life and then it lies with you and joe would know I mean what I think it was warren who said it takes 20 years to build a brand and it takes five minutes to destroy it. Yes, that's no. And that is simply just by written word. Yeah. Yeah. No. And it's so, so true.

And then, of course, once you've created all of that side of things that we've then got the the collateral you can create off the back of that. Yeah. I think people forget the communication side. Yes. So that is everything. So brand and design is everywhere. Everything we see, everything we touch, everything experience, there'll be a design element of that all the way through. And then there's the communication. So people will think, well, I've sent out my brochure, sent out an email.

I'm giving them a business card. But there's social media, there's news, advertising, recruitment. Even the way you recruit new staff, that is part of your brand message. The reviews you get, that all contributes to your reputation, your brand reputation, and what people perceive as you.

so if you look great sound great um smell great but your reviews are all one star because he didn't do this he didn't do that yeah provide this that destroys that reputation will break down that brand so it's everything your communication is all part of it yeah and I mean in terms of collateral it could be flyers brochures banners anything that's printed but There's a whole side that we don't touch. So as a creative design agency, we tend to stick with the items that we can control.

So it's produced, printed. And then there's another whole step that's above that, which is what we call the digital side. So it used to be below the line and above the line advertising. So above the line used to be TV and radio. And because you had to rely on people like yourself that has to do the recording, where it goes out to, where it's published, we can control a lot of those elements. So if you were in TV advertising, obviously you need to talk to a channel.

So there used to be two sides of that. No, it makes sense. I mean, the other one as well is just give us a quick synopsis. Some of your clients that you have worked with over the years. I always love this. Really impressive. Yeah. So I've been very fortunate. So when I moved to Swindon to go to art college, the first job I got was with a newspaper. But as I worked my way through, I got to meet a guy called Martin Fullerton. And my first job was art directing a photo shoot for Devere Hotels.

Wow. So we went over to Cambridge. I directed a photo shoot and I didn't realize this is going to be a lot of their brochures. And then over the time it was Chevron, Texaco, Battersea Dogs Home, Blue Cross, Leaks of London. And it's just grown from there, which is what makes my job different. But there is so many local companies as well. There is. And I did want to, I was about to follow that up by making this absolutely clear.

We're sort of like having some excitement here about the level of these, but there is plenty of local companies that you work with as well, which is cool. How do they get hold of you? I do have that here. Let me just go down as if by magic. Yeah. He says, is this somewhere? There we go. Nickeldesign.co.uk, N-I-C-K-E-L design.co.uk. Your company, you started it? Yes. Yeah. Yes. It had a different name back in 2004, but that was the historical start of the company.

Yeah. And it's grown ever since, really. There's been a few changes over the years, as a lot of companies do, but yeah, we're still going strong. Always what you wanted to do? Was this branding? Yeah, well, I've been... doing it now for 30-odd years now. Yeah, yeah. I know. It makes me sick. He doesn't look old enough for that, does he? I know, I know.

We're now starting to touch on to the personal you, which is going to gradually lead us seamlessly into the next section, is you're like an absolute fitness freak, aren't you? You're nuts. You do loads of stuff. Yes. I enjoy the fitness. I don't probably look like I enjoy the fitness, but, yeah, I do enjoy the fitness. Yeah, including that you're a spin instructor. Yeah, I teach spin every week. Other cycling products are available. Yeah. Indoor cycling, as I should really label it.

And I teach a boot camp on a Saturday, Saturday morning, and then I run with certain friends on Tuesdays at the local running club.

yeah so there's local running club and then pt and a bit of running in between love it I love it now this leads us on to don't forget by the way if you've got comments or questions for mike please do pop them in uh in the comments uh if that wasn't enough you've got a big challenge come up now I'm going to step back and say your motivation for a all the fitness that you do all of I mean I when we when I picked you up earlier seeing the the unbelievable amount of medals whether

it's tough mother marathons half marathons have you done the desert the sabler or not yet that's the no that's bonkers though isn't it you know that your motivation for going and doing these bonkers things comes from an incident that happened to you 30 years ago this month. 31 years ago this month, yeah. So tell us about that. Yeah, so I was the sixth person in the UK to have a bungee rope snap during a jump.

And I've been going through over the paperwork recently because we did the practice poll last Thursday. I'll come on to that in a minute. Yeah, we'll come on to that in a minute. We did a practice poll and I went through my notes. I realised all the little details that hadn't obviously pondered over or jotted over the last few years. Basically, it said that due to my accident, I'll be unsuitable for manual labour as a job. And I didn't realize they actually said it in the report.

But because of my memory loss, damage to fractured pelvis, damaged ribs on the left-hand side, lost emotion to my neck and right leg, I shouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now. And that was your motivator. As soon as someone says you can't, Oh, yeah. That's the challenge, isn't it? Some people accept it. Some people will fight to try and prove otherwise. And I was one of those, fight to prove otherwise.

I mean, I'm deliberately not going to take you too deep into the whole experience, because without question, it would have been horrific and traumatic, et cetera, for you. I have no doubt. But it's motivated you to do these things. And this next one, and it's why we're here at Semington at the Wiltshire Air Ambulance HQ. Thank you for hosting us. It's lovely to be here. Is that, understandably, those guys are something that really resonates with you. That you go, wow, the service we do.

And we'll come into what they do, why, et cetera, in more detail in a moment. But you are going for a world record the longest distance pulling a van in a 24-hour vanpool. Is that correct? Yes, yes. But I should point out, this is partly Naomi's fault, who you'll hear from later. I threw around some ideas. So I've ever sailed off the Spinnaker. I've been locked in jail for a day. I've done ballroom classes. I've run marathons, auto race charity.

And we threw around some ideas of me to pull a vehicle. And the idea was just to pull a vehicle so people could sponsor me per mile, per minute, per hour, and just see how long I could go. I was doing the usual research about I wanted an image to go on the poster. So I was thinking Tom Stoltman or Eddie Hall might be doing a van pull, truck pull. I could use some of their imagery just to get people's appetite for wanting to get involved and sponsor, donate.

And I found out there's a world record for pulling a vehicle further distance in 24 hours. Now, I thought, okay, there's an option or there's a chance for me trying to go for the record, depending on distance, obviously. And yeah, that's where it started. The details are one and a half ton vehicle, 24 hours over a flat ground, the versus distance, which at the moment is 32.1 miles. And I'm aiming to do 36 miles.

you going that far above it um because the guys that got the current record said unless somebody beats us by a small margin they wouldn't do it again and they've done it twice oh okay so uh yeah I just want to make sure that if comfortably yeah comfortably above until another strong person and I'm just about to put comment in uh to all of the channels that you could be watching this hopefully is the link that you could go to to support mike supporting wheelchair air ambulance so that has now

put the link uh it for you all so you should see that link that is now on screen you'll now understand why I've put it in the comments because that's a big long link that we've got on there um but please do if if you can assist and in case you wondered why before we move on to that section I'm just going to very quickly show you a short video of why it's so important My name's Stuart Hirschbein, and in 2012, when I was perceived to be a young, fit PE teacher, I collapsed at home.

So I was paralysed down one side. It looked to the signs of a stroke, but in fact, what I had was a condition called hydrocephalus, which is fluid on the brain. I needed to get to the hospital really fast, and if I'd gone by land, it would have taken me an hour and a quarter to get to the nearest hospital. This is when Wiltshire Ambulance entered my life, and thank God they did.

They were there within 10 minutes to pick me up from a light landing site and it was in foggy conditions and they managed to get me to Bristol. It was a good job they got me there in 10 minutes because I was told later on that I would not have survived if I hadn't have got there in that time. I'm sat here today because of the Wiltshire Ambulance. It's enabled me to do everything I ever wanted. I've got back to full fitness. It was a big fight but I got back to full fitness.

I returned to work as a PE teacher in a secondary school And even more importantly, I was able to get married and have two beautiful children. I owe my life to Wiltshire Ambulance and I also give back to them now any way I can, doing things like talking, guest speaking. I've also ran the Bath Half Marathon twice. Wiltshire Ambulance is our insurance of the sky.

Without the donations of the people of Wiltshire, it wouldn't be there and it wouldn't have been there to save me or actually give life to my two daughters and a husband to my wife. Please donate. Well, if that doesn't hit home, nothing will. I mean, that was a prime example of somebody that has still got a life, somebody who's got a husband, a dad, a son, everything in that particular example. And that resonates with yourself. Yeah, definitely did.

So in terms of this challenge to raise money, I know you make the comment saying it costs £12,000 Yes, just over £12,000 per day. Yeah, it is per day. I mean, it's just still because it blows my mind. And it's not government funded, which I know we're coming to. I don't think it's lottery funded either. No. So it deserves and needs the assistance to keep it flying and all of the team to help people that need it. And a prime example there. So completely understand the support you're doing for it.

And even if the challenge is challenged, still got a slight challenge of the exact location. You're hoping to do it next month, but you keep getting challenges with the location because it's got to be flat. It's got to be long enough because they can't be, if you were suddenly going downhill, even though there must be the argument that you'll have to go uphill as well, but hey, it's fine. The world record rules are strict. Yeah. Um, so still fine.

If there's any bear that, and don't do the usual ones like Cologne, Lavington. Yeah. So line them. They're not options, sadly. No. So basically I thought that an airfield would be the best option just because the length and the width. Yeah. Turn around. But it could be a road, it could be around an industrial unit. Which we saw on the way here, didn't we? You suddenly went, that could be good. So inside of what, before it's been fitted out. Yeah. The inside of an industrial unit.

Unused industrial units. So I did look at quite a few areas. I mean, BMW, the Stratton plant at BMW. Yeah, yeah.

They tried their best to give me an area where I could use part of the truck route out coming out of the plant. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not flat enough. So it just got to that point where I thought, I mean, BMW offered to change their truck route. No way. They were looking at a shift so that the shift pattern, I could go in and I wouldn't interrupt their shift patterns. Incredible. So they were really helpful to trying to find somewhere. But it doesn't have to be an airfield.

It's just that an airfield was just the biggest big space. Yeah, I mean, we could be looking at motor racing spaces or anything like that. But again, a lot of circuits, for example, aren't flat. Most circuits aren't flat. Yeah, our beloved Castle Combe circuit just up the road. Yeah, Castle Combe's not flat enough. Definitely isn't flat, that's for sure. Yeah, up Avon Royce, you don't want to be cleared up there.

Yeah, I think when I looked at Silverstone, the Silverstone car park was flatter than the actual track. Obviously, the track is... Oh, really? So it's just about finding that area. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. but last week you did the practice pool yeah practice pool um again given an opportunity for for the sponsors and because you know it's not just sponsors as in you know whatever there is each organization sponsoring and getting on the van that you're pulling putting the name on there and in the publicity and and you definitely copy them in on it or tag them in on everything And you went down there with the van and they could have a go at pulling it. Yeah. How did that go? Oh, that was fab.

I mean, it was great that the BBC came down. Of course, yeah. Point West. So Point West came down. Ben Prater from BBC Wiltshire. Yeah. Doing the morning programme. So I should be on the radio all this week and the morning programme and dotted around. I think Swindon 105 FM as well. They were down and they did a report a couple of days ago, I think it was. So that was great. And then there was the support of my support team, family, friends and everything else. A couple of businesses came down.

Some of them just wanted their photograph in the harness. So they looked like they were pulling. I'd have been one of them. I think Paul Cav, David Cavanaugh, he was just doing his photo shoot of him strapped in, leaning forward in the van. And Bud, one of the supporters, came over with his bacon roll on a plate, served to him, just so we could catch him out, really. But I mean, it was a great event. The weather, I'm a bit brown because I caught the sun all that day.

Cotswold Airport were very, very kind enough to let us have the area, which is Britannia Road. That would have been a perfect road, but the gradient doesn't meet the criteria for the world records. Otherwise, I would have been doing it there. It's so tough. And I know to that camera there is that show the T-shirt. There you go. So even in full regalia, we've got it all there. It's been clean since then. Anything more you want to say on that side, or should we get the charity in question?

No, I think we should get the charity in. Okay, right. It is now the charity spotlight section, and we're going to do a quick... jiggery-pokery of the seating and what have you, make sure I've got the right one. It is a section of this show that I'm very precious about is the fact that it's a charity spotlight. It's not just about collecting money. It's about understanding why they exist, what they do, because sometimes that message is missed in the information that's put out.

And it's really important to make sure we really get what they are there for. how they do it and why we should be listening to the work that they're doing and support them as much as we can. So it's now the charity spotlight section. Alone, we can do so little, but together we can do so much.

Visual PR's charity spotlight is about shining a light on the amazing work and objectives of charities as they do not do it for publicity, but it is important that we know about them, what they do and understand why. Charity is not just about making a donation, it is about making a difference. Yeah, I'm afraid the bad news is with me being a voiceover artist as well, it means you still get my voice even on those bits.

But delighted, Naomi Barker. Now, I've got to remind myself, I haven't put it down, your job title, yes. Corporate Partnerships Lead. That's the one. Looking after businesses. Brilliant. Welcome, Naomi. Thank you. I apologise if you're very patiently slash nervously waiting there. I'm giggling at some of the things that you've been saying. It's always going to be the way, always going to be the way. First things first about you, Naomi. How long have you been here with Wiltshire Air Ambulance?

It's just coming up to my 18th month. Okay. So a year and a half and loving every minute of it. Were you involved in the charity sector before? So I started life as a primary school teacher and then moved into the National Trust. That's where my love of fundraising came from. Oh, wow. So we realised that the property that we were looking after down in Winchester was actually falling down and we needed to find a little bit extra cash. So we put on a duck race and I thought, I really enjoy this.

And then a few years later, I was made redundant and a job came up here and I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go for it and see what happens. And apparently one of the personality traits that you need to be a corporate fundraiser is you like to talk. So here I am. Wasn't she saying earlier that she's behind? We bought that. We went, oh, bless. We now realize that was all fake. That's not true. Oh, entirely.

Okay, now in terms of wheelchair ambulance, I know that this is going to be stated in the office to some extent, but speak to me, what do wheelchair ambulance do? So Wiltshire Air Ambulance, in a nutshell, saves lives. It's a helicopter emergency medical service. And we provide that service to Wiltshire, Bath and the surrounding areas. We'll go wherever we need to go and we'll help whoever we need to help. But yeah, that's our aim, is to make a difference.

And one of the key things that I was picking up on speaking to you earlier is that they were obviously just maintaining the aircraft. Anything that runs needs maintenance as well. And that meant that you instantly, although apparently this happens anyway, is that there were then in the cars strategically low rated, strategically, it's easy for me to say.

Yeah. strategically located around Bath, Swindon, whatever, so that whilst that was being worked on, no problem, we're still covered, we've got them there ready to go instantly. So it's a much bigger consideration, isn't it? It's a huge operation. So you think we are online 19 hours a day, 365 days of the year. We have two shifts, if you like, a day shift and a night shift. And that's generally made up of a pilot, two paramedics or a pilot, a paramedic and a doctor.

And it's about bringing the emergency room from the hospital to the side of the road. You've probably heard of that phrase, the golden hour. Yes. Making sure you get to somebody really, really quickly. And so the air ambulance was born out of getting somebody and being able to transfer them really, really fast to hospital. And now it's about making sure they're OK, they're stabilised, they've had the drugs that they need, they've been looked after. OK, now we can think, where can we take them?

And it gives you that little bit of extra time to be able to go to the right hospital. Yeah, because what they need... will determine which hospital they need to go. Absolutely. So we see a lot of cardiac arrests, huge amount of trauma, road traffic collisions. Yes, of course. So you think you've got John Radcliffe up in Oxfordshire, Southampton and Southmead in Bristol. They're your big trauma units. We can get to anywhere in Wiltshire within 11 minutes. We can be... Quicker than you.

Just. We can be up to John Radcliffe in 15 minutes. But when the helicopter is offline, we do fly low. We fly over lots of houses, people. It needs to be safe for everyone involved. We've got our two critical care cars. And that just means that we can dual task as well. So the helicopter and the car can go hitting everything from different angles.

I mean, one of the big ones that I remember when we've been talking about this with you is that you've, as well as having that service, the helicopter, the cars, the personnel, for goodness sake, these are like top level medical professionals. But equally, you needed to have, I think you touched on it a second ago, is that bring the hospital to them to some extent for that golden hour. So blood, plasma, drugs. All of it. All there, ready to use. Yeah, sleep well machines and things.

One of my favourite pieces of kit that I take everywhere with me, if I can, is the Lucas machine. So like I touched on, we see a lot of cardiac arrests. So you, me, even the fittest person. She looked at you, not me. LAUGHTER But we can only really give effective CPR for one, one and a half, two minutes. After that, we're tired. We're not pushing deep enough. So we have this incredible machine called the Lupus device, which is an automated CPR device. In fact, I think you've seen it.

Yeah. Literally, it takes over and it does the CPR for you, which means that it's doing it reliably, effectively, consistently, and it means that the crew then are free to go without singing. Staying alert. Staying alert.

Yes. something like that although I don't know that's not fast enough no no is it right something else it used to be nelly the elephant and then yeah that was right yeah it changes far too quickly I tell you what I think that but they're still happening now I don't know whether this will work it probably won't because it's very bright out there just you can't quite see it and rob our duty pilot has actually brought back some of the crew oh really yeah oh yeah that must mean we're now online

So you can't quite see it, sadly. I don't think even if I go to me here, it's just a bit too bright. But it is just out there. Incredible service. They've been busy getting that all sorted. Really, really impressive. So sorry, we interrupt. I interrupt, allowed ourselves to be interrupted by the excitement. Every time that we've heard the noise, we've still gone to the window, haven't we? But it genuinely doesn't get old. But I was chatting to one of our paramedics and you still hear me.

No, what? Yes. Apologies if we're a little bit too loud or you can't hear us, but it is live. We are really excited. One of our paramedics, he calls it a moral quandary because we look at it and get really excited. It's going up in the air. We see the green and yellow helicopter. Isn't it amazing? Children love it.

But actually... there's a bad story there's a really poorly person at the end that really needs our help so yes see I always wondered why we have a box um medical helicopters everywhere yeah I know there is air ambulances 21 air ambulances across the uk um so we all sort of look after each other stealing when we need to um and I think that's why we are actually quite happy that we're a charity because we get to make those decisions.

We can push the boundaries of the clinical resources that we can buy, fund ourselves. But what I haven't said that's really important is that we couldn't do it without the white lands of the world, without the members of the public, without the businesses that support us. It's literally their generosity that saves lives. We couldn't do it without them. And that is a key one, is that it's important to understand, and I did touch on this already, no government funding. No lottery.

No lottery funding. No, and this was an interesting line I hadn't thought of, no NHS funding. Someone, I remember we were in a networking thing, and someone raised the question saying, well, if you take that person, so they have no ambulances out to be sent, and you take them to the hospital, do you invoice the hospital? It's like, no, there's nothing there.

It is purely self-funded, you know, self- funded by the public yeah exactly which is why you know you you've got these charitable things like what you're doing to try and to raise the money um you've got your general sort of raising money for the charity the contributions the monthly contributions we've got the business club Next Tuesday. Yep. So the Business Club is a networking group at its heart. And it was born out of a desire to give back to the businesses that look after us.

So, yes, you've got the community groups, people running the marathons and the baths half and things like that. But the businesses that look after us, I wanted to give something back. Yes. and networking, building their profile and really showcasing that affiliation was what we could give back. So yeah, the Business Club on next Tuesday. And we're a little bit wider than that. I'm looking at you and I now because you're playing football on Swindon Town Football Club. Play on the pitch.

Play on the pitch. That's supported by Swindon Town Football Club, who also look after us. And we were gifted a charity match. So, yeah, we've got a match going on. 2pm kick-off tomorrow afternoon. And it's all going on. We've got the mascot. We've got children coming out onto the pitch and celebrating. Food, drinks, the works. It'll be great. Go, Mike Lamb. Go, Mike Lamb. And I've got my gold pom-poms back out for you as well. I have to say, I'm not a football player.

I think the last time I played football was at school. We'll be the judge of that tomorrow, mate. We'll be the judge of that. I think the whole point of fundraising is to do what makes you happy. It's not a labour of love. It's what's put in the fun in fundraising. If my colleagues are watching this, they're going to literally just cringe at that. I can't believe you went there. You went there. I did go there. I'm really sorry. But it is.

It's about doing something that you love and weaving it into your life. Absolutely.

I mean, because I think it's got to be traditionally sort of like... one direction or the other either there's we saw the video there is the emotional link ie yeah either victim or someone you know yeah exactly or let's have some fun that's going to give back or you know fun isn't the only one you talk about the business club it's like going yeah as business owners that kind of resonates doesn't it and it's like well if we're doing it why can't we do it where the money that

we're paying to go and do it is going to a really good cause And we also hire out our training rooms. We do accredited first aid courses. So it's all those boxes on your strategic business plan that you could tick and support the charity at the same time.

And any philanthropists watching, watch it this time of day I'm not sure they're normally busy yeah yeah true and you can watch this on capture by the way um but I mean you've even got a team that work with philanthropists that kind of go we want to know where to do and and that sort of you relationship manage that as well to make sure they understand Yeah, we're just developing a major donors scheme as well. So the people that give a lot of money, shall we say, how to better look after them.

It's all about building and growing into our potential and looking after the supporters and making it a family. Again, please, if you've got any comments or questions, chip in, type them in the comments. We'll be able to put them up on the screen, like I did with this one when I posted this comment to you all, is that I can have that with your profile name and photo, et cetera. So any questions or comments, please, please do it.

And I'll ask a difficult question now that you may not even have the answer. Why isn't it government funded? Oh, no. Yeah, that's what I wanted to know. Sorry, I went there, didn't I? If you're going to throw the fun bomb in, I'm going to throw that one in. Absolutely. I think the question should be is why we aren't government funded. You think about the police helicopters. When they were nationalised, those helicopters were pretty much halved.

So imagine if we were to be nationalised, be part of the NHS. There's so many things going on in the NHS at the moment. Money's really, really tight. Do you focus on cancer patients? Do you focus on taking the emergency room to the side of the road? Do you focus on looking at new drugs? What is your focus? You can't look at all of it. That is turning on its head, isn't it? It says, actually, it's better that it's not in the queue for the rest of that.

I mean, because you could argue that a helicopter is an expense over and above what an ambulance could do. Yeah. But just think, as you said earlier, that 11 minutes, that 11 minute window from getting them from where they are to somewhere in Wiltshire to be looked after. Well, and even the getting there, isn't there? I mean, you were saying is that they'll get the call. They're scrambled in two minutes. Pilots instantly out there, got everything fired up.

The rest of the team are getting the location, the notes. That's all they need. Out they go. In, by that point, the helicopter's up to speed. Off it goes. It's there. There's no traffic to sit in. There's no traffic lights. No Sunday afternoon drivers. No, exactly. And, you know, the ambulances have a terrible time in the fact that even those that are considerate, it scares the bejesus out of you. And you kind of go, oh, where do I go?

And if you've suddenly delayed that ambulance enough that you never know what it is to get in there. But I'd never really thought of it that way around. That's like going, actually, why would we want it funded? Yeah. Would they be the first people that are cut funding? Certainly would be less. I mean, your police one, that's such a valid point. And I only learned that, you know, a few months ago because I asked the same questions. And I also asked questions like, we don't always save lives.

So why do people still look after us? You know, have we failed people? If, you know, you can't, we're not God. We're not going to make sure that everybody, we do our best, but not everybody survives. And so I asked that question, a really hard question going, well, then we failed people. And then I turned that on its head and thought, actually, it's about making a difference in the community.

Yeah. Every time we go out, which is on average about three times a day, we always make a difference to either the patient, their family, their friends, the community. And it is being part of something greater than just you. Because it isn't always about going, treating the ambulance, putting the patient in the air ambulance and then taking them to hospital. Obviously, again, with motor racing, where sadly we have times where we have to call on air ambulance.

And I know I was at Castle Combe circuit, I can't remember, it was either a year or two ago, and we had two air ambulances turn up. Yep. So I don't know where the other one would have been from, to be honest. You've got five in the southwest. Okay. But they were different times. Yeah. And the reason being is that that was the air ambulance that we know, but the incident was serious enough that we needed a particular doctor type, and it actually brought the doctor to us. Absolutely.

So you see it a lot. There was a horrendous crash on the A361 going out of Froome. really nasty. And I think there were two air ambulances. You always have the land ambulance as well. If it's a road traffic collision, you've got fire brigade and police as well. So everybody's on scene sometimes. So the story you heard from Stuart, it was actually the land ambulance that went to him first. They took one look at him because the call came into 999. They went, okay, you know, he's collapsed.

Let's send the ambulance. They took one look at him and went, he looks like he's having a stroke. we need those extra level of expertise, those extra drugs, which then brings in our enhanced and specialist paramedics. They bring that next level of care. I was going to say that brings up another question then. When does the level jump in? So obviously the NHS, you phone 909, I need an ambulance. Yep. When does the ambulance or the dispatch crew go,

we needed a helicopter instead of a... Oh, I can answer that one. That's far easier than your question, Chris. Yeah. I failed again, hadn't I? So imagine when your 999 call comes in, it's being looked after, listened to by a team down in Exeter. So I said we were a helicopter emergency medical service, HEMS for short. We've got our HEMS desk down in Exeter. they listen out to all the 999 calls and they look for sort of tag words, the cardiac arrest, trauma, fall from height.

And then they'll go, oh, that looks like something the air ambulance needs to go to. So then they look at the map and say, okay, which is the closest asset? So if we're already at a job up in Swindon and there's another incident down in Salisbury, we might not necessarily be the closest. So you might find one of the other air ambulances is. So they'll get called in, we'll get called in. And that's how we're tasked.

And I guess, like you say, is that sometimes if it's a particular medical requirement, the team there can call it. They're probably not going to know that on a 999 call, I wouldn't have thought, are they? You panic as well, though, when you're making a 999 call. 100%, yeah. You're not a medical person. You have no idea what's happening. No. I can't imagine anything worse. So to be able to have that conversation with the 999 crew and the HEMS desk, I think it's really important.

Sometimes our guys are called just to have a conversation about an incident. So they'll be called up and going, right, I've got somebody here. They're looking like this. They're presenting these symptoms. You know, what should we, could we do?

and our guys might just help or they might go do you know what we're close let's come on down yes but let's not forget that each mission um I said about three a day it's about four and a half grand per mission 12 grand a day which is what mike is aiming for for his van pull um which equates to four and a half million a year that's just the operational cost I was about to say a minute ago that doesn't include the helicopter does it So running costs the helicopter, but when our Bell 429

eventually gets so old that we need to replace her, we're looking at another 7, 8, 9 mil on top of our running. And it's vital to all of us. And I guess it's like that insurance policy, because I sit here emotionally going, oh, I really pray I never die.

need it for me or for someone close to me or I think you even touched on it to witness something that requires it you know it might not even be personally connected but to witness something that needs it however to know that it's there oh Yeah, well, I was going to say, we see the air ambulance land in a grass area near our house. And the amount of people that are rushed down to take photos, because again, they get excited because it's an air ambulance. They forget, instantly forget.

It gets posted on social media. We often joke that's what our pilots are for. Not only do they pilot the helicopter, they're also bodyguards.

back off or if they land um like uh school playgrounds feel they're great in the weekday to land in so we need something that's about the size of two tennis courts at night even larger um so if we land in a school you've all the school children and their teachers that come out so the pilots are there doing that pr bit you know they're chatting talking about what so you have to but you even though it would be ideal just keep them fully away but you still have to do the

pr but yeah I mean I presume that all the hospitals have got helicopter landing pads either outside or inside no not all um no on the top so you may have seen on the news salisbury's just got a brand new helipad we went and launched it with them um if we airlift a bath we land in the cricket pitch next door oh wow we've got an agreement they don't have a helipad sometimes you land so far away that actually the ambulance needs to come and pick the crew up but it's really worth noting

that we don't always transfer in the helicopter sometimes we've stabilized them to a point where they can go in the back of the land ambulance and one of our crew will go with them and that then means we either come back to base to refuel or we can go straight to another incident more benefits from being transported by helicopter over ambulance? I mean, is it... There's got to be the speed thing while you would go, but surely... But, yeah, is it smoother?

Not everyone's going to be comfortable in an air ambulance, are they? I don't think they're going to. No, let's be honest. I would be insistent on it. Because they're not, like, sat in the window, are they, looking out and going, oh, look, you can see my house. They're not doing any of that. They're at the back. And I would just hate that whole idea, the claustrophobia as well as the being on it. But I'll be honest. Go on.

I'm going to say, honestly, the instance that we go to, if it came back to you, you would not know where you were, who you were. But I guess my... Because I always thought that that would be worse, but I... I had a heart scare last year. And I say heart scare because it turns out it wasn't a heart attack, thank goodness. But it was certainly, didn't know that at the time. But it, I got, sorry, I was just making sure that something was on then.

They took me to hospital because they weren't sure, they weren't comfortable. They got me stabilised and took me off by road ambulance. Lights and sirens the lot from Castle Combe Circuit. It was such a great place for me to have this scare because, of course, they got the full medical centre there. And off I went.

through all the lights and everything it was blooming terrifying being in the ambulance on that you're just there with what is quite a big space around you going oh my god and I realized yes I did know everything that was going on but that's because largely I'd kind of predominantly settled down but they were worried that I could go again during that journey to get me there so uh there is no lesser greater I don't think is there no I think it's speed it it's whatever the incident calls for and

that's why it's such a complex thing because you never know what's going to happen. The crew come in in the morning, they brief in the morning about the weather, about anything that's going on in the skies. Obviously, we're very close to Salisbury Plains, so it's military as well. We've been communicating with all these different groups of people to make sure that we're flying safely, that they're behaving safely. and you just don't know what's going to happen. Don't do. We didn't know.

My stuff behind that staggered three a day. On average, there have been days where we've gone out 10, 14 times. That's just incredible, isn't it? And it's no wonder, therefore, why the support. Are the pilots medically trained as well? No, they're not medically trained. They're focusing on the pilot. Yep, but they can, so you talked about blood and plasma. So we started carrying blood products in 2015. So we can do full blood transactions at the side of the road.

And we have a Lyoplav, which is a freeze-dried plasma. Oh, wow. So all you do is you add water and then you pump it through a blood warmer into the patient's body. But you have to swill this lyoplasm really gently, like you're doing a gin and tonic. Nothing gentle about my gin and tonic. The pilots are well trained in swilling lyoplasm. But the opposite way, the paramedics are trained as a technical crew member. So they can land the helicopter. They can read all the dials.

Oh, my God. I didn't know that. So the med team can go the other way. Yeah, so you see a lot of helicopters. They're dual pilots. You have your two pilots. But we've got a smaller aircraft. It's nippier. It's faster, lighter, which means that's why we can get places a little bit quicker than others. We can lift faster. But it means that we've only got the one pilot. So the paramedics are trained to just read the dials, to navigate. And if Worst case scenario, absolutely.

They could take over the controls. Yeah, and land. That's just incredible, isn't it? That really is. Where do you get your pilots from? all but one are ex-military. Yeah, which is why we can fly at night. Volunteers or? No, they're paid. All paid for by the charity. Yeah. They don't do sort of like, what do they call it? Not abscond. That's when you escape from the prison. Not abscond. What's the one where you let them out for a year? That's the word. Abscond, succumb.

They're not secondments from something. No, so the pilots are fully paid by the charity. The paramedics, we do get a little bit of... of their wage from the NHS. And the doctors are fully funded by the charity as well. None of them come cheaply either. Oh, no, no, no. Well, I mean, you think that they are the top level qualified, the years and everything else. That makes complete sense. I mean, it's just incredible, isn't it?

And I mean, that's why it's like we need to sort of keep this thing flying in the air. It's absolutely vital. I hope that none of us need it, but it's there if we do. And we've heard that, sadly, an awful lot of people do regularly, daily, multiple times. Last year, 1,167 missions. That's what we were called to. You can't even compute that. 646 in the helicopter, 521 in the cars. A lot of poorly people.

And I think there's a key one is to, although obviously wheelchair air ambulance is that it's all about the helicopter, but it's not, I know you did say it already, but it is important to remember the whole service is the cars as well. Yep. And the people and the kit that we have. Yeah. And you've presumably got the, for want of a better phrase, the call centre here as well. No, so no call centre here.

So it all happens down at the HEMS desk in Exeter and then the calls come through to us and the paramedics, pilots can pick it up and then go from there. So that's all down in our operational bit downstairs where it's nice and cool. Yes, right. It is now in here. It wasn't earlier, was it? But it is now. I'm just running away. Any other questions that you can think of? No, I was just going to say about donations. Obviously, trying to get donations and people can donate online.

They can come and do fundraising opportunities. Yep. So we put on lots of challenge events throughout the year. So play on the pitch is our next one. We've got Snowden Sunrise. If you're a bit of a thrill seeker and you'd like to jump out of a plane, you can do a skydive with us. There you go. That's next on your bucket list. Any family or friends watching will be laughing at the idea of getting me to do that. I think September, isn't it? It is. I'm not tandeming with you, mate.

No, you're a professional. You're all right. Don't worry. But I think Mike's also doing it. That doesn't surprise me. He said he'd get to a certain amount that he would then jump out of the party. Yeah, I think we went past that amount as well. So last year, I... When I first met Naomi, I said I would pledge to raise one and a half thousand. And we went past the one and a half thousand threshold. I think I might have laughed when he said that.

And I said, when we get to two and a half, I'll jump out of the plane. And we got to five quite quickly. So, yeah. And we're now around about halfway. So we're just at the £6,000 mark. Keep it going. Yeah, what's difficult for me is it's been days, months, weeks, trying to raise enough money for one day for them. So there needs to be... But even £100. So not everybody can raise £12,000. Not everybody can pull a van. Not everybody can put as much time and effort as you have.

We're very, very lucky. Other people might put on a bake sale, and that's no less important. Yeah, see, eating cake, easy. We've got a lovely coffee morning just around the corner from me. And they get together once a month. Ridge Coffee Club. Yeah, the Ridge Coffee Club. And they get together, even donated one of their quiz nights to the band pool. Yeah. But they've raised quite a few thousand. Yes. So they raise a couple of hundred each time they put on a coffee morning.

And over the years, I mean, they've been with us since, you know, 2010, 13, something like that. They've raised well over a day's worth. But even if it's £100, that will still fund a blood warmer. That still helps give a blood transfusion. No amount is too small. I think that's always an important thing is that because I used to occasionally fall into the trap is you kind of go, you know, I can't really give any more than the 10 or 50.

And we're being told now not to with everything that's going on in the world with the cost of living. What's the first thing to go? It has to be all your charity, direct debit and anything you don't need. And let's face it, if you're going to choose to feed your family or donate to charity, you're going to feed your family. So, am I allowed to say that Tesco coined the phrase beautifully, every penny helps? It does, it really does. No, and I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Seamlessly back again. I don't know Aldi, but I definitely know Aldi. seamlessly back to brandon no I mean and I put up the thing wheelchairairambulance.co.uk jump on have a look all of the information's there it emotionally it's a no-brainer isn't it and it is as they say is don't underestimate how important just that little bit uh that we that can be given And don't just think about it as giving some money right there itself.

It's like these examples where you or your organisation about doing activities that is raising money from other people, that suddenly that organisation getting multiple people able to help in those little bits, suddenly it's a bigger lump that goes through. And I'll probably get a little bit blubby now, but it's about making friendships and lasting relationships. And I think I can consider Mike a friend now, you know. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's building those relationships.

It might not necessarily be a one-off donation. It might be little and often. It might just be spreading awareness. But, you know, come get to know us. Which is what's a big thing that your stuff's been doing, isn't it? It's definitely spreading a whole lot of awareness. It's like your branding now. It's the Vanpool guy. Yeah, well. It comes up in every meeting, and you don't even need to bring it up anymore, and it will come up for someone. I mean, if it's still creating awareness.

It's just brilliant. No, not at all. Incidentally, and also on another personal one, we've got to say a massive congratulations. Naomi is engaged to be wed. Not to Mike. Who is it? To my other half, Rick. Rick, congratulations to you as well, mate. Congratulations to you. Your finance is over there.

autocorrect but congratulations on that as well thank you very much lovely to see with all the hard work that you do is that there's still all that personal touch out there as well and we love that we're very lucky we get to spend the time with the real person as well as everything that you'll do and and that's what this is about isn't it making sure that people get to know the people as well And like you say, people buy from people. People support something that is close to their hearts.

And when you get to know someone and know their story, I've met Stuart, whose story you heard earlier. Oh, really? I still cry every time he talks about it. I know, you stitched us right up. I do have the other video, but I'm not playing it because I was there trying to be manly and not cry in a networking breakfast meeting because you played that three minutes one.

Yeah. it's just incredible but he's playing football tomorrow and he is playing football tomorrow oh wow which I've met before as well that is incredible um actually do you know what I am going to play it as the close out but I'm going to finish with us on camera at this point uh and I mean I am going to play out the uh wheelchair ambulance videos from their youtube channel so look you can see all of this stuff on the wheelchair ambulance youtube channel on the website Naomi,

it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. I suppose it's been a pleasure to have you on as well, Mike. No, it has. It's been brilliant. Thank you so much for watching. Appreciate it. Keep your eyes peeled because this will then pop up in the clips and everything for everybody to look. Any questions about the van pool? Get in touch. Anything about how you can support? Obviously, I've got the wheelchair air ambulance. I'll be fair because it's a while ago.

I put this up as you've got nickeldesign.co.uk. And of course, you've already got up in the top left hand corner my website to discuss.

what we can do in terms of bringing you and your stories to life with visual pr but I'm going to play us out with the wheelchair ambulance video from us here live at semington thank you for your company and I'll see you next month for episode five we are there with really poorly people who are at their worst moment in their lives potentially For that moment, they're my family, so that patient is my world. There's a real emotional investment as well as a clinical one.

That person's probably going to remember that day forever and although we see these patients far too frequently unfortunately, for them that's the one moment that they've got of Wiltshire Ambience. It's a powerful, fast aircraft. We can go up to 155 knots with that. So that's about 170, 180 miles an hour. And obviously if you can get a 30 mile an hour wind behind you, which is quite possible, we can be up to three miles a minute across the ground. No two days are the same.

We might come in and see traumatic patients or cardiac patients. They're all very different. And we can only do this because of the generosity of the businesses and the members of the public who put on fundraising events and provide us with that funding. Everybody gets it. They all get that the Air Ambulance is something that they might need, their son or daughter might need, their mother or father might need.

And it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, what you believe in, the Air Ambulance is a vital service for everybody and everybody completely understands that. It's very much part of civil society here in Wiltshire. Once the task comes in, what will happen is the pilot will then go out to the aircraft, start it up while the clinicians are plotting where the incident is and then we will make our way towards the aircraft and off we go to that incident.

So we can be in the air from the moment that call comes in to us within about two minutes, less than two minutes. And then we can be on the side of the road within Wiltshire in about 11 minutes offering the critical care service that we offer. It is not funded by the government. It wasn't set up by the government in the first place. It's kind of like the RNLI of the air. And we rely entirely on people of Wiltshire to fund this service.

As it says on the sideline machine, it's funded by you flying for you. And it really is that every penny that's donated is a penny used towards treating that patient. Bye.