Interviewer

Can you start by telling us your name, age, and what Member Group you are discussing today?

 

David wood

Yes. My name is David Wood. I am 58 and we’re talking about the Friends of One Tower Bridge Road.

 

Interviewer

All right, perfect. What first inspired you to get involved with the One Tower Bridge Road Friends Group?

 

David Wood

Okay, so it’s probably quite a long journey. So, there’s something about the way I was brought up, realistically. My parents, and actually my current –  only –  wife’s parents both went to the same church when we were children. And life really revolved around church life. And it wasn’t called volunteering. It’s just what you did. So, it wasn’t only Sunday services – there were youth groups, there was that sort of stuff. And my Dad ran a number of youth groups, as did my mum. My mum did things like making banners for church. But then, another thing they did, which really resonated with me in my teenage years, was they used to run what they described as a church holiday. And they would hire a country house, they were probably one of the youngest sets of people. There were a few families, but there were an awful lot of older people that came away on those holidays, so it was their holiday. And it never even occurred to me to think that it wasn’t normal. But, what I would end up doing would be sort of carrying suitcases up and down the staircase and delivering these rooms and helping hand out meals at mealtimes and all that sort of stuff. And my parents weren’t paid for that, that was just something they did. It was being part of the community. I went to university, I volunteered in various bits, but I again just sort of thought about it as helping out. I was then part-trained to be an accountant. I became treasurer of a number of local groups. Again, I never thought about that as volunteering. It’s just what you did. And then when I was about 30, I became a director of a hospice. And there was this whole species, I would say, of people in the organisation who were described as volunteers. And at the time I joined that organisation, I think we had about 98 members of staff, and we had 650 volunteers. So volunteers were vastly outnumbering staff. And there was something which I found really interesting, because they were very diverse. Volunteers actually fell under part of my direct remit as a director. We had volunteers who volunteered in charity shops, we had volunteers who volunteered in the garden. You know, there were volunteers who did everything. And they all cared really passionately about what they did. I can remember one event, I went to where we were moving a charity shop, from one end of the village to another. And the people were so passionate about their charity shop in that village – and they were raising money, obviously, for the hospice – that we had to have two ambulances, because people were hyperventilating in the meeting, because they were so upset about this change that was going on. And, while in that situation, sometimes it could feel a little challenging.

David Wood

I was also really inspired by the fact that people cared so much about something they weren’t paid to do. So I then, in my mid 30s, came into a job in a national charity, and about 2013 – something like that – we were having a conversation, and we had two vice presidents, both of whom were great advocates of volunteering: a guy called Sir William Wells, and a lady called Baroness Emerton. And I called them in here for a meeting about what the future strategy of the organisation might be. And we did lots of volunteering in hospitals. And they said together, “We should think about volunteering in care homes.” Yes, the benefit of volunteering in care homes for me is that they’re really local. And Southwark Council describe a care home as, “Islands of the old.” And there is,  this sort of idea for me, that when people get put into a care home, somehow, those of us who knew them in the wider community – we breathe a sigh of relief. We have a sense that we no longer have responsibility for them, that somehow the people in the home do. Except we may live next door to the home. But we don’t consider those people, our neighbours. And there’s something to me that has really resonated about the fact that we need to help people who run care homes. We need to help those people who live in it to live fulfilled, varied, and different lives. And they aren’t just God’s waiting room. So, volunteering has always been part of what I’ve done. But I have to say that older, vulnerable people in care homes are something which has really rang the bell for me, certainly in the last few years.

Interviewer

All right, and how have you brought all of that experience into your role at One Tower Bridge? What is it exactly that you do there?

 

David Wood

Okay. So, when I was first asked to get involved with this project, One Tower Bridge Road, and Amarna House in York, were the first two locations that we were asked to get involved in. We were asked to set up independent Friends Groups. So, they’re independent charities, and as such, there’s a degree of responsibility and governance that goes with that. We recognised that it was a bit of a big ask to ask people from the local community to immediately come in and become the Chairman, or the Secretary, or the Treasurer, or whatever. And when we set that one up, I was asked to become Chairman. I was really happy to become chairman. I was only expecting to do it for a short period of time, until someone stepped up from the local community. And actually, one of the things I’ve learned in other situations in life is that sometimes you have to step back before someone else steps up. So, I took on that role as Chair and I’m still in that role as Chair. The committee has changed around me quite a lot, and different people have come in. But as yet, despite my best endeavours, no one wants to replace me in that role. So what does that mean? What does it mean to be the Chair, I suppose? Yes, there’s the boring governance stuff, like making sure we have committee meetings, and that accounts get prepared and filed and all of that stuff. But that isn’t the bit which makes my heart miss a beat at all. The stuff that makes my heart miss a beat is genuinely the stuff that involves the residents, the people that live there. And trying to create and support programs for those residents, is probably the most exciting thing about the role. 

Interviewer

All right. I’m sure there are many, but do you have a favourite memory from any of those programs, or any experiences at the One Tower Bridge Road Friends Group that you could tell us a bit about and that sticks out to you? 

 

David Wood

Oh, I think there are a number of projects that have happened there over the years. So, one of the key things that falls within my remit as chair is to make sure that we’ve got enough money fundraised to pay for things. And, the most recent projects that we’ve delivered there- and we’re carrying on delivering at the moment – is something called Songs and Smiles, which is where young mums come in with their babies and they do what, in my day, would have been called a “Mum and Tots Group.” And the residents come down and they get to interact. So, that stuff really matters for me and that’s something that we fund and make happen. In terms of community engagement, my favourite bit to do with young people is that literally five minutes from the home is a school called St. Saviour’s and St. Olave’s, and we’ve had a long relationship with them and I regularly go in and chat to the head teacher or to a group of students or whatever. And the school has shown huge flexibility by allowing some of the sixth formers – it’s a girls school. So when they have free periods, they take time to go down to the home to befriend and spend time one-on-one. And I think my favourite activity as part of that is that on a Thursday morning, there’s been a tradition of people who can really only go out in wheelchairs, they would go out in a group and visit sort of a local coffee shop or a local centre. So what happens is that the girls who aren’t in lessons, for a couple periods just before lunch, they’ll go down, and you can have one or two members of staff, and a further eight wheelchairs go out. And they go out and they have coffee. And I can remember talking to Cathy. Cathy was one of the residents there. And you can tell this story stuck because it was before Covid. So it’s good five, six years ago. And, I asked Cathy, because Cathy was one of the people who enjoyed going out, and I asked her what it meant to her. She had some memory issues, so she said, “Well, on Thursday, I get up early,” and I said “Oh, why’d you get up early?” She said, “I get up early because I want to look my best. So she said, “I get up and I try and get myself ready and I call the carers in, and I get them to do my hair. And if somebody will help me, I want to put some lipstick on. And I make sure I’ve had my breakfast early. She said , “And then I get them to take me down to the big reception area. I get them to take me down in my wheelchair to the reception area.” She said, “And I’ve got my coat ready. And I hope that there’s going to be enough people that I can be included in the numbers that go out when they’re going to be pushed out.’ And she said, ‘I don’t get to go every week, because not every week, there are enough or there’s too many. And I know I have to be fair, and I can’t go. So I said, “So what happens when you don’t go?” And she said, “Well, I go back up to my room and I have a little cry.” And it’s so sad because you think it’s such a simple thing to get, you know, another couple of young volunteers to come in and push wheelchairs so that Cathy could – her big moment of the week is to go out. Just to go out for a couple of hours. So stuff like that, really, I find very inspiring that it’s not difficult. We don’t have to do a huge amount to change people’s lives.

Interviewer

But it really makes a difference for them. In your years of being Chairman of this Friends Group, what are the biggest ways you’ve seen it change over time?

 

David Wood

So, I think there’s pre-Covid and post-Covid. So before Covid, there felt like there was more interest from the community in care homes. Definitely young people saw it as a route to getting experience for health care type careers. So it was a good place to come. There would be a natural stream of people that came in and who wanted to volunteer. During Covid, because of the number of people that were dying in care homes, there was this real challenge and, effectively, the doors were sealed. Not much happened. And all of the momentum fell away. So what’s happening now is that we are trying to restart that and restarting that is really interesting. So there’s always been a core of older people who got involved in volunteering. Some of those who have given up volunteering, they just don’t fit. But equally, some still view that going to a care home might be a place where they are more likely to get Covid. And they’re still worried about getting Covid. So they’re less keen to volunteer. I think there’s also a reality that care home staff have forgotten what it’s like to have volunteers in the home. And so there’s a bit of a learning curve to go on that as well.

 

Interviewer

So would you say that there’s more of a need for volunteers right now, compared to what there was in a pre-Covid world?

 

David Wood

I think that there’s a bigger gap between the need and the number of volunteers that we have. In pre-Covid days at various points, we could have up to 40 volunteers on the books, and it’s a big care home, we’ve got 120 beds. So it’s, you know, plenty of opportunity there. Now I would say we’re probably talking about 15 volunteers that are regularly going in. So the need is probably the same. But, the number is less. So to quote that marvellous biblical verse, “The fields are white unto harvest, but oh, the labourers are so few.” And there’s a bit about we need more people to volunteer. .

Interviewer

Yes. So, what would you say to someone who would like to start volunteering, or is very early in their volunteering journey? Do you have any advice for those people?

 

David Wood

Yes. I think first of all, pick on an area of volunteering that you love. There’s some discussion in the world of volunteer management, about how much benefit the individual volunteer gets. And I honestly think even if it’s just a feel-good factor, there has to be something which makes you want to volunteer. Otherwise, you’re a particularly stoic and unhappy looking volunteer, and that’s not what people want to see. So, pick on an area that you love. If it is in health and social care, you have to accept that these are vulnerable people. And as vulnerable people, you are going to have to have a DBS check. You are going to have to do some degree of training around that. So don’t expect that you can send me an email today and you can start volunteering in the home in two weeks time, because there are procedures that need to go through.

Interviewer

What is the DBS check?

 

David Wood

So, that would be the check that we do on your criminal record. And one of the things actually to highlight to people is you can have something that might come up on your DBS check, but it won’t necessarily stop you from volunteering. It depends what it is, and when it was, and that’s something we would have to discuss with the home. But you know, there’s a reality that these things have to be done. Because, you know, we nobody would want us putting in a volunteer alongside their relative who was regularly known to steal things, for example. It’s like, we need to make sure that it’s safe because these are vulnerable people. So my advice would be to think about it, plan it, and don’t expect it to happen overnight. It’s not the sort of thing where, you know, if you’ve been having a glass of wine at midnight, you suddenly feel a bit jolly and decide to go, “Oh, yes, I’ll press that online application.” Then the next day, when you’re still hung over, you’ll be starting doing the volunteering. 

Interviewer

All right. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about or Or add that we haven’t covered yet?

 

David Wood

No, I think all I would say is that, in my role, I feel both privileged and grateful to the volunteers by getting involved to help the residents of the care home. There isn’t enough that we can possibly do to say, “Thank you” to everybody who gives time. It doesn’t have to be the sort of volunteering that I’ve described. So, what I described was where you are fully cleared and checked to have one-to-one contact with a resident, which is unsupervised. We also do something called Challenge Days. And so Challenge Days are when a group of unchecked volunteers may come in, in a supervised capacity and do something. So for example, they might come in and do the garden. And you can come in and you can spend half a day doing the garden. There will be at least the number of people who are cleared and checked, who will be supervising that, making sure that nothing can go awry. And you may also get some residents who wants to come out and do some gardening too. So you may meet some and have that opportunity to. So if it’s something that you care about that you think, “I’m not sure if this is quite right for me.” If you’ve got any volunteering, ask if they do Taster Days, Challenge Days, those sorts of things, because there is that opportunity to get involved at that level.

 

Interviewer

All right. All right. Beautiful. Thank you so much.

 

David Wood

Thank you.