Meet Wayne, a long-term resident of Berkhamsted and volunteer team member at our hospice showroom, ‘Returned to Glory’ (usually abbreviated to RTG!).
His professional background is in Global Property/Asset Management within a very large corporate environment – “Something very different to what I do now” – Wayne shares.
He started his volunteering journey a little over two years ago, having stopped full-time work in 2016 and then worked in a consultancy capacity for a further year.
“I did some consultancy work which frankly, I didn’t enjoy that much so decided to cease paid work and look for volunteering opportunities in the charity sector, which is rather more difficult than you might imagine. The Hospice is so geared up to working with volunteers and has a large volunteering team, so finding something I felt I could add value to was relatively easy, as was the on-boarding process.”
In his spare time, Wayne enjoys travelling with his wife Sophie, (who also volunteers with us in our patient records team) loves walking, completing trails such as Offas Dyke, the West Highland Way, and the Coast to Coast.
Describing his role in further detail, Wayne says… “My role is to support the shop team and help with anything that is required; principally in the areas of furniture restoration, portering and painting. It’s nice to work alongside people from outside your usual sphere of friends and family. RTG is a very friendly place to work and people go out of their way to make sure you know your efforts are appreciated. I would say it’s the people that I like most about volunteering at the showroom.
This is not my first volunteering role. I started volunteering with the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust slightly before RTG. I enjoy both roles for different reasons; HMWT is an opportunity to work outside, with people extremely knowledgeable about the environment around us.
Unfortunately this volunteering opportunity ceased at the same time as the one at RTG and for the same reason – COVID-19. Now restrictions have eased I have been doing more work over at the Tring reservoirs in place of the wider HMWT geography.”
He explains the best part of being back volunteering, “I think the best thing about coming back to RTG after lockdown, aside from the general sense of freedom the end of Lockdown brought, was renewing acquaintances with the volunteers and employees I had got to know before. People are there because they want to be there and are friendly and appreciative of what you do, which makes for a very positive atmosphere.
We asked Wayne about the quirkiest items he’d seen be donated to the showroom… “Aside from things like double piano chair, probably the most quirky items come from when they were made, so for instance a purple bedroom set! With very few excepts everything seems to sell.”
Encouraging others to join the Hospice volunteering team, Wayne concludes…
“I would definitely say give it a go, there are so many opportunities to volunteer for the Hospice there’s bound to be something to interest you and plays to your strengths.”
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