You make the difference
Sitting at my desk, I have a huge smile on my face! Now this isn't completely unnatural (after all, I'm a very smiley person), but today I'm feeling extra cheery and I have that warm glowing inside feeling!
The reason for it? Volunteers week. And I'm finding out just how many amazing volunteers we have and some of the things they all do.
If you hadn't heard (which I would be very surprised at - do you not ever use twitter?!), the 1st - 7th June is volunteers' week, where NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations - the largest membership body for English voluntary organisations), organise a week to recognise, reward and appreciate volunteers who help make a difference.
Volunteers exist up and down the country in all different organisations and almost 22M people in the UK Volunteer every year - giving their time, energy and brainpower for good causes (another fun fact here - see the link).
We have many volunteers helping within The OR Society - we have volunteers who go into schools and give career talk and also we have volunteers who work with charities and do Pro Bono work (don't forget you can read all about it in the pro bono blog here: http://probonoor.blogspot.co.uk/). We also have volunteers who give up time to run a local SIG, Regional Society or organise a conference. All of these volunteers give up their time and expertise for free.
The theme this year is 'you make a difference' - and let me tell you, I've seen first-hand the difference these wonderful volunteers make! They are the difference between an event happening and not happening, or a conference running smoothly or not.
Within the OR in Schools (ORiS) team, we've had volunteers give up time to chat to younger students about what a career in O.R. looks like, we've had volunteers run interactive and engaging workshops in school (promoting the use of maths and O.R.) and we've had volunteers provide careers profiles to use on our website. (Shout out here to Lauren who works at ORH for providing information on how she helps the emergency services using O.R.)
Last week I was producing certificates to send out to all our ORiS and Pro Bono volunteers to thank them and today I've been sending the last lot out. I've sent each of them an individual e-mail, personally addressed to them with their own certificate. It took a bit of time, but It was worth it - without them we wouldn't be able to do half of what we do!!
So from all of us at The OR Society - whether you've given an hour, a day or a week of your time to visit a school, organise a SIG meeting, or help a charity utilise their data, a HUGE thank you. YOU make the difference.
“Volunteers don't get paid, not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless.”
NCVO link here:
ORH link here:
https://www.orhltd.com/
Interested? Bored? Hopefully not the latter ….
Tweet us @ORinSchools or @TheORSociety or drop us an email: schools@theorsociety.com
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