Chair & Trustees

Russ Harrison - Chair

A lifelong motorcyclist Russ Harrison first joined a local Blood Bike group in October 2015 as a volunteer rider.  He quickly became a central member of the team and went on to become one of the founders of Greater Manchester Blood Bikes at the start of 2023.

 

Having worked for packaging Multi-National Smurfit Kappa for almost 40 years, Russ has been General Manager of the Leeds site for 19 years.  He is also a Primary School Governor and Chair of GMBB. 

 

Russ has been married to Tracy since 1990, has 3 children and incredibly still finds time to attend events for the charity and actively fundraise as well as being often on-call as a rider or driver to transport blood and breast milk between GMBB’s many sites across Greater Manchester.


Ian O'Neill - Treasurer

Ian O’Neill is Greater Manchester Blood Bikes Treasurer and has been actively involved in the running blood bike charities for many years.  A successful entrepreneur and owner of an electronic security company, Ian was born and bred in Oldham and has always been committed to supporting his local community. 

Ian’s extensive network and commercial mind is part of the key to the charity’s rapid growth and when Ian is not helping to run GMBB he can be found working, socialising, sailing or watching his beloved Manchester City.  Ian is married to Gwyneth and has 3 grown up children.


Dave Parsons- Trustee

Dave joined Greater Manchester Blood Bikes as a Trustee in November 2023 and works closely with Russ and Ian, advising on corporate fundraising, marketing strategy and the wider commercial and legal matters faced by the charity.

 

Having spent many years working as part of the GB Cycling Team as Senior Commercial Manager, before taking a role as Commercial Director for Verve Cycling, Dave has a very strong commercial background and also has several years’ experience as a Trustee for another national charity.

 

A Philosophy Graduate, Law Postgraduate and fan of 2 wheels Dave is married to Rhian, has 2 young children and is passionate about the charity, the cause and ensuring the invaluable service provided by Greater Manchester Blood Bikes is secured for the long term.


Ged Goodier - Trustee

Andy Wootton - Trustee

Andy has spent over 25 years in the corporate world, working in FTSE 100 companies across Digital, Tech and Innovation. He now consults to clients and is the co-founder of a few startups. 

Married to Jen and having three wonderful children plus two dogs also keeps to him nice and busy. He’s been riding for eight years, arriving late to the motorcycle scene but has always been interested in anything with a motor.

His interest in Greater Manchester Blood Bikes was sparked after having premature twins. It made him aware of the importance of donor milk and the critical role the Blood Bikes have in its safe transportation. Jen spent time donating breast milk to help families in a similar situation and he wanted to offer his support too.


Barrie Green - Trustee

Barrie is the GMBB Lead  Duty Controller and Board Trustee assisting in the management of the charity.  At 79 years old he’s currently the oldest volunteer in the charity, having retired 9 years ago from his career in the Fire Service.  He has 2 daughters from his marriage of 43 years to Mags. Sadly he lost Mags to cancer 24 years ago but found love again with his current wife Barbs. Together they live in Cheshire and is the very proud grandad of 4 lovely grandkids.

He has enjoyed motorcycling for many years and also run Bikemarshals, a group supplying safety marshals for mainly cycle races and sportives.  Unfortunately, Barrie was involved in a road traffic accident a few years ago and found himself in the Critical Care Unit of Salford Royal Hospital with extensive life changing injuries.  No longer able to ride he finds being part of GMBB very satisfying. He liaises with our callers from hospitals, hospices, N.W. Air Ambulance and the Milk Bank at Chester, and It’s his job to ensure all those critical jobs then get passed onto  our marvellous riders and driver volunteers. 



Alice Burton - Welfare

Bridget McKeown - Secretary