Oxford First Aid Society - OFAS

Join us for the first session back, this Thursday at St Hugh's College. We'll be covering the primary survey, CPR and use of an AED.

Join our WhatsApp at https://chat.whatsapp.com/KPkFZVTvQLS28gI4ktEnVh

Our local St John Ambulance network is recruiting our next Community First Aiders - no prior knowledge needed, just a desire to help the community and a willingness to learn first aid.

💚Give your time to help others
💚Learn lifesaving first aid skills (for free!) and help the public at local events, which in Oxford can include events such as OUFC, college balls and local half marathons.
💚Share your skills to make our community a happier and safer place

Volunteer Opportunity Search | St John Ambulance Search for current volunteer opportunities with St John Ambulance near you and help to make your community a safe place.

Want the opportunity to gain hands on clinical experience? We're excited to say that the Greater Oxfordshire St John Ambulance network are preparing to open up recruitment for Community First Aiders (CFAs). Our CFAs will be welcome to join us on a number of events, including college balls, Oxford United Football Club matches and local community events, alongside the opportunity to attend national events, including Notting Hill Carnival, Great North Run and Brighton Pride. The network is also made up of an incredibly friendly and diverse set of individuals who will look after you throughout your time as a volunteer.

It is expected that volunteers are able to commit to 80 hours each year to the organisation, through events, training, fundraising or community outreach. Your initial training will consist of hybrid elements, including a 2 day in person course. You will be supported in your journey to treating patients with a more experienced volunteer buddy, and will have plenty of opportunities to attend regular trainings through unit nights (similar to what we offer at OFAS) and upskilling courses. As students you will be able to join units local to both your home and term time address.

For international students interested, please be aware that volunteering can count towards your work allowance, and you should reach out to our team if you have any concerns.

If you are interested, you can reach out to our fabulous Network Volunteer Services Lead, or you can reach out to me at [email protected] or catch one of our St John Ambulance volunteers at the end of any of our OFAS sessions.

OFAS and SJA are separate organisations though both support one another so if you need any clarification about how we differ, please see the attached guide.

A massive thank you to those of you who joined us this week, it was wonderful to meet you, and we hope you found it useful. On Thursday we will be going how to perform the secondary survey and perform some basic clinical observations - you're more than welcome to join us even if you weren't able to make it this week. For planning purposes, it would be helpful to let us know if you're thinking of attending via the Facebook event page (https://bit.ly/4ayfoMS).

Please find attached a slightly revised schedule of the remaining HT sessions.

We're excited to announce the re-launch of the Oxford First Aid Society, where we will be running weekly training sessions each Thursday 7-8pm at St Hugh's College in the MTB seminar room. We will be sharing our provisional schedule imminently but feel free to share your suggestions as we’d love to hear them!

Our team consists of medical students, operational volunteers and trainers with St John Ambulance, and ordinary students who simply have a passion for equipping as many people as possible with life-saving first aid skills.

We can't wait to meet you!

– Shannon, President

Thanks to everyone for your interest in joining the Oxford First Aid Society! The society is coming out of a lengthy period of inactivity and the current committee are working hard to finalise our plans. Whilst we may have a slow start to Michaelmas, we hope to be able to offer weekly training sessions by Hilary across a number of medical conditions, scenarios and events! We'd love to hear from people any suggestions as we continue to plan ahead and thank you for your support and patience as we get the society back on track.

We hope to be able to post shortly our timetable for Michaelmas however we are happy to promote a "Restart a Heart" session THIS EVENING from 6pm at Church Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 9JY run by the Oxford Events St John Ambulance unit. This drop in session will allow you to learn how to recognise when someone requires CPR, practise how to perform it on the Annie dummies, alongside learning how to use an automatic external defibrillator (AED). We encourage anyone who has never learnt how to perform basic life support (BLS) or for whom it has been a while to go.

In addition to being a fabulous training opportunity, a number of the newly elected committee are current St John Ambulance volunteers and so will be present. We hope to be able to run a similar event in the future for those of you not able to attend tonight.

Hello all. We have our Annual General Meeting coming up this Saturday 21st September at 9pm, where we will be electing a new committee. If interested in coming, message us via Facebook, and we will send you the online link. We are also to keen to hear from you if you are interested in any committee roles - just let us know (no experience necessary). Thank you!