Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland is a charity designed to help victims of these conditions.
It is currently running a campaign called #NoLifeHalfLived, which is particularly applicable to Symposium Coffee founder Paul Haggath.
He has been using his love for a brew to help run his Peterhead-based company since 2005.
In December 2018 he was hosting some family members for the weekend where they would be visiting one of his stores for breakfast.
He had been feeling particularly under the weather in the weeks previous to this, resulting in numerous trips to see his GP.
Because of this Paul was considering giving the family outing a miss, but while he was getting ready he suddenly felt the right side of his body completely paralysed.
From here he says his memory of what happened next is relatively blurred.
Paul’s wife Wendy found him lying on the floor and instantly recognised he was having a stroke.
Thankfully he made a very strong recovery from this, partly due to the support he received from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland.
Now he is combining his experiences with his love for coffee to give back to the charity that helped him.
Symposium Coffee have released a range of specially designed cups themed around Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, with 25p from every one sold being donated to the charity.
Speaking to NR Times, Paul explained more about this unique fundraiser.
“We order maybe 10,000 of these sized cups every three weeks to four weeks anyways,” he said. “So I started thinking maybe we could do other custom cups.
“Then I thought maybe it’s time I did something to try and raise money for Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, just to give back a bit and raise awareness.
“I really want to push the fact that people can have a coffee and help because for the customer they’re not making a donation, they’re just buying coffee like they usually would.
“But the big thing was just to raise this awareness, as there seems to be a lot more younger people having a stroke these days.”
Symposium customers can also make a donation when ordering online, with every cup featuring the charities logo as well as #NoLifeHalfLived.
Although he is happy that the campaign is raising money, Paul stressed that the recognition of a stroke is crucial.
“I think it’s really important,” he said. “There’s a four hour window where someone can be thrombolysed and if it’s not recognised as a stroke, it can be really unfortunate.
Symposium Coffee
“If I hadn’t been to breakfast that morning I possibly would have just had a stroke in my bed and by the time everyone came home it could have been too late.
“So we need to raise the awareness to act fast and get them to hospital where they can be thrombolysed so hopefully they can make a full recovery.
“There’s loads of things in life but this is something that’s happened to me. It’s really just so people are aware that it does happen and they know what the signs are.”
Initially Paul suspected that his busy lifestyle with his business was the main factor, but tests later revealed that he had a hole in his heart which could also have been a contributor.
He has since had surgery to correct this but admits he still feels the effects of his stroke even now.
“I still get tired and I do get a really sore brain sometimes. For example yesterday I had two meetings, just for an hour.
“Then I was on the computer for a few hours and it just felt like my brain was fried. I still do get fatigued, mentally and physically.”
Paul also said the Symposium’s customers have been great in regards to the fundraiser with a number of them sharing the cups on social media.
From this he is hoping that other charities will look to do something similar and use the company to get their messages out.
Paul and his family
Charity work is something he has been involved with for a long time now even before his, from running a marathon to raise funds for JDRF to doing a skydive for CLAN Cancer Support.
He has also used Symposium to help those in his local community in the past, giving out vouchers to vulnerable children and preparing food parcels for those who need them.
Being a father of four it is clear that helping people is what Paul is all about, as he was very keen to stress how people-centric his business is.
The brand now has stores in over nine different locations as well as a tenth store set to be opened in June.
For Paul this expansion is only seen as an opportunity to start helping more people.
Despite the fact that he did not even drink coffee when he started the business over 15 years ago, he is now using it to help change the lives of others.
