If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

All | Emma | Olivia | Sammy | Ashley | Rochelle | Tom | TomG | Harry

« Previous month (Sep 2008) | Main | Next month (Nov 2008) »

Tuesday Oct 21, 2008

Walking Around Sheffield in the Middle Of the Night. For Charity of Course.

   The academic year has started in earnest now so it’s time to neglect studies, sit back, and play solitaire on windows - naturally. Apart from that I have been volunteering at the Sheffield radio station Sheffield Live FM twice a week and have even got involved with union and joined a committee – the Sheffield Volunteering Committee. As I’ve only just joined them it’s hard to get a feel for how it works, however everyone seemed very friendly and there were no Nazi-esque initiation ceremonies like the one causing a little stir in the news recently.  

  What they have been doing is organising some great things, and this Friday a few of us from the committee will be entering the RAG organised event, “Spiderwalk”. Think less volunteering, more sponsored-madness. It involves a 26 mile walk around Sheffield starting at 9pm, all for the purposes of raising money for a variety of charities. When you put it like that it doesn’t sound too bad, but I did it last year and I can distinctly remember the phrase ‘never again’ running through my head as me and my friend arrived at the final checkpoint. That walk had started at midnight and I had imagined the sight of a beautiful sunrise inspiring us as we sampled the nearby peak district in the early morning. Instead we were shrouded in a thick mist and went wandering off completely the wrong way, adding a needless five miles extra to our ramble. My friend and I very nearly finished last out of nearly one hundred students!

   Still, the Volunteer Committee are doing it together and I am somewhat sadistically looking forward to it this Friday. If anyone wants to sponsor me feel free to leave a comment at the end of this page and I will put some pictures up if/when I complete it.

    I’ve realised that I missed out last year by not being involved in the union’s volunteer projects and instead just doing my own thing, so if anyone has just got to university and is looking for something to do it might be worthwhile to check if your union has similar things. On the other hand, I found out about Sheffield Live FM through the do-it.org.uk database and the experience has been so enjoyable (if very amateurish). If I get anywhere above ‘mumbling idiot’, I might put a link up to the show. But more on the radio project later.....back to the solitaire.

Posted by Harry ( 11:16 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]

Monday Oct 06, 2008

Eye-opening experiences so far

Hello I'm Harry, (Stev, Stev-o or Steve to my mates, or 'curly' if you are that drunk at the bar last week) and I'm studying Law at Sheffield University, just starting my second year. I hail from the delightful seaside town of Scarborough, where I've spent the majority of my life: living with my parents and taking the time to avoid over-exerting myself in my studies. Now though I live in Sheffield, and I'd like to try a bit harder with my work, so we'll see how that one goes.

I started volunteering a couple of years ago after watching a BBC documentary on Homelessness (I think it was called 'Evicted.' ) and finding myself with lots of spare time and little to do. At the end of the film they advertised the site www.do-it.org.uk and ever since then whenever I've had lots of spare time and little to do, I come to this site and see what I could be doing, which is part of the reason why I am writing this blog right now.

I began by delivering newspapers round my local hospital for the WRVS which got me over my fear of lifts and hospitals at the same time, and then I began training as an advisor for the CAB. Both experiences were eye-opening in different ways – offering the Scarborough Evening News to mothers holding their (literally) new-born babies was a particularly comical experience – especially when they bought one. I'm still training to become an advisor now (largely due to laziness) and I'll be coming face to face with my first clients this Christmas. I hope.

What I love about volunteering is getting to do things that I wouldn't really think of doing, or wouldn't be encouraged to do as part of a 'real' job. I have also met some brilliant people through volunteering and so for me it is definitely a two way street - I enjoy helping others a lot, but I also get a lot out of volunteering myself - so I'm never going to pretend that I'm some Mother Teresa figure of self-sacrifice.

Anyway, I'm back in Sheffield for the next academic year (having spent most of the summer in Scarborough) and I have begun volunteering for a local radio station – Sheffield live 93.2 FM – and I'm also looking for another opportunity, perhaps volunteering in a local scheme similar to TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), but I guess I'll be writing about that later on anyway.

That's the boring bit about me out of the way; hopefully I'll be able to write at least some things of interest in the future.

Harry. 

 

Posted by Harry ( 4:23 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]