An incredible 685 years of helping out celebrated at Weldmar’s annual volunteer event

Launched in 1984, Volunteers’ Week is an annual campaign held from the first Monday in June to celebrate and recognise the amazing contribution of volunteers up and down the UK.

Volunteers’ Week also provides the opportunity to raise awareness, and Weldmar started the week by taking our Community Outreach Vehicle to Tesco Dorchester to promote our current volunteering opportunities.

This week, we also held our Annual Volunteer Celebration in the marquee at our Inpatient Unit in Dorchester. The rain didn’t dampen proceedings, with 130 people in attendance, including our Chairman, Stephen Baynard, and a number of trustees (who are volunteers themselves) who helped to recognise the impact that volunteers have.

66 Weldmar volunteers, fulfilling roles across the charity, have earned Long Service Awards this year. Between them, they have contributed a stunning 685 years of volunteering! There were two recipients for each of the 30, 25, and 20 year Long Service Awards, with the remainder being recognised for 15, 10, and 5 years’ service.

Weldmar Hospicecare’s CEO, Caroline Hamblett, updated the volunteers on the challenges, changes and plans ahead for Weldmar, and celebrated successes on our charity shops and Stampede by the Sea.

Thanks were also given to Maurice Stradling announced his retirement as Chair of the Volunteer Forum after 17 years.

Room To Reward

Weldmar has partnered with the charity Room To Reward, which puts together volunteers with hotels, who offer unbooked rooms to volunteers in order to enjoy a well deserved break. This is the third year we have been able to treat volunteers who had been nominated by the staff they work alongside.

Trustee Mark Addison presented five worthy winners with their certificates – Denise Groth, Dottie Leighton, John Simpson, Rita Turner, and Vivien McMurray.

Caroline Munslow, Volunteer Services Lead at Wedmar, then highlighting the contribution of time given and money saved, the amazing impact of the IPU volunteer gardeners and Stampede by the Sea volunteers, the growth of the Carer Support volunteer team, and Shaftesbury Outlet with the highest increase year on year in sales targets with the help of their volunteers.

It was then time for a delicious lunch courtesy of Weldmar’s excellent catering team, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all, followed by a chance to look around the IPU for those that hadn’t visited before.