FOCAL First Aid Training

[George Armstrong]

Good evening,

You may recall late last year one of the proposed ideas going forward into 2025 was to arrange some first aid training courses in order to give more members of the community vital experience in being able to handle any physical or mental health incidents or issues that may occur at a tournament.

I'm pleased to announce that the rough plan going forward is as follows:

- Rachel Perkins' partner Lee, who some of you may have met at last years CO:Braintree, is attending a multi day adult training course. This has been partly subsidised by FOCAL levy funds.

- In return for this, Lee has offered to teach a group of us for free. This is vastly more cost effective than several of us going on separate courses.

- Once Lee has completed his training, we will look into finding a suitable venue and date on which to hold the FOCAL first aid training, hopefully in June or July.

The cost of the group training day will either be free, or will be a minimal payment to go towards covering venue costs. There will naturally be limited space available for this, but if you would be interested in attending this (even if you may have to change your mind once the date/location are confirmed) or have any further questions please let me know.

[George Armstrong]

Good afternoon,

Those of you who regularly frequent our FOCAL tournaments might be aware that one thing we proposed for 2025 was to organise a First Aid Training Day in light of some incidents that occurred throughout 2024, so that more organisers and attendees were equipped with vital life skills that could help them not only deal with any situations that may happen at an event, but in their wider lives.

I'm pleased to announce that we have a date and venue for this:

Saturday 16th August, 10:00 - 18:00
St Clement’s Centre
Cross Street
Oxford
OX4 1DA

You may recognise this as the venue we used for CO:Oxford this year and last for those who went to either event.

We have limited spaces available for this, and several have already been taken. If anyone has genuine interest and can make the date and location, please send me a direct message as soon as possible to guarantee your space. We are not asking for any money from you to attend this, but any donations to FOCAL are always kindly accepted.

[George Armstrong]

Thanks to everyone who came down to Oxford yesterday, and to Lee for teaching us some important life skills - check out some highlights from our session here: https://focalcountdown.com/2025/08/17/f ... -training/