Oakley Vale Community Centre in Corby celebrated its 10th anniversary with a fun day at the weekend
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00:00 It gives me great pleasure this morning, is it still morning? This afternoon, to welcome Madam Mayor, Councillor Leanne Buckingham, to officially unveil one of the two defib kits that we have prepared.
00:15 Leanne, thank you.
00:17 Thank you very much.
00:22 Well ten years ago in 2013, the Oakerville Community Centre opened its doors to our first customers on the 8th of July. I was then Mayor and on the 21st of September I opened it officially.
00:34 And the idea was always to make this place a hub, a real centre of the community. It's taking time, but ten years on it is really starting to be that. And I think today the fact we've had over a thousand people here between 11 and 4 is just testament to that.
00:52 We have the centre used pretty much every day, all day, including at the weekends we have a local church here, we have martial arts classes, youth club, NHS work here, dementia groups, dances for little kids, lots of stuff.
01:09 It's really why you have coffee morning on a Wednesday, WI come here, it's just lovely. I'm delighted. I've been involved in this place since 2010 when the plans were drawn up and it was starting to be developed with the council.
01:23 I've been on the steering group for that, then on the Board of Trustees from day one. I've held every role apart from Treasurer. I'm currently Secretary, but I've been Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary.
01:35 I'm just really proud of this place and the current Board of Trustees we have and the current centre users, they're just a joy to be with.
01:42 We've been working every month for the last couple of years with Chris Knights and other fundraising to get a defibrillator unit and a bleed kit here.
01:51 And we raised enough not for one, but for two. And we unveiled them, well the Mayor unveiled them today.
01:57 And we're delighted to have one here, but also to have raised enough money for a second one that will go somewhere else on the estate.
02:04 Today's been a massive success. The weather has been good to us, we were a bit worried about midday when it started to rain.
02:11 We couldn't have asked for a better day, we couldn't have asked for better people to have joined in.
02:16 The public have been great and it's been great to have the Telegraph here, thank you.
02:20 Today is the 10th anniversary of Oakley Vale Community Centre and that's the big important one.
02:27 And it's good to get the community in and involved in all the activities and things that we do.
02:33 So to enhance that we've secured enough funds for a defib unit which we've now got mounted on the front which has been unveiled today.
02:43 And then we've also raised enough funds to buy a second one to go into Oakley Vale.
02:49 So we've done a magnificent job, the committee's done a magnificent job.
02:54 And truthfully it really is down to them, they are just a great bunch of guys and girls.
03:00 It's just so important for the community because if you get that community involved then you reduce the isolation that goes on in individuals lives now.
03:11 We do that in various ways, we do a coffee morning for instance on a Wednesday morning and that's open to absolutely anybody and everybody.
03:20 And it's completely free and you just come along for a couple of hours, have a chat, have a coffee and a biscuit and do you know what, it's just wonderful.
03:28 It really is lovely. I think it's been a marvellous day, marvellous day. I'm delighted.
03:34 I'm delighted with everybody turning up and I'm delighted everybody's enjoyed themselves, it's just been magnificent.
03:40 Well for ten solid years it's had its centre, you know, and I mean that in more than just a building.
03:45 It's a place where the whole community can come and share it so there's a multitude of groups that goes on.
03:51 And sometimes just coffee mornings, just come and sit and enjoy your community, it's great.
03:56 This is kind of unique to some others, some other estates already had their own centre so this is quite unique that it's only ten years old but it's ten years of really strong community spirit.
04:09 I think you can definitely see there's still growth to be had in Corby and as long as it's done in the right way that's great but I see many more of these centres coming along and I think this is probably one of the pinnacles to say, you know, we're only ten years old and when somewhere else is having a ten years this will be twenty years so yeah, it's really nice.
04:25 In heart related illness, it's so prevalent and I'm not saying just from bleeding in heart, there are so many reasons why a heart might stop, there are so many reasons why you might have a catastrophic bleed.
04:38 And you need to be within three minutes walking distance of one of these boxes for it to be able to save you because obviously we don't want to send people out in crisis in cars.
04:47 To have this one here is amazing and the great news is that we've got so much money from looking to get one, we were able to compete in the market and we've managed to buy two so there's going to be another one on the area very soon.
05:01 I want them every three minute walking distance, I want to make sure that we're kind of pinpointing and making sure everyone has, if they're ever in need, it's right where you need it.
05:11 This makes all the difference between life and death, I think it's like an 80% increase. If you have a cardiac arrest, yes CPR will help you, but if you have an AED somewhere close by, you increase the risk of survival by 80% and that's huge.
05:26 We're extremely proud to support the Oakley Vale Community Centre with the installation of their new defib, it's the first of many that will go in on the Oakley Vale estate.
05:35 We hope that by the end of this time next year that we will be able to get enough defibs on the Oakley Vale estate that are within a two minute walking distance from everybody.
05:44 It's been a fantastic community spirit, everyone's come together to help raise funds for them.
05:49 We've helped with the installation and Rosie lives on this estate and she will go out and check it on a monthly basis, making sure that it's ready to go out to cause, to help with cardiac arrests when needed.
06:01 So anybody that goes into cardiac arrests, for every minute that they don't have any work, so CPR or AED, for every minute it's 10% less chance of them surviving.
06:12 So it's really important that we have these defibs everywhere to give everybody the best chance of survival.
06:18 We've got seven that are ready to go out in Corby estate, Corby town sorry. We're looking at Exeter Estate, Daines Home, Abington Field, Town Centre's going to have another one, lots of them.
06:32 We have our own first fundraising day down at the Grampian on the 13th of August, 12 till 4, it's a Sunday, everybody's welcome.
06:41 All the money that we raise from there is going to go back into the community. We're currently looking to buy razor chairs so that we can go out to patients that have had falls.
06:48 As long as they're medically okay, we can help to get them off the floor, hopefully to stop them having to go into hospital if we can help it.
06:56 And yeah, any other funds will go out towards helping with replacement of pads and things like that for defibrillators.