Transcriber: Capa Girl Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Hello everyone.
I don’t know about you but all these thinking and learning
has made me feel quite hungry.
Can you feel those stomach juices getting going?
Not quite yet, I'm afraid. You've got me first.
One of the things I've learned about myself this morning too
is that I can sing.
I don't know if the people sitting around me in church
on Sunday morning would necessarily agree, but --
Volunteering.
I'm director for a local charity that we support
strong communities and helping individuals to fulfill their potential.
And volunteers are a vital part of our work.
But why is volunteering so important?
You've probably heard that old cliché,
"If you want a job doing, ask a busy person."
And on that basis I would imagine that
many of us here today already volunteer.
And at risk of putting in the spot for a moment
I want to try and test that theory out.
So in a minute -- just giving you a chance to think about this --
I'm going to ask you to stick your hand up
if you currently volunteer to some form of regular volunteering work.
Say for example, an average of 2 hours per month, something like that.
And if you don't want to be put on the spot and
don't want other people to see whether you stuck your hand up or not,
perhaps you could be like my son who thinks that
if he closes his eyes, no one else can see him.
So, with that health warning, close your eyes if you want to
but could you stick your hand up if you do
regular volunteering at the moment, of some form or other.
A number of you, perhaps I thought there'd be more.
What about in the last -- Keep your hands up if you do that!
What about people in the last two or three years?
You perhaps haven't recently.
Ok. Thank you. So, kind of hard to judge that when Jonathan Dimbleby
would be approached he would say that kind of 50% maybe
in the last two or three years.
Why do we volunteer then if we do?
Perhaps it is that a sick relative or friend who has been supported by
the local charity and in some way we want to repay
the debt of gratitude that we feel perhaps we owe them.
Maybe we just feel we have fortunate lives
and want to give something back.
Perhaps we act from a faithful humanist motivation to give service to others.
All these and many more are valid reasons for volunteering.
But I want to suggest that volunteering at its best
is also about two other things.
Firstly, volunteering should be about a reciprocal relationship.
That it gives back to us at least as much as we are able
to give to those that we support.
So, for example, it could be that we learn a new skill
or simply broaden our life experience.
It may simply be an acknowledgment in a nonist way of
our need to be needed. We all need to be needed.
Of course, volunteering also, studies show
that it improves our mental health and well-being.
and it can reduce our social isolation.
And I think at it's most fundamental, too, simple yet profound,
being alongside someone in need, helps connect us
in their vulnerability in a very deep way, and reminds us
of our connections as human beings.
It connects us as part of our common humanity.
And that leads me to the second reason that
I think is so important volunteering.
And that's that volunteering helps connect us locally
with our community as part of supporting
and sustaining a healthy neighborhood.
Local volunteering is a crucial part of that glue
that holds us together as a society.
The common jargon and worthy social capital but I think glue
and that kind of warp and weft if you like, the tapestry,
the threads of that tapestry that knit us together
as human beings and as a local community.
Ooh, I can get all poetic about this.
But I think that's why the long working hours culture,
and if you like, the individualization, the kind of craze about privatization
of so much about public or community life is potentially so damaging.
So if you're already a volunteer, perhaps you might want
to reflect a little bit more on why you do and maybe
to review your volunteering and the connections stall
at lunch that perhaps you've seen already at coffee too,
hopefully will give you lots of ideas for local opportunities to volunteer.
And if you don't already volunteer, why not?
Try it.
Again I urge you to take a look at the opportunities that are around.
All of us in our lives, at tough times in our lives,
will know the importance of social connections to get us through those times.
We've all, I'm sure, experienced bereavement perhaps unemployment.
Maybe poor mental health or physical health.
And of course, what keeps us going through
those tough times is the connections we have in our lives.
And one other thing the great ironies of life is
that for people who are most vulnerable, they often lack
the strong family ties and local neighborhood connections.
And that, of course, is where volunteering is so important.
So, to finish, I want to say: volunteering to its best is
a reciprocal relationship and it connects us locally
as building a healthy and sustainable community.
It also, I would add, comes with a health warning.
It could change your life -- for good.
Thank you. Enjoy lunch.
(Applause)