But the intelligent, charming and independent pensioner has a secret double life that few of his friends knew about until recently.
The 73-year-old former primary school teacher is one of the New Zealand Blood Service’s major blood donors, having donated more than 300 times since he was a teenager.
"I started when I was a student at Otago Boys’ High School.
"Somebody came up to the school and suggested it might be a nice idea for some of us to donate blood.
"Two of us went down to donate, and I just carried on."
When Mr Bond retired 12 years ago, he had a bit more time on his hands, so he started donating plasma which takes a little longer to extract.
The good thing about plasma is, you can donate it more frequently — every fortnight.
"That’s why my donation numbers have gone up so high. I’m up to 303 donations now."
He said it was "a big deal" for him when he made his 300th donation, and there was a celebration where many of his friends learned about his lifesaving contributions.
However, Mr Bond was humble about his achievement and said others in the city who had given plasma all their life had reached up to 800 donations.
While it would have been easy for him to lose enthusiasm for his commitment, he continued to donate regularly because "it’s something that I can do for society, so easily".
He said he was once told by someone at the New Zealand Blood Service that each of his donations could save up to 11 people.
"That blew my mind. I thought, ‘wow — it’s not just giving a pint of blood and saving one person’.
"With plasma, there’s quite a few people that are helped, and I think if you can do something to help someone else, then it’s got to be good."
New Zealand Blood Service donor relations co-ordinator Linda Burt said National Blood Donor Week was an opportunity to celebrate all the donors who rolled up their sleeves each day to ensure the country had a constant supply of blood and blood products.
It was also a good opportunity to encourage new donors to come in.
She said New Zealand had just over 17,000 plasma donors, who produced 94,000 units of plasma last year.
But demand for the blood product was expected to increase by 50% over the next three years.
"It can be used for more than 50 illnesses, and it can help treat burn victims, chemotherapy patients, people who have lost a lot of blood — the list goes on.
"In the next 12 months, we need 1500 more people to start donating plasma regularly," she said.
