Trust Life: Oct/Nov
Welcome back to life at the Trust. In the last edition I introduced you to our staff, in this one I would like to introduce you to our wonderful group of volunteers. But first of all, I ask you the question posed to attendees of a meeting recently; ‘do you volunteer?’ Apparently Northumberland has the lowest recorded statistics for volunteering, yet so many give their time freely to various good causes.
I honestly believe those good people don’t consider the vital role they fill within communities. Ask them if they are on committees, organise events, raise funds, support their offspring in schools or in organised activities and they reply ‘yes’ – so perhaps it’s the word ‘volunteering’ that we don’t quite connect with – we just do it because we want to.
With all this in mind, here are some of the ways the Amble community get involved with Trust life. Firstly we have our Management Committee, a group who have ‘volunteered’ to be elected from our membership and are willing to serve a three year term (although most have been on much longer). They are the ones who give direction to the Trust, identify which projects to instigate and generally make the decisions they believe will bring greatest benefit to the community.
Next we have our Ambler crew – a group dedicated to keeping you all informed and updated on the latest happenings in the locality. In theory they meet every Thursday afternoon to work on the newspaper. But in reality they become fulltime super sleuths, hunting out all those interesting stories for the next issue. And of course this includes the younger contributors to Artograffi.
We have the GPX devisors – a fantastic new media, treasure hunt game, invented by Anna and her group of young people, to take you around the interesting parts of the town you are possibly not aware of, and of course increase the tourism potential.
We have volunteers who help to organise and raise funds for various events – I’m sure many of you look forward to the Torchlight Procession every year. How would it happen without those wonderful people who turn out (usually in horrible weather) throughout October and early November to set up the displays and check the wiring?
And of course everyone who has attended the numerous meetings we have had, whether it be for tourism, business or community. There are litter pickers, gardeners……..the list goes on. As you can see, volunteering is probably something you do without thinking about it.
So consider how you spend your time and if you are doing any of these things, congratulate yourself on the difference you are making to everyday life, it possibly wouldn’t happen without you.
Oh yes, I said in the last edition I would explain my role but think I’ve run out of space again, perhaps next time!
Julia Aston,
Director, Amble Development Trust
