By Kathy Martin…
Friday 16th December 2016 – Have just returned from the funeral (or if I may be permitted to say “An affirmation of Life”) of Bob Lamb, Claire’s loving, caring and completely crazy husband!
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RIP Bob Lamb – 15/04/1948 – 10/12/2016 – TRIBUTES
Claire asked that all of you who think of Bob today (16th December 2016) to write your comment on her page about your favourite memory of Bob? Be it a funny experience (and I’m sure there are plenty of them!) or an example of his kindness, whatever your memory is please share so we can all smile as we remember this crazy, fun loving, kind and caring man!
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North Cyprus Save a Life, Give Blood scheme appeals for more donors
By Chris Elliott……..
Having had the misfortune in the past to be hospitalized and need blood transfusions and also have the task of collecting supplies from the Lefkosa Blood Bank for a loved one, I am acutely aware of the knife-edge situation here in the TRNC when blood is needed for a patient’s treatment.
Therefore it was with pleasure that we gave our support this week to publicising the British Residents Society Blood Donation Day event on 15th October 
at the Girne State Hospital.
The British Residents Society will hold further blood donor days in 2017 and you have to ask yourself where further donations will come from to support the Lefkosa Blood Bank before the next blood donor day.
The biggest difficulty we face in a multi language community is the sharing of news to reach everyone which in the main in the media is either in Turkish or English and one excellent initiative to communicate emergency requirements for blood donation was the setting up of the Save a Life, Give Blood scheme by Steve Collard and a number of friends with the approval of the TRNC Ministry of Health. Click here to read more.
I have just received the following message requesting help from Steve Collard and clearly many more potential donors need to register on the emergency telephone alert system so messages can be sent to individuals when special blood types are required.
Appeal for help!
Hello Chris.
As you may be aware we have taken over the emergency blood requests from the British Residents Society and many existing blood donors are coming up to an age or taking medications that do not allow them to donate anymore.
Our Save a Life – Give Blood (0542 880 0112) system was set up for emergencies only but over the past month private hospitals 
have contacted us for bloods for preparing planned operations. Getting blood for these operations has left our donors thin on the ground and when the same blood group was needed the following week for emergency cases, no donors were found.
We have also had problems at the Girne State Hospital where no nurse has been available to take blood so the only option is for donors to go to the Lefkoşa State Hospital. This in itself has been a problem because some people will not travel that far.
We will now only deal with the main blood bank and there is a BRS guide click here that is for donors about ages and medications. The private hospitals have sent away donors 
because they have their own agenda.
Last week we were asked for bloods for an operation today (3rd October) and no one came forward despite. 163 members with that blood group being sent SMS messages and we also followed this up with an appeal on BRTK Radio and through the Cyprus Today newspaper.
There is a vast number of potential younger donors at the various universities which we will be approaching to introduce our Emergency Blood Donor scheme which has the approval of the TRNC Ministry of Health.
Regards
Stephen C Collard
CESV are taking over the BRS Emergency Blood Donor Service
For some time the British Residents Society has been seeking voluntary support from its members to assist with the running of their emergency blood donor service without much success.
The main problem was that despite many pleas for support, insufficient volunteers came forward from their membership to continue managing and co-ordinating the emergency blood donor service on a permanent basis and so various options were considered.
Having considered a number of options, BRS decided the option the best possible outcome for their emergency service was for it to transferred to the Civil Emergency Volunteer Service (CESV) who already operate an emergency blood donor service, albeit on a smaller scale, and whose members 
volunteer their time to assist in civil emergencies and work alongside Sivil Savunma.(TRNC Civil Defence)..
After a number of consultative meetings, CESV agreed to the transfer and to assume responsibility for providing the emergency blood donor service.
The effective date for the handover/takeover of responsibility of the emergency blood donor service is Monday 25th July 2016. On this date the BRS blood donor contact database will be passed to CESV, who have assured BRS that they will maintain the same degree of confidentially as delivered by the BRS.
The current BRS emergency blood donor telephone number (0533 855 5699) can continue to be used after 25th July to contact the CESV.
CESV will continue to use the BRS SMS system for requests for emergency blood donations.
BRS SPONSORED BLOOD DONOR DAYS
The BRS sponsored blood donor days arranged in conjunction with Lefkosa Blood Bank and Girne State Hospital will be unaffected by the change to the emergency donor service and will continue to be organised by the BRS.
Notification of dates will continue to be sent by email to members and by advertising in various internet media and newspapers. The next BRS blood donor day will be held on Sat 15th October 2016 at Girne State Hospital.
A Halloween Happening in aid of Lefkosa Special Needs School
A Halloween Happening at Villa Diva, Catalkoy
By Margaret Sheard…..
Video by Chris Elliott…..
Halloween – the 31st October, strangely this is not something I have previously entered into or enjoyed in the past, but I had my eyes opened when attending the Halloween Happening hosted by Mehmet and Demetra George Mustafoğlu at their beautiful home, Villa Diva in Çatalköy.
The event was organised by Demetra and her “A” Team to raise funds to purchase much needed equipment for the children of The Special Needs School, Nicosia – Lefkoşa Özel Eğitim Merkezi and the Lefkoşa Özel Eğitim ve iş Merkezi.
Chris and I spent some time getting our costumes together, as this was definitely fancy dress, and our choices were Chris as a Samurai warrior and I chose to be a witch. We were quite pleased with our efforts and when we arrived we were amazed, when the guests started arriving, at the thought and effort that had gone into so many of the varied characters and costumes. This made the whole atmosphere of the evening absolutely wonderful.
The event was held at the rear of the house on the huge terrace and pool area and it was plain to see that a lot of work and thought had gone into the brilliant Halloween decorations which were everywhere, as well as at the front of the house where the guests entered. I am sure I missed some of the decorations. Thanks must go to ESK music teacher Desi Bastas for the brilliant decor and also to Ali Guler of Krystal Dekor for the beautiful flower arrangements.
There was a special area for the children to enjoy games and treats and on the outside terrace the bar area had been decorated and was very ably run by Levent and Mustafa. The music was provided by Latino Turco y Gitano with additional music by saxophonist Ivan Lavrentev. In between dashing here, there and everywhere – Demetra later sang two songs to entertain her guests.
Nothing was left to chance and we noticed some of the members of the Civil Emergency Services Volunteers (CESV) were in attendance to keep an eye on the activities in case of emergencies, of which thankfully there were none. I am sure they enjoyed the occasion even though being on duty,
We spied John Graham of The Little Society of Kyrenia (LSOK) who does so much for the young people of North Cyprus, especially the special children who need that little bit extra to enhance their lives. John also has an interest in the Lefkoşa Special Needs School through LSOK so he was very pleased to join the Halloween Happening to assist further. In fact John had been busy at Villa Diva the previous day helping with the decorations.
There was a lovely buffet dinner with a wide range of choices of hot and cold items and salad and later some very yummy desserts appeared.
The evening suddenly became very cool with a wind blowing from the sea and Demetra asked everyone to move inside the house to the Grand Salon and the musicians also moved their equipment and before long everything was set up again and the evening continued. The musicians started playing a piece of music and 2 of the guests danced a wonderful tango, they were extremely good and had rousing applause when they finished.
There was a huge amount of raffle prizes which had been 
donated by various companies and people and the raffle took place so there were many lucky winners. There were also prizes for the best children and adult fancy dress costumes. It must have been hard to choose the winners.
Demetra has said there are still donations coming in which have exceeded their expectations and it is thought that the funds raised will more than cover the equipment which has already been promised to the Special Needs School. When the final total is known we will be able to advise our readers of this.
A superb evening and for sure I hope I will be able to attend the 2016 Halloween Happening. As a taster for next year, see the video below.