Chris has volunteered for Sight Support for more than sixteen years. He has supported the charity by helping undertake a wide range of tasks at its centre in Hull. His duties include dealing with a range of administrative duties in our resource centre; helping to compile mailings as well as helping serve food and refreshments within our Day Groups and helping set up rooms for event bookings as well as regularly cleaning computer equipment and keeping cupboards and storerooms tidy. Chris also supports our fundraising events from time to time.
In spite of his own visual impairment (nystagmus), Chris gives tireless dedication to Sight Support. He is always positive, smiling and friendly. Nothing is ever too much trouble for Chris, who comes in and gets on with his role but is very flexible to adapt to other requests. Whatever the weather, Chris travels in by bus every time from an outlying village which takes over an hour.
Sight loss can often mean isolation and spending long hours alone at home. Our Day Groups enable some of our more elderly, isolated service users to get out and about, and make new friends and new memories. Transport is provided door to door on our minibuses and a lunch is available at a nominal cost with refreshments available during the afternoon along with a variety of activities e.g. quizzes, bingo, musical entertainers. For many attendees, this is the only time they leave their house and the only physical company they regularly enjoy, which makes it so important that their day out is a fun, positive experience.
Apart from his hands on support to deliver this service, Chris’s commitment and cheery personality when helping out in the Day Groups, enables our service users to better enjoy their time with Sight Support. In addition, his support administratively, with what can often be repetitive time consuming tasks, enables many of our staff to be more productive and offer a more efficient and better support to our service users.
Chris never complains but remains positive about whatever tasks he gets involved with. His willingness makes him a pleasure to have around and his cheerfulness is infectious. Chris’ cheerful demeanour and adaptability alongside his long term commitment to the charity stand him out as a volunteer who enjoys what they do.
