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Health and social care blog

Health and social care is one of the largest volunteering sectors in the UK. This includes organisations like the NHS and charities which improve the wellbeing of people of all ages. So what do helpers actually get involved with? The opportunities are more diverse than we imagined as our bloggers reveal.

All | Sara | Jasmine | Dawn

Saturday Dec 13, 2008

A Christmas Miracle

I love working for a charity, but one of the main reasons I joined hospital radio initially was for the work experience - specifically to get the chance of doing my own show with the hope of getting into professional radio. But for the year I've been at NHR I've discovered that I actually prefer the other side of what I do there - the fundraising, so I've recently been applying for jobs in this area. I had an interview at Diabetes UK last week for a fundraising job, and got it! I wouldn't even have had a chance at getting an interview without the skills I've gained at NHR. I graduated from uni over three years ago and thanks to my voluntary work it finally feels like I've discovered the right career path for me!

Posted by Dawn ( 8:54 PM )
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Monday Nov 17, 2008

'Tis the Season to Sell Sell Sell!

The tickets I ordered for the Christmas raffle arrived last week and the harassment of member's friends and family is now underway! Tickets are 20p each (which I think is an absolute bargain), although I am refusing to sell people less than a book of five. Companies have been really generous this year and we've got some brilliant prizes including a day at a local health spa, skincare hampers and vouchers from Go Ape, Wagamama, Marks and Spencer and loads more. I ordered £800 worth of tickets and hoping we sell them all. Looking forward to doing the draw on my show on 18th December!

Posted by Dawn ( 3:22 PM )
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Sunday Nov 09, 2008

He is the One and Only!

I met Chesney Hawkes last week!

I made him wear our t-shirt...

...pose for a photo with me...

...but I didn't manage to get the autograph for my friends' husband! Oh well, two out of three isn't bad!

Posted by Dawn ( 10:58 PM )
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Tuesday Oct 28, 2008

AGM, Members Awards and Chesney Hawkes!!

It was NHR's Annual General meeting on Sunday and there have been a few changes. A couple of people decided to leave the station which means we are quite low on members at the moment. We're interviewing five people next week though so if they are all successful we will have more members than we have had for a while.

I decided to join the committee this year and was voted in as Press and Publicity Officer! I am also standing in as Secretary until someone else takes over...I'm thinking I might be waiting for a while.

The AGM is also a chance for the committee to hand out awards for Best Member, Best New Member, Best Show and Best Ward Visitor...I won the first two and get my name on the NHR trophy!

And before I go, some very exciting news...you might have read about the "I wish I was a hospital radio DJ" t-shirt which Terry Wogan wore for us? Well, we've only gone and got Chesney Hawkes to wear it too!! One of the presenters at the station always manages to get "celebrities" to do interviews with him and as Chesney is performing in a show at the local theatre, he's going down there to have a chat with him. I'm tagging along to convince him to wear the t-shirt, pose for a photo with me and get an autograph for my friends' husband!

Posted by Dawn ( 10:38 AM )
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Wednesday Sep 24, 2008

Terry Wogan wishes he was a hospital radio DJ!

I recently designed an NHR t-shirt for wannabe DJ's and ex-members. Terry Wogan's got his!! Get yours HERE!

Posted by Dawn ( 5:17 PM )
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Wednesday Sep 17, 2008

Go NHR!!

NHR members took part in the annual Robin Hood Half Marathon on Sunday and managed a time of just under three hours which doesn't sound very impressive....except they were pushing a hospital bed around the 13 mile course!

As previously mentioned I should have been wearing a giant mouse suit. This didn't happen for various reasons, the main one being that it smelled like the person who wore it before me had just done a marathon themselves! Instead, the non-runners raided the linen department at the hopsital and got ourselves some "patient" outfits.

Collecting money behind the runners...way behind the runners.

The finish line is in sight! Go NHR!

Working for NHR sometimes doesn't feel like much of a team effort but this weekend was an exception. We definitely need to organise more events like this!

Posted by Dawn ( 6:46 PM )
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Monday Sep 08, 2008

Six days to go...

...till the Robin Hood Half Marathon!

One of our biggest fundraising events of the year is taking place this Sunday. NHR take part in the marathon every year and it's one of the few events that all members get involved in. Fortunately I am not running! Instead I will be wearing a giant mouse suit (which has been provided by Everyclick) and carrying a bucket around to collect as much money as possible!

Posted by Dawn ( 7:00 PM )
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Thursday Aug 21, 2008

T-shirts now on sale!

T-shirts of the same design that Sir Terry will be wearing are now on sale in our online shop! Have a look a them HERE and maybe buy one?

Posted by Dawn ( 11:50 AM )
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Wednesday Aug 20, 2008

Changes...

We had our twice-yearly general meeting on Monday and some welcome changes were made! There is generally a split in opinion at NHR which is to do with how much work we are expected to put in. One opinion is that we're volunteers and that we should be able to put in as much or as little effort as we like. Others of us know that if everyone had this attitude, nothing would get done!

Personally, I feel that there should be a minimum requirement and that everyone should be expected to do regular ward visits. Some people go every week but others haven't been for months! I think we've managed to reach a compromise now.... it is now a minimum requirement for everyone at the station to do one ward visit per month which I think is pretty fair, and 12 visits a year isn't really that many! I've been asked to draw up the schedule so fingers crossed that this new idea will actually get people on the wards!

Posted by Dawn ( 3:00 PM )
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Friday Aug 15, 2008

Wogan said yes!

Just received this email from Terry Wogan's "people"!!:

Hello Dawn,

We received your email regarding your "I wish I was a hospital radio DJ" T-Shirt.

I'm sure we could sort out a photo of Sir Terry wearing this for you - if you'd like to send it to the address below (with a note reminding me of what it's for and what you need) I will try to sort it out for you.

Many thanks,

Joe

Posted by Dawn ( 1:45 PM )
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Wednesday Aug 13, 2008

Pestering Celebrities

We (me and my boyfriend) are currently in the process of designing and building a new website for the station. I think hospital radio can sometimes be seen as a bit dull so we're trying to fill the website with fun stuff to convince people it's not!

So...I've just emailed loads of famous radio DJ's to ask if they will wear one of our t-shirts (which says "I wish I was a hospital radio DJ" on it) for a picture for the website. Fingers crossed that at least one of them will get back to me.

Posted by Dawn ( 3:30 PM )
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Monday Aug 11, 2008

You're listening to Nottingham Hospitals' Radio...

.....I'm Dawn and I'm here with you till 8 o'clock tonight.

This is the first thing you would hear if you were to tune in to my show at 6pm every Thursday. Not very original but I've not been doing it for that long!

I've been doing a show once a week since March 2008. I do the 6pm – 8pm slot every Thursday and I love doing it. The great thing about hospital radio (at least at our station) is that, within reason, you can generally talk about whatever you like. I do sometimes struggle to think of things to say but I do have some regular features. We try to be accessible to everyone so my features are pretty general: On This Day (where I talk about some of the things that happened on that particular day in years gone by); News to Amuse (catchy eh? A look at some of the more light-hearted news stories from around the world) and What's On (for patients who are going to be out and about at the weekend, and a chance to promote some of our donators).

Patients have access to a number of local and national radio stations but the good thing about hospital radio, from a patient's point of view, is that they can request a song and hear it played moments later. I also give away prizes and obviously listeners have a much better chance of winning something on my show than they would on any other radio station, and they get it hand-delivered to them after the show! I regularly write to companies to request prizes and we have had some generous donations from restaurants such as Wagamama, La Tasca and Las Iguanas amongst others and it's great to be able to give these away to someone who might be feeling a bit down about spending time in hospital and hopefully it gives them something to look forward to when they get out.

We'll have photos of some of our winners up on the new website soon, so keep an eye out!

Dawn

Posted by Dawn ( 4:17 PM )
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Welcome to my blog

Hi there. My name is Dawn and I volunteer at a hospital radio station for a few hours each week. I’ve been presenting my two-hour show since March… but there’s so much more to do!

First of all, let me just tell you why I decided to join the station. I graduated with a media studies degree in 2005 and moved back to my hometown of Nottingham. There isn’t an abundance of work in Nottingham for someone with this kind of degree and no work experience so I decided I’d better do something about it. A lot of jobs I had considered applying for in the past had asked for voluntary experience and as radio broadcasting was something I did as part of my degree, and enjoyed, I contacted the station, had an interview and started volunteering in October 2007.

As part of my induction I was encouraged to organise my own fundraising event, which I did - the Christmas Raffle. It was a lot of work and I must have contacted at least a hundred different companies before I received any responses! All the emails and letters did finally pay off and I got some great prizes from restaurants, shops and other organisations. We managed to sell loads of raffle tickets and the station made more money than it had in any of the previous years’ raffles!

As well as fundraising, all the members of the station go on regular ward visits. This is so we can get song requests from the patients but also so they actually know about the station and that they can listen for free. Some members are often reluctant to go out on the wards as the response towards us isn’t always positive. Generally though we manage to get quite a few requests, and for the patient who doesn’t get many visitors, being able to request their favourite song and hear it on the radio on the same night might be the highlight of their day!

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now…I’ll tell you more about what I do, including my show in the next post.

See you soon,