3 Reasons I Loved My First Volunteering Experience with the NewVoiceMedia Foundation

Last week, six of the NewVoiceMedia team headed off to Roman House in Basingstoke, a residential care home for adults with Cerebral Palsy run by Scope. Roman House helps the residents and their families to live lives with the same opportunities as everyone else.

As part of the NewVoiceMedia Foundation employees are encouraged to give up their time to help out with local charities. Roman House had asked if a team could come in to repaint their entrance hall, as it was the first sight that greeted visitors and could do with some brightening up.

As a first time volunteer here were three things that I took away from the experience.

Opened my eyes.

I hadn't done any volunteering before, and perhaps I lead quite a sheltered life. In the week I am in offices talking business and technology, and at the weekend I am entertaining the kids or seeing friends. It is very easy to shut yourself off from other people's lives even when they might be just down the road. For me it was amazing to see the passion and support put in by the other volunteers at Roman House to make their residents as happy as possible.

Built connections across teams.

I work in the Sales team, but other volunteers from NewVoiceMedia came from Marketing, Testing, Development, Provisioning, and from the Foundation itself. Over the course of the day it helped me to understand more about how other areas of the business are functioning and I feel that I know them better, and hopefully they understand more about the role of the sales team as well! Over my years in work I've attended many 'team building' days and this would be one of the most effective.

Did something good.

At the end of the day, I felt very proud to look at the work that we had completed. I for one was not a qualified painter and decorator, so kicking off at 10.00am with some sandpaper trying to rub down the old paint was quite demorolising as you realise the extent of the job. Then the first coat goes on and the entrance hall looks worse than when you started and you panic! But by 4pm when the second coat was completed and the entrance hall looked fresh and new we were able to stand back and felt great that we had done something good, and hopefully it brings a little smile to the residents as they pass through it.

For me personally I took a lot from the experience and I'd recommend it to anyone else that has not volunteered before or feels that volunteering is not for them.

For more information on Roman House just visit Scope, and for more information on the NewVoiceMedia Foundation visit the site here.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Just let us know if the comments section below if you have any questions about the work of the Foundation.