By: Blonde Two
Yesterday, I was telling someone about the Two Blonde’s adventures with Dartmoor Rescue and explaining that they were all volunteers and gave up a lot of time for training, fund raising and call outs. She commented that the whole “working together for the common good” thing was very British. This got me thinking about the subject of volunteering.
We do seem to be very good at volunteering in this country, I have discovered that once you start asking people about it, you find a whole wealth of unexpected people of all ages doing unexpected things for no other reward than satisfaction and a sense of camaraderie. How important these two things are though – what, in fact, could be more important than knowing that you are contributing to the community in which you live. Could a community even be called a community if people didn’t give up their time to help others?
I had a real “Eureka” moment up at Ten Tors camp last year. It was the Friday before the event, Okehampton Camp was buzzing with everyone there busy preparing and rushing around getting everything and everybody ready. Lets face it – getting 2000 youngsters across Dartmoor independently and safely is an impressive feat of organisation. I found a still moment (this was almost certainly in the Portaloo queue) and realised that every single person there and already out on the moors was a volunteer. All of us working together to give these kids the best experience we could. I am not sure if it usual to sit on a Portaloo and cry but I did that day and it wasn’t the lack of toilet paper!
I don’t know about volunteers in other countries but my friend was right, we Brits are very good at it and should be proud of ourselves. Let’s blow our own trumpets, toot our own horns and generally show off about it for … well, at least three seconds … any longer just wouldn’t be British would it?
There are many rewards to volunteering.
You make lots of friends.
You learn new skills.
You build self esteem.
You see different areas.
You are a happier person.
Its a great thing to do!
The thing I have found about outdoorsy volunteering is that the people are almost always lovely – must be all the fresh air and exercise!
Doing Ten Tors and D of E will hopefully encourage the next generation to volunteer in the future.
They dug out mountains of Himalayan Balsam from the river,
Recorded millions of birds,
Read stories to children in the library,
Delivered blood and organs between hospitals,
Emptied dog poo bins that the council refused to run any more,
Collected vouchers for school equipment,
Built a massive Bonfire for 5th November,
Collected money in the supermarket entrance for oodles of charities,
Ran innumerable musical events, sporting events, art shows, plays and variety shows for charities,
Kept loads of small churches going by cleaning, mending almost everything, fund-raising, keeping boilers going and doing paperwork,
Kept loads of schools going by volunteering for governing bodies, planted lovely flowers and cut grass to make the town look nice,
the list is endless!
I was just trying to think of things volunteers do around here, but there are too many to even make a start.
Well I definitely take my hat off to the dog poo people – that is really above and beyond the call of duty!