It’s International Women’s Day today, and to celebrate this the staff at Newtyne decided to highlight one of our own – Newtyne Director, Lynn Cleal.

In addition to her role with Newtyne, Lynn spearheaded a campaign to install life-saving defibrillators across Edinburgh through her work with St John Scotland.

Lynn developed the St John and the City Public Access Defibrillator project in November 2016, which initially aimed to deploy 20 Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) in Edinburgh during its first year. Since it’s launch, the scheme has facilitated the placement of 185 PADs throughout the city, with the Church of Scotland placing a further 50 PADs in and around their sites in Edinburgh. Thanks to the scheme, you can also find defibrillators on the entire Edinburgh Trams fleet, becoming the first trams in the UK to carry these life-saving devices.

Lynn and the St John Scotland team trained staff at Edinburgh Castle in CPR and defibrillation, and within 24 hours of placing a defibrillator at the iconic landmark and conducting the training, the defibrillator was deployed to assist an Australian tourist in cardiac arrest. Two Edinburgh Castle staff members, trained just a day before, were able to provide CPR and utilise their defibrillator.

Lynn was the recipient of Volunteer Edinburgh’s Special Recognition ‘Fundraising Volunteer’ Award in 2017 and was nominated by Lord Lieutenant Frank Ross to attend the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018.

At Newtyne, we’re very proud of the work Lynn does in saving lives across Edinburgh with PADs.

Happy International Women’s Day!