Mr Sutcliffe has been donating blood or plasma for more than 50 years. His first donation was on February 11, 1971.

And the main thing he remembers? "The chocolate malt milkshake".

National Blood Donor Week is held from June 14 to 20. For Mr Sutcliffe, this year's National Blood Donor Week was also his 293^rd donation.

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"I started and I just never stopped. It was just the thought that someone would need it," Mr Sutcliffe said.

His first goal was to get to 25 donations. After that he wanted to do 50, then 100. Now he's creeping up to his 300^th donation, which the 71-year-old expects he will reach in the next six months.

There are only a handful of times Mr Sutcliffe has had to have a major break from donating blood or plasma. One was 14 years ago when he had prostate cancer and had to stop for five years, another time he had to take a year off because he had donated bone marrow.

While Mr Sutcliffe was doing his 293^rd donation, Laura Shanahan was doing her first.

The Gilgandra police officer said she made the decision to donate blood because of the Emergency Service Blood Challenge.

The challenge is between the emergency services to see who can donate the most during winter. After seeing it on all the computer screen savers around the office, Mr Shanahan said she thought 'I'll just do it'.

Ahead of her donation, the first-timer said she wasn't feeling nervous and definitely planned to keep the donations going.

More than 31,000 blood donations are needed by Lifeblood every week to meet the needs of patients across Australia. A new donor is needed every five minutes.

For anyone considering becoming a donor, Mr Sutcliffe said they should simply do it.

"It's painless... You're doing something for society and it doesn't cost you anything," he said.

"I encourage anybody who can, especially in winter. People get colds or whatever so it's hard."

While one in three people will need blood, only one in 30 people donate.

To register to donate, or book an appointment head to donateblood.com.au.

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