Volunteering Archives - Page 5 of 5

Are you a complementary therapist and wanting to help our patients?

January 25, 2018 | 9:02am

We’re appealing for experienced complementary therapists interested in volunteering their time to help patients from across Greater Manchester.

Staff in the St Ann’s complementary therapy team are in need of support from volunteers qualified to provide patients, their families and carers with aromatherapy, Indian head massage, reflexology, therapeutic massage or reiki.

Emma Barclay, Rehabilitation Team Leader, at St Ann’s explained: “The hospice is all about providing holistic care, so looking after the whole patient, be that physical, emotional, social or spiritual support.

“We care for people at all stages of their illness, from the point of diagnosis, through treatment and beyond, and many of our patients benefit from receiving the complementary therapies that our team of staff provide.

“We’re really lucky to have a group of experienced volunteers who work with our staff to deliver therapies, and we’re currently appealing for anyone qualified in any of the disciplines mentioned to join them.

“Volunteers should have a minimum of one year’s experience. A full induction will be provided to any successful applicants who come to donate their time to us, and it’s an extremely rewarding experience.”

We care for local people with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses from our three sites in Heald Green, Salford and at the Neil Cliffe Centre in Wythenshawe Hospital, and also via community services delivered in people’s own homes.

*For more information, or to apply to be a complementary therapy volunteer, please contact Louise Fleming, Volunteer Manager at the hospice on 0161 498 3653 or email lfleming@sah.org.uk

We’re appealing for help from digitally-savvy volunteers

January 11, 2018 | 8:00am

Jade and Trudi looking at the St Ann's ebay shop on a ipad

St Ann’s is appealing for local people who may be able to help us grow the income from our eBay and Amazon shops, by volunteering a few hours a week at our distribution centre on Bankfield Industrial Estate in South Reddish.

The volunteers will have the opportunity to help with everything from researching a wide variety of items from antiques to video games, marketing them for sale in our online outlets, photographing products and optimising listings.

Amanda Brooks, Trading Company Manager at St Ann’s, said: “The hospice is a charity and we simply couldn’t continue caring for the thousands of local people with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses we support without donations, including those raised by our online and offline shops.

“We’re really keen to hear from anyone who is digitally focussed who might be happy to donate a few hours of their time to support our busy team.

“This may be a role for someone looking to gain workplace experience in sales, marketing, online retail, business or stock management, and will be really varied. We’re a friendly, dynamic team – and we can promise that no two days will be the same!”

We care for people from across Greater Manchester from our three sites in Heald Green, Little Hulton and the Neil Cliffe Centre in Wythenshawe Hospital, as well as out in the community and in the places people call home.

Our Trading Company runs 14 shops, complete with a range of new and pre-loved items, as well as our online eBay and Amazon outlets, our Facebook Marketplace shop and our hospice lottery.

Amanda added: “We have to raise £16,000 a day to ensure the hospice can keep its doors open for patients, and the Trading Company activity plays a really important part in helping us to achieve that. The eBay shop income has increased by 400% in recent months, and we’re really excited to work with a local volunteer who might be able to help us grow this even further. Every penny really does help us to care for local patients.”

For more information, or to offer to volunteer your time, please call 0161 477 0190, or email online@sah.org.uk

Volunteer with us

Whether you have an hour to spare every year, or a whole day every week, please register your interest and we’ll get in touch about the right volunteering role for you.

Watch our Christmas at St Ann’s videos

December 22, 2017 | 4:35pm

Christmas at our charity shops

In the video below, St Ann’s Romiley Shop Manager, Esme, tells us about the importance of our charity in the community as well as showing us the range of new and pre-loved Christmas goods on offer in our shops. The wonderful shop volunteers – Ann, Jackie and Sally – tell us why they volunteer in our shop too.

Our Christmas fairs

St Ann’s plays an important part in the local community and the community also plays a very important role in helping us raise the funds to keep our hospice doors open.
This video was filmed at our Little Hulton and Neil Cliffe Centre Christmas fairs. Volunteers, staff and members of the community tell us what St Ann’s means to them

Working as a nurse during the festive season

Ward Manager, Sarah, tells us about her role here at St Ann’s and explains just what it is like to work at St Ann’s during the festive season.

Supporting each other through difficult times

Our counsellors, Hazel Batchelor and Hazel Wilcock, talk about Christmas without a loved one, and offer advice on the ways we can help to support each other through difficult times.

For advice, head to https://www.cruse.org.uk/about-grief/christmas

Light up a life

At our Light up a Life services, we take time to remember those that, for whatever reason, will not be with us this Christmas time. Many that come to our services may have a link with the hospice, and some may not.

People from all different faiths and background come together with one wish and that is to celebrate the lives of those we love.

Merry Christmas from everyone at St Ann’s!

We’re wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year! Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year.

As we’re a charity, we need to raise £16,000 every day to keep the hospice doors open. We’re more than just a charity to our patients and every single penny donated makes a huge difference to their lives. Please go to www.sah.org.uk/donate-now to make a donation this Christmas, no matter how big or small.

MBL Seminars bring colour to our gardens

August 9, 2017 | 3:21pm

The gardens at St Ann’s are in full bloom thanks to volunteers from Worsley training company MBL Seminars.

A 27-strong team from MBL Seminars brought colour to the flower beds and planted shrubs at our Little Hulton site.

MBL Seminars, a leading provider in continuing professional development, had already donated more than £5,000 to St Ann’s.

It was nice to get staff out of the office and do some physical work instead of our usual desk jobs. Everyone really enjoyed it. Five different groups took part and I’d like to thank all those who were able to support this fantastic local charity. We’ve organised quiz nights for the last couple of years in aid of St Ann’s and as the next step, we wanted to see what else we could do apart from donate money. Helping out in the gardens seemed a useful way to get as many of our team as possible involved.

Graham Dutton, Director at MBL Seminars

Volunteers included Client Relationship Manager Mike Charnley, from Monton, who raised more than £700 by taking part in the Great Manchester Run.

We’re extremely grateful to everyone at MBL Seminars for all of their support, both fundraising and volunteering.
The work they’ve completed in our gardens has made a massive difference to patients who’re able to look out and enjoy the flowers from the comfort of their rooms, or when sitting outside in the lovely weather. We couldn’t keep the hospice running without such support.

Helen Gazard, Corporate Fundraising Officer

We have 772 volunteers and it is estimated that they save us around £572,000 a year through their various roles.

Is your business looking to support a charity?

Choosing to support St Ann’s as a business benefits both us and you, and can be a really rewarding partnership with lots of opportunities for team building, boosting morale and having some fun!

Find out more here

We’re celebrating Volunteers’ Week!

June 1, 2017 | 12:09pm

Collage photo of volunteers for volunteer's week

Our patients often talk about St Ann’s being a family. We’re really proud that people feel so at home here, and that we’re able to make a difference and improve the quality of our patients lives.

We simply couldn’t continue to provide our care and support to patients without a very important army of people who help us in so many different ways – our volunteers.

St Ann’s has more than 700 volunteers, and last year they worked a staggering 81,030 hours between them. That invaluable work – which includes everything from running our coffee shops to providing a much-needed break for our visitors, to tending our gardens and helping our ward staff (and everything in between) – saved the hospice £542,901 last year. We simply can’t thank them enough!

We like to tell our volunteers how much we appreciate them all year around, but this week, as it’s Volunteers’ Week, we wanted to say a special thank you to each and every person who gives their time so generously.

To celebrate Volunteers’ Week at our Little Hulton site, we had a tea party with plenty of delicious cakes!

Tea party at Little Hulton for Volunteers' Week

THANK YOU!

Feeling inspired?

Whether you have a couple of hours a week to spare or a couple of days, every single bit of support makes a difference to our patients and their families.

Clothes discarded by runners at the Great Manchester Run will be donated to our shops

May 15, 2017 | 2:43pm

Movers Transport, based in Heaton Mersey, Stockport, will remove clothing discarded by runners at the start of the half marathon and 10k run to raise funds for us.

The long-established company will provide a van and driver, with volunteers sought to help collect items for sale in our 14 charity shops across Greater Manchester.

The half marathon, with a capacity 8,500 runners, starts at 9 am on Portland Street, near the junction with Oxford Road, then at noon almost 30,000 runners tackle the 10k.

We’re delighted to help St Ann’s because it plays such an important role in our community and we all know people who’ve been treated there. Hopefully, the clothes can raise much-needed funds for the hospice.

Craig Daniels, Managing Director at Movers Transport

Lots of runners wear old training tops etc and leave them at the start. We ask them to drape them on the barriers or drop them at the roadside and anything left will be collected to benefit charity.
Anything runners want to get back can be left on the baggage buses or with friends and family. Typically, around four tonnes of clothing is left at our runs.

Charlie Mussett, Senior Operations Manager at The Great Run Company

Anyone who can help collect clothes can contact Carrie Murphy at St Ann’s on 0161 498 3628 or email cmmurphy@sah.org.uk.

To join #TeamStAnns of almost 150 runners in the Run go to www.greatrun.org/manchester and select St Ann’s on the charity page.

Have some spare time? We’d love your help.

We’re looking for more volunteers for our 14 shops across Greater Manchester. Do you know anyone who would like to help? We need people of all ages (although they must be at least 16) and it’s a great way to meet new people and learn new skills.

Find out more information here.

We need experienced complementary therapists to volunteer and help our patients

May 3, 2017 | 4:37pm

Staff in our complementary therapy team are in need of support from volunteers qualified to provide patients, their families and carers with aromatherapy, Indian head massage, reflexology, therapeutic massage or reiki.

At St Ann’s we care for our patients in many different ways to ensure we’re meeting each of their individual needs. Some of our patients benefit from receiving complementary therapies, and we have a team of staff who provide these across our three hospice sites.

We already have some experienced volunteers who kindly donate their time to support the delivery of our therapies across our sites, however, as we support hundreds of patients every year, we are looking for the help of even more volunteers who can help staff by providing therapies to people from across Greater Manchester.

Emma Barclay, Rehabilitation Team Leader

St Ann’s cares for local people with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses from our three sites in Heald Green, Salford and at the Neil Cliffe Centre in Wythenshawe Hospital, and also via community services delivered in people’s own homes.

We’d love to hear from anyone qualified in any of the disciplines mentioned, with a minimum of one year’s experience, who would be interested in joining the team as a volunteer. A full induction will be provided to any successful applicants. It is a really rewarding role, especially when you see the tangible impact the therapies have on a patient’s wellbeing.

Emma Barclay, Rehabilitation Team Leader

For more information, or to apply to be a complementary therapy volunteer, please contact Kathy Collins, Volunteer Manager on 0161 498 3653 or email kcollins@sah.org.uk

We have an army of more than 800 volunteers who support us in so many ways.

Read our volunteering stories to find out the reasons why people volunteer for St Ann’s.

Click here to read the volunteering stories

Theme: Volunteering