A drone pilot has created an eye-catching video to promote Blood Bikes Cumbria, as the charity celebrates National Blood Bikes Awareness Day.

Spencer Doran, of Whitehaven, is a shift controller and fundraiser at the charity and, having seen the work of Blood Bikes Cumbria firsthand, he felt compelled to make a video profiling their vital work.

He said: “A lot of them do 12 hour nights on call, some of the efforts they put in, people don’t see.

“Blood Bikes is a close knit group and when I heard about the national awareness day from another member I decided that we should do something for it.”

Spencer recruited his friend and videographer Shaun Timmins from Sugar Tongue Media to create a video, including footage of the bikes and interviews with those involved.

Shaun and Spencer’s video includes striking drone footage of the bikes out in the Cumbrian countryside and interviews with the volunteers who make the charity’s work possible.

The video piece and today’s national awareness day are part of the charity’s agenda to raise the profile of Blood Bikes Cumbria at a difficult period for not-for-profit organisations.

Spencer said: “It’s also a great opportunity to get some additional information out there, which helps with recruitment and funding."

He said: “Covid-19 has put a strain on both of these resources for us, so the video we are releasing is a win-win for us.

“Our volunteers have given up so much of their time to deal with Covid-19 this year, so it’s nice to be able to make this video to give something back to them, and for the public to learn more about the work we do.”

Chairwoman Anne Marie Moffatt said: “We always want to raise awareness; there are still people out there that don’t know what Blood Bikes do.”

She added that Blood Bikes Cumbria had been a vital part of the fight against coronavirus.

“At one point we had three people out doing support jobs for the NHS, it’s absolutely vital," she said. "We’ve always been there for emergency out-of-hours, but during Covid we were on call for 24 hours.

“Anything that a hospital needs us to move out of hours we’ll do it for them. During the coronavirus, everything was affected, we just stepped in.

“At Blood Bikes Cumbria our volunteers stood up when they were needed.”