WAYNE
VOLUNTEER MANAGER
Hi I'm Wayne
I am passionate about the benefits of volunteering and the inclusion of people with learning disabilities within their local community.
From our early days, volunteers have helped enhance the services we offer as a charity. These days you can find people helping in our 60+ weekly courses and socials, such as in cookery sessions, supporting with literacy and numeracy, or sharing gardening and DIY skills at our Flower Pod centres.
Volunteers help enhance our clients’ learning experiences and to increase the activities we can offer. Importantly, volunteers enable clients to build confidence in communicating with other local people, helping to grow stronger communities and social connectivity.
Over the past five years, funding from The National Lottery Community fund has enabled us to further develop volunteering at Reach through our All Part of Life project, and to further benefit from the strength and talents within our communities.
A key achievement has been empowering more adults with learning disabilities to volunteer both in Reach and the wider community – for example within local charity shops and environmental groups. We are very proud of how some people have gone above and beyond in their volunteering by becoming mentors and co-producers – you can find out more about this on our Voice and Participation page: Here.
To all our current and past volunteers, I would like to say a big THANK YOU for all you have helped us to achieve. To find out about volunteering, please email me at wayne.wilmot@reachuk.org or telephone me on 01636 819066.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Wayne
All Part of Life Activities
Here are just a few examples of what's been happening in the project recently....
Taking time to celebrate and thank our amazing volunteers during Volunteers week
Woodworking project at Flower Pod Newark to build a house for Ducks
Volunteers support preparations for Reach's 25th Anniversary Service
Volunteers 'pulled together' at Flower Pod Southwell for the day, to get on top of the weeds
Improved coordination of use of our Reach van for volunteering across the charity
Making Presentations to community groups to promote volunteering
Welcoming Corporate Volunteering teams at Flower Pod Newark and Southwell
Improved volunteer induction processes for people with learning disabilities
Arranged new opportunities for adults with learning disabilities to volunteer within other charities
Welcomed our very first Corporate Volunteering team at Flower Pod Newark
Maintained Reach Southwell gardens with help from a client volunteer and young people from a local secondary school
Reach Mansfield volunteer Hilary awarded Volunteers Week Shining Star by Mansfield Community & Voluntary Services
Watch our short video to see Lucy and John talk about their volunteering experiences at Flower Pod Southwell
Read more about our project
- To increase the volunteering hours provided by local people in our centres. We aim to increase from 350 volunteering hours per week currently to 900 per week in 5 years.
- To increase volunteering opportunities for adults with learning disabilities within our centres and in the community
- To improve our recruitment, induction, training and support for volunteers, including researching and piloting best practice approaches.
