V for Volunteering

A half century of helping out wherever I've lived

My 50 year long 'career' as a volunteer began as soon as our son was old enough to join the cub scouts. We were living in South Africa at the time and my wife and I quickly became involved in supporting the activities that the leaders devised for the group. Upon our return to Coventry Ian joined the scout group there and we continued to work with other parents in support of scouting activities and fund raising efforts. I also wanted to become involved in the community in other ways.

A news item in our local paper caught my attention. A few local people had come together to establish an organisation that, it was hoped, would use audio and visual technology to bring local news and information to elderly and disabled individuals. It seemed right up my street; an opportunity to develop my presumed skills as a writer at the same time as providing a service for those less fortunate than myself.

The 'talking newspaper' was a cassette tape containing extracts from the local newspaper read aloud and posted to visually impaired individuals. There was also a video taped magazine covering local events, filmed in black and white on reel-to-reel tape, distributed monthly to nursing homes and day centres. Because these facilities were council run, the council was happy to permit us to use some of its equipment for such productions, especially as one of the team was a council employee.

In addition to reading news reports, writing and reading voice over scripts, and operating a camera, I became treasurer for the organisation. This activity filled my spare time throughout 1976, '77 and '78 by which time I was living in a guest house in Cleethorpes four nights a week. I was still able to contribute at weekends.

Soon after we completed the move to Cleethorpes I learned of a small group trying to start a talking newspaper for the area. I was happy to offer my experience gained in Coventry. The group consisted of a gentleman who had lost his sight as a result of a brain tumour. He was able to operate the mixing desk whilst a small group of readers in an adjacent room selected and read out extracts from the local print paper. Once again I became treasurer and took part in fund-raising events. This continued whilst I was also spending increasing amounts of time on my political activities. Meanwhile our son joined the local scouts and our support for them continued as before until he reached his late teens.

In the 1990s, after we moved to East Yorkshire, there being no talking newspaper organisation at the time, I joined the volunteers running hospital radio in the small general hospital. After a brief period of training I was given the Friday evening Country Music slot and the Sunday morning request show.

I had been doing this for a year or so when two or three young people started using the facility to produce a talking newspaper as their summer holiday project. This demonstrated a local need and identified individuals already working for visually impaired people and their families. I was pleased to be able to help them establish a talking newspaper on a permanent basis. This also brought me into contact with the local Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) and I was invited to join their management committee becoming, at various times over subsequent years, treasurer and chairman of the organisation.

A hugely beneficial project that the CVS undertook as lead organisation was the conversion of a former school building into a community facility. Part of the funding was received from the Millennium Fund set up in anticipation of the celebration of the turn of the century. I became a trustee. Like all of those involved in this project I undertook a lot of practical work, preparing the site for the professionals who would be refurbishing and modifying the building to provide office space for community and voluntary organisations as well as spaces for events and activities. It fills me with joy to know that the building is still functioning as intended more than 25 years after it was opened.

After retirement, and arrived in Ireland, we of course wanted to use some of our time to support community organisations. To begin with we joined the “Tidy Towns” team whose role and purpose was to ensure that the town's streets and open spaces were kept clean and beautified throughout the summer with floral displays.

At the start of 2008 a newsletter was delivered to every home reporting on the work of a government funded community development company that supported several projects in the more deprived areas of town. Included was an appeal for volunteers. I responded and by early summer I was providing administrative support to one of the project managers working for a few hours each Wednesday morning.

The company had put forward a bid for funding for a new project supporting elderly people in the town but had been rejected. The proposed support included gardening and home maintenance and a home help service. It was this last that was unacceptable to the government department responsible for the funding because it fell under the remit of the government Health Service.

The bid had to be revised and re-submitted. I was assigned to rejig the financial justification and cash flow spreadsheets. Once the revised bid was accepted I was invited to chair a steering committee to oversee its implementation. This included the recruitment process for a manager – short listing and interviewing applicants – and seeking suitable premises. The commencement date for the scheme was set as September 1^st.

Shortly before this date our appointee for the manager's job informed us that he would be unable to start on that date. The steering group decided to appoint a temporary manager to launch the organisation and run it until he was in a position to take over: would I be willing to do this? So it was that I became an employee of the Irish government for 5 months from October 2008 to March 2009.

Later in 2009 the boss of the community development company contacted me to say that she had put my name forward to attend a course in Volunteer Management after which I would be qualified to run the course for local organisations in the early months of 2010. One of those organisations is a centre that provides a variety of therapies and supports for cancer patients and their loved ones. I discovered that they needed a volunteer gardener, a role I was happy to fill. Freda also decided to volunteer at the centre, facilitating a knitting and crochet group. Later I was asked to undertake other voluntary roles in the centre including some administrative tasks and supporting a walking group. These activities ceased during the pandemic and subsequently I have had much less involvement in voluntary work of any kind.