Stuart Elrick has been volunteering with the People and Culture team at St Helena Hospice for eight years.
Now 77, he is retired from an extensive career in HR and management and from his own consultancy business, bringing these skills to support the charity three days a week with onboarding new staff and volunteers.
As a member of the P&C team, I support with giving new people an induction about what it means working for St Helena, and then with other things, I help out all over the place doing any work that needs to be done, I'm quite happy to do it.
I help the volunteers who have difficulty with training online, I sit with them on the computer and do the mandatory training with them and anything else that's needed.
I get out and about a lot because I make sure to hand new people their badges and do inductions with them so I meet lots of people out at the shops and at the hospice.
What surprised me most about volunteering was how well I was taken into the team and made welcome. Finding out about the work that the other volunteers do in the hospice is amazing.
I've gained an appreciation of how precious life is. I've become more humble and I've learned that there's an awful lot of people worse off than I am, so why should I worry?
I don't see why you shouldn't volunteer. If you're wondering what you can do with your spare time, volunteering at St Helena would be for you. I think even if you're only doing one or two hours a week, it gives you a feeling of well-being. You meet new people, you meet loads of nice people. It's a wonderful organisation to work for or volunteer for.
I enjoy volunteering so much and I always feel part of the team. I work with a great team of people and I think what the organisation does is amazing. It keeps me young. I just enjoy it so much and it's a wonderful place and what they do for people is amazing. And if I can help in any way, I'm pleased to help.
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