Presenters and staff at Star Radio in Cambridge are supporting NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in their campaign to find more platelet donors for the Cambridge Blood Donor Centre.

A one-off platelet testing session is being held at a mobile blood unit at Star Radio’s studios in Mercer’s Row, Cambridge on Friday 18 May from 10am – 2pm.

The mobile unit will be in the radio station’s car park and local people are being asked to make an appointment to be tested to see if they’re suitable for platelet donation, as only around one in four people normally have a high enough platelet count.

As a local station for the Cambridge area, Star Radio are hoping that the recruitment and testing day will attract many more donors.

Star Radio News Editor, Emma Howgego said: “We approached the blood service to see if we could help encourage more people to give whole blood. However, when we found out that Cambridge Donor Centre is one of only two centres in the East of England to collect platelets we decided there and then we wanted to get involved with promoting platelet donation.

“Most of our staff and presenters have never given blood and they’re all going to lead by example and be tested on the day to see if they can become platelet donors. And to say thank you to those that come along, we’ll even show them around the Star Radio studios afterwards and give them a cup of tea.”

Many hospitals across East Anglia are supplied from donations made at the Cambridge Donor Centre on the Addenbrookes Hospital site.

Platelets are tiny cells in the blood which help to stem blood loss by enabling clotting and crucial supplies only have a seven day shelf-life.  Platelet transfusions are often needed for very ill patients whose bone marrow isn’t working properly, including cancer or leukaemia sufferers undergoing chemotherapy.

Georgina Norris, Donor Relations Co-ordinator for NHSBT, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Star Radio have come on board with us to attract more platelet donors, so we can ensure a safe and sufficient supply of platelets for all those patients who need them.”

Platelet donors are encouraged to donate regularly, at least once a month and more if possible. You could become a platelet donor if you are between 17 and 65.  If you are aged 66 – 70 you need to have given blood before, and if you are over 70 then you need to have given a full blood donation in the last two years.

Anybody who wants to provide a sample on 18 May should make an appointment by contacting Emma Howgego at emma.howgego@star107.co.uk or call 01223 305107 during office hours.

My dad tipped me off to it after hearing it being talked about on radio.  I hadnt even heard of it and it had already got to nearly 3 million views!

There is nothing more I can really add to this apart from to say turn up the sound and watch it fully, yes it is 10 minutes long but trust me you wont even notice the time as you get drawn into Caines Arcade.

The message I will take from this is explained in one word – Belief

I hope one day I will be able to buy a fun pass for Caines Arcade.

I like the idea of local niche websites being there to promote conversation at local level, can only be a good thing with regards to keeping the standards of passenger transport high.  They also have deals on which is what interested me initially as I am off to London on a regular basis these days.

So if you get a moment – pop over and say hi to the guys at taxi Ely, they have supported a competition that we have run on the radio station called cash cab which I really appreciate.

Taxi Ely will earn about 10p for every ticket they sell so I thought it only fair I share their link in case you need any tickets – they are going to have to sell a lot lol !

Click the podcast player below to hear the interview 

I have been presenting the food and drink show at Star Radio for 6 months now and its growing fast, its coming up on the radar of a lot of people in the industry and I was offered an interview with Italian superstar Gennaro Contaldo .

This is the guy that inspired Jamie Oliver!

He is also famous for the television series 2 greedy italians, you will hear me talking about this series in the interview – its just brilliant!

Press the play button on the player below to listen to the full interview

Biog below From Wikipedia

Gennaro Contaldo
, (b.January 21, 1949(1949-01-21) Minori, Amalfi Coast, Italy) co-owned and was executive chef of the now-closed Passione restaurant, in Charlotte Street, London, UK. Gennaro Contaldo grew up in the small village of Minori on the Amalfi Coast, developing his love for food from days he spent hunting with his father and grandfather, and collecting herbs for his mother. He began working in local restaurants at age eight. He left Italy in 1969 for London where he married in 1974 and had three children. He briefly established an Italian antiques business before returning to cooking. Gennaro Contaldo
‘s inspiration to cook in England was partly due to the availability of game and fungi, both important components of Amalfitan cuisine.

Gennaro Contaldo
later worked for popular London restaurants in St John’s Wood, and at Antonio Carluccio‘s Neal Street Restaurant in London’s Covent Garden. He left Neal Street in 1998 and opened Passione in 1999. Passione was awarded ‘Best Italian Restaurant 2005′ by the Tio Pepe Restaurant Awards. Passione closed in March 2009 due to decreased business as a result of the late-2000s recession.^[1] In media interviews, Contaldo has frequently voiced his enthusiasm for foraged wild food, especially mushrooms.^[2][3][4]

In April 2003, Gennaro Contaldo
published his first cookbook, Passione, which is dedicated to the Amalfitan style of cooking. The cookbook won ‘Gourmand World Cookbook – Best Italian Cuisine Book’ for 2003. His second book, Gennaro’s Italian Year, was published in September 2006. His third book, Gennaro’s Italian Home Cooking, was published in September 2008, and his fourth, Genarro’s Easy Italian, was published in March 2010.

Gennaro Contaldo
is also famous for his association with his protege, Jamie Oliver, whom he first mentored at Neal Street Restaurant in the 1990s. The two chefs have since maintained a close friendship and professional relationship. Oliver even once put up a reward for information when Contaldo’s restaurant, Passione, was robbed in 2003.^[5] Contaldo has appeared on many of Oliver’s television shows, such as The Naked Chef. He made a comic appearance as one of Oliver’s sous chefs on Food Network’s Iron Chef America, in a battle against famed Italian-American chef Mario Batali. Contaldo also developed menus and trained chefs for Oliver’s UK restaurant chain Jamie’s Italian.

Gennaro Contaldo
has made cooking appearances on numerous other television shows. On BBC1‘s Saturday morning show Saturday Kitchen, he set a record of 16.36 seconds for making a 3-egg Omelette.

Ian Coxon Editor of Sunday Times Rich List

Put simply the multiplier effect is achieved by coordinating several different campaigns to run together across different types of media or communication. Radio and online advertising is growing fast and has been highly effective for some time.

Ernest Doe decided to go all out on the multiplier effect with radio, press and some physical outdoor activity all of which was kept to the minimum cost but the effect of which created a noise which was far higher than the spending power of the budget they had and even created some viral traction as stories appeared in the local press.

The video below shows the external activity that Ernest Doe organised to co-incide with the running of the radio commercial that you can hear in the video. You can imagine the interest the Aliens created as people drove past. Brilliant fun and actually an excellent way to maximise the promotional activity they engaged in with their radio campaign!

Ernest Doe Promotional Activity to support Star Radio Advertising Campaign

Finally some facts and figures that made me smile. You are 40 times more likely to give birth to twins than to click on a banner ad, or 31 times more likely to win the lottery and my personal favourite – 475 times more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad.

The News of the World exploited the fact that, on most networks, if you have never set up a pin number the default is normally something very simple.

That meant journalists were able to access other people’s messages from any phone they wanted.

To give you added protection you can go to your voicemail options and change the settings or phone your operator and ask them to do it for you.

Don’t go for anything obvious, like the year you were born or 1234. If you can, choose a long string of numbers that you are able to memorise.

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