Thank you to our volunteers!

Last Friday 14th March, we raised a glass to our brilliant mentors in London at our annual Volunteer Thank You event.

Hosted at the impressive Bridge Academy in Haggerston, the event was our chance to say a huge thank you to the men and women who give their time and energy every week to make ReachOut the organisation that it is.

Volunteers enjoyed drinks and nibbles as well as some speeches from our staff. ReachOut Club Project Leader, Imogen Fletcher-Blackburn, gave us a lovely insight into her experiences of volunteering with and working for ReachOut, while our Fundraising Officer, Luke Ounsworth, spoke about the impact which they’d had on funding over the last year and upcoming opportunities to get involved with fundraising events. (You can findout more about these opportunities here.)

To wrap up, our London Director, Peter Blackwell, spoke about his time with ReachOut and what our organisation means to him. Filled with lovely anecdotes and stories, Peter likened ReachOut to an asthmatic’s inhaler; “As any serious asthma sufferer knows, you take your preventative inhaler every day, and you’ll not notice anything, and just be normal – but if it’s not available to you then you deteriorate quickly and life gets harder straight away.  You may not often notice the effects, but it’s most definitely there, working for you – and you are all the same for your mentees, and they may not notice, or be grateful even, for what you have done, but like the inhaler, it’s a positive influence, helping you along, working for you to keep you doing the other good things in life” – a lovely analogy which really encapsulates how ReachOut changes young people’s lives for the better!

We thanked some of our most dedicated volunteers with Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards for those who have volunteered with us for 30, 60 or 100 hours respectively.

We also recognised two Outstanding Voluntary Contribution winners – Joe Kinchin-Smith and Ryan Pluck.

Joe has been a ReachOut mentor for four years now but his contribution to our organisation reaches far wider than his weekly volunteering at the ReachOut Academy. A Project Manager at financial services firm, UBS, Joe has been instrumental in securing wide support for ReachOut across his organisation. He also ran the Newham 10K for ReachOut in 2012 helping to raise over £3000 and has organised several workshops for ReachOut young people at UBS.

Ryan grew up and went to school in Hackney, and knows many of our young people’s families through his own personal connections.  He started volunteering in 2011, and has demonstrated enormous commitment to our young people ever since, volunteering at the ReachOut Club, ReachOut Academy and with ReachOut FC non-stop for three years.  He’s an outstanding role model within his community, and has made an outstanding contribution to ReachOut – thanks Ryan!

The event really was a night to remember. Thank you to all of those who have made 2013-14 such a brilliant year for ReachOut – here’s to 2014-15!