Celebrating Our Volunteers!

From 1 until 7 June 2021 is National Volunteers’ Week when we celebrate the important role that volunteers play in our organisation and thank them for all they do to support MFT and our work.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller

As in all areas, this has not been an easy year for volunteering at MFT, as all our usual face-to-face volunteer roles stopped abruptly last spring. We have missed so many familiar faces of people who were such regular helpers in our offices and who have not been able to carry out their usual roles this past year. We’d still like to thank them for their support!

We’re grateful to those volunteers who have been able to continue to support us in different ways:

• helping us deliver our online programme. We could not have done all that we have done without you!
• keeping our garden flourishing throughout the year waiting for our return (thank you Rosemary!)
• being on standby as walk leaders as our walks stopped, restarted, stopped again and have now finally begun again as our first face-to-face activity. Some of our walking volunteers even wrote walking blogs for us!
• helping us to launch and continue to run our radio show, The Wellbeing Hour, on Surrey Hills Community Radio!
• being part of our Advisory Group and working hard to support and challenge us to provide the best service possible!

Over the past year, we have managed some online volunteer training sessions and meet-ups, including Equality and Diversity training, Mental Health Awareness, Managing Stress and Increasing Resilience and Six Steps to Wellbeing. It has been great to see some of our volunteers at these sessions. However, we appreciate that online events do not suit everyone and we are looking forward to seeing many of you again soon once we restart face-to-face activities.

Radio Interview

Our CEO Patrick Wolter paid tribute to all our wonderful volunteers in his radio interview on BBC Radio Surrey and Sussex. You can listen again to the interview on the BBC Sounds website (fast forward to 30:40min).

Thinking about volunteering?

Anna, our Volunteer Co-Ordinator, lists five good reasons to volunteer:

• give something back and make a difference
• feel valued and part of a team
• gaining confidence, new skills, knowledge and experience
• improving one’s employment prospects
• meeting new people and making new friends

Video Blog

We also asked one of our most dedicated and wonderful volunteers, Taryn, to share in a video blog why she volunteers and what she gets out of it! Click below to download and watch the video.

Why I volunteer by Taryn

If you would like to be part of the MFT Volunteering Team, please contact Anna at anna@maryfrancestrust.org.uk to find out more!

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