As we continue to support Essex and Herts Air Ambulance this year, we were excited to see that they were running a sweepstake for the Euro 2024 competition. Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) is a charity that relies on the generosity of its supporters. Their life-saving service is delivered across Essex, Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas without government funding. The EHAAT airbases are located in Earls Colne and North Weald which means they can reach the furthest parts of Essex or Hertfordshire in under 20 minutes!
You may be surprised to know that, on average, each team responds to approximately seven calls a day. The most common reasons for an Air Ambulance to be dispatched are medical emergency, road traffic collision and accidental injury. On average the crews treat over 1,900 patients every year. When we visited the base at North Weald we met some of the crew and were shown one of the helicopters. The base has an interactive training area where the team are able to simulate different conditions, places and types of incidents, for example a night club, a busy protest march, a hospital, an arena, shopping centre, school and more. They could make it noisy, dark, windy etc, it is amazing to see how the sim studio could provide a wealth of training for so many conditions, all in one place.
We decided to take part in the EHAAT EURO 2024 Sweepstake, so we were sent a very well-designed pack from EHAAT where we could draw the countries for each of us. We all donated £10 per ticket and half of the combined money was given straight to EHAAT and the other half was kept for the lucky winner. We needed a few extra people to take part so some of our friends and family, outside of the team, but still very much part of the OPRA ‘family’, were offered a ticket.
The tournament started and to be honest, not every game was entertaining, therefore, the sweepstake made it much more interesting for us as we had more fun as the competition progressed. People began to get knocked out and we soon whittled down to the final two teams, England vs Spain! As previously mentioned, we reached out to other external people to join in and it soon became apparent that we had a fun scenario, our Head of Talent Katie Fenn drew England and her (and our Resourcing Business Partner, Billy Ellis’) children drew Spain! It was a win/win for the Fenn/Ellis household and even though we were not super happy with England coming second, we were all highly delighted that we could make it exciting for the Fenn/Ellis gang.
Here’s our Just Giving link: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/OPRA-Group-Ltd