10th Blood Donation (11th December 2009)

Did it in Fleet this time. A few of the people at the Farnborough service are also at this one.

Goody Bag!

Got an envelope with various celebratory things in it:

Red pin
Has a gold blood donor service logo and number 10 beneath it, presented on black foam in a clear little plastic case. Found the pin’s clasp too bulky for my wallet, so it is now alongside the Firefox badge on my coat.
Bronze Award Certificate

The National Blood Service awards this certificate on recognition of 10 donations of blood given for the benefit of others.

Letter from the Chief Executive
A few of paragraphs thanking me for “achieving the first milestone as a blood donor”.

Donations So Far

  1. Late June Visit to Fliss’ (1st July 2006)
  2. Given Blood for the Second Time (2nd December 2006)
  3. 3rd Blood Donation (27th April 2007)
  4. Gave Blood for the 4th Time (28th September 2007)
  5. 5th Blood Donation (8th February 2008)
  6. 6th Blood Donation (4th July 2008)
  7. 7th Blood Donation (14th November 2008)
  8. 8th Blood Donation (6th March 2009)
  9. 9th Blood Donation (3rd July 2009)
  10. 10th Blood Donation (11th December 2009)

Conventions for Titles & URLs

Each entry was written as a standalone piece, to some extent, so the titles vary a little. The URLs vary a lot. I will standardise on:

Title nth Blood Donation
URL gave-blood

Below are the reasons why.

Title Analysis

The 1st title is correct. My donation was just one of the events written about in that entry.

The 2nd and 4th titles were attempts at standardising a repeatable form which was in a more flowing and natural style. More so than “nth Blood Donation”, at least. I generally prefer a more succinct style, although the phrase “gave blood” ties in better with the “give blood” message of their advertising.

The others follow the the matter-of-fact, clear and compact style. That’s what I’ll use from now on.

URL Analysis

The 1st URL is correct quirk for the same reasons as the 1st title.

Simply using blood, as the 7th URL did, is too vague. It could be about being squemish, getting injured or be the title of something I saw.

The 10th entry (the page you are on now) ended up being blood-donation but even that is ambigious. It might be donating blood in general.

The numbered entries mostly begin with gave-blood which actually seems optimal:

The next 10 entries will use gave-blood as their URL. I’ll review it again after that. If gave-blood proves to work I might rename and redirect all the old ones.