‘This is such a great idea and will help the club to safeguard and protect its members, in their hour of need, as well as supporting the local community’.

- Kirsty Lenham & Christine Ferguson - CWU

Club Committee member, Craig Ridgill, has been actively working towards purchasing a defibrillator for the club for the last 18 months, and his efforts have been rewarded this week, with donations from the Communications Workers Union and The Doncaster Lions Club.

The purchase of the unit will allow the club to have access to the necessary equipment, if there is an unfortunate event where one of their players, spectators, members and members of the wider public suffers from a cardiac arrhythmia. These recent donations now mean that the club is close to being able to fund the units purchase.

A defibrillator is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmia and can treat them through defibrillation, the application of electrical therapy which seeks to stop the arrhythmia, allowing the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm.

These defibrillators are designed to be simple to use, so that they can be applied by the general public, with the use of defibrillation being taught as part of first aid, first responder and basic life support classes.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU), who have kindly donated £400 towards the unit, is the biggest union for the communications industry in the UK with 199,443 members. It was formed in January 1995 when the Union of Communication Workers joined forces with the National Communications Union.

They have members who work in Royal Mail, the Post Office, BT, Telefonica O2 and other telecommunication companies, cable TV, Accenture HR Services, financial services, and Santander. Our members' expertise includes engineering, computing, clerical, mechanical, driving, retail, financial and manual skills.

Kirsty Lenham & Christine Ferguson part of the Lincolnshire & South Yorkshire Branch, commented on their donation of £400 to the Wheatley Hills Defibrillator Fund ‘This is such a great idea and will help the club to safeguard and protect its members, in their hour of need, as well as supporting the local community’.

The Wheatley Hills Defibrillator fund has also received a £200 donation from the Doncaster Lions Club, which is part of Lions Clubs International, the world’s largest service organisation with 1.35m members in over 200 countries around the world.

The Lions Club provide help and support to individuals, families and other voluntary groups and help the young, youth, aged, infirm, distressed and those affected by disasters and emergencies. Every pound raised by the Lions Club is used to support the people and organisations in need; nothing is taken for administration which is funded by Lions themselves.

Craig Ridgill, of Wheatley Hills RUFC, when talking about the recent donations said ‘I can’t thank the two organisation’s enough, the donations we have received will help Wheatley Hills RUFC purchase this vital piece of equipment making sure our players, members and the local community are safe ’