What started a placement quickly turned into a passion.

As a former professional stage actor perhaps it was no surprise that Sandra was drawn to The Commemoration Hall , Huntingdon, becoming a regular volunteer when our new Arts Café and events programme opened in July 2021. Many volunteers bring unique insights from their hands-on, close-up experience of delivering what your charity does best, and for us Sandra is no exception. Seeing how The Hall could develop further, particularly in the range of cultural events it offered, Sandra evolved her role to take on the managing and marketing of our events programme, vital to helping us expand our programming, grow income and become more sustainable. With her knowledge of theatre and love of treading the boards, Sandra had found her perfect role. She now supports our programming on almost a daily basis, actively promoting The Hall as a venue of choice to touring theatre productions, musicians, events promoters, community and commercial hirers, and managing the booking process and key relationships end-to-end. As a result, our bookings process has become much quicker and more efficient, freeing up additional time to promote our offer, and proactively seeking new hires and partners to enrich our community arts offer. Making this leap was much needed, and it’s had a significant impact on our growth and our ability to weather the financial storms of the last twelve months. To reduce the story of Sandra’s impact to financial values alone feels insufficient, given how much all-round energy, direction and love she brings to her role, but in hard terms our revenue across our Theatre space, Community Hall and meeting rooms has doubled over the last twelve months to about 13% of our total projected revenue for 2023-24. And that particularly matters right now because of what The Hall is - a very old, large and poorly-insulated building with significant energy costs, even in the best of times. Without Sandra’s leadership and the additional income she has helped to secure, we might have faced some very tough choices this year. These pressures are not yet over of course, but we may not have been able to stay one step ahead so far without her efforts. But beyond the financial picture, the diversity of the new audiences and communities coming into the Hall, as a result of our expanded programme, is thrilling to see. Our mission is to provide a nourishing, uplifting and diverse range of affordable artistic and cultural experiences for the residents of the Town and surrounding area, and to achieve this we need both hearts and minds – a fantastic cultural programme and a sustainable building and business model to host them. Sandra’s volunteering is priceless for us because it embodies both of these objectives so clearly. Thank you Sandra! Want to know more? If you’d like more information about volunteering with The Commemoration Hall please contact [email protected] for details. We currently have opportunities to support our staff in the Café and supporting our evening events (including one-off stewarding roles at our Pantomime this December).

Kim shares her different volunteering roles throughout her life.

We asked the Volunteer Lead at Age UK Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to tell us about one of their valued volunteers. This is what they had to say about Julie* “Julie has been a loyal and dedicated volunteer for several years. She selflessly donates her time and commitment to the older people who use our day centre service on Wednesdays and plays a key role making everyone feel welcome and able to participate in social activities. She is an invaluable asset to our organisation, providing practical support and friendship to everyone. Julie is always willing to help set up, clear away and assist with activities and does so without being asked to do so. She greets and makes everyone welcome at the centre, usually with a cup of tea! She encourages clients to participate in activities and “have a go”, with a can-do attitude and humour. Additionally, she makes time to speak to everyone and make them feel valued, and she always remembers to ask after their family and events they have told her about previously. Continuity is very important in the lives of our service users, especially after the experience of Covid, and they appreciate Julie’s steadfastness and the relationships she has built with service users and staff. Our service users enjoy Julie’s company and good humour, and she knows all our service users well, so her conversations demonstrate genuine friendship and interest in their lives and activities. Julie is very supportive to both the service users and staff. She is a friend to those she supports and, for some, the only person they see to have a chat with regularly. Having the time to spend with service users is invaluable in promoting good mental health and encourages service users to attend the centre. This has been especially important for those who have lost friends who attended the centre with them and others who have lost their self-confidence to go out of the home following COVID-19. Julie’s dedication and support for staff provide the time and space for staff to deal with complex needs within the centre whilst ensuring that activities and friendship is continuing for the service users uninterrupted.” *Please note Julie is not her real name, and the image is a stock image. If you would like to volunteer with Age UK Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Click the button below to scroll through their roles.