We held our first Volunteer Forum recently. We invited all our volunteers to attend as well as guest speakers from The Samaritans, LILY and Elements at the Manor. The Forum was held in the Parish Council Rooms in South Wootton as this was deemed to be a mid-point for all our volunteers.

The thinking behind holding the Forum was to find out from our volunteers if the support and training we give them enabled them to feel confident when providing our befriending service. The guest speakers pitched their talks to give advice on how our volunteers can provide the best quality of support to their client.

The Samaritans explained about the importance of “open” questions. This involves phrasing questions to the clients in a way that would need more than a yes or no answer and are useful for encouraging someone to express their thoughts and feelings. For example, instead of “Are you feeling well today” this could be phrased as “How are you feeling today?”. Using words such as “what”, “when”, “where” and “how” can encourage a client to be more open. They also showed us how to look for signs of how a client is feeling from their body language  and to use this in influencing the questions we ask.

Rebekah from LILY explained how LILY works in conjunction with the local council, WNB and other organisations. She explained that their website is a hub for local communities to find out about agencies and organisations who advertise their services and events. She talked about the changes they had implemented during Covid and how their aim is to reduce social isolation in all age groups.

Annette, owner of Elements at the Manor gave a talk on the importance of maintaining self-care and wellbeing. She described how it is essential for our volunteers to take time for themselves, to stay hydrated and to eat a balanced diet. She explained that if you look after yourself properly then you are more able to look after someone else better. She also showed us some simple exercises to help keep joints mobile and to reduce stress within our bodies. These exercises could be done in an armchair and would be suitable to be shown to our clients.

After the talks there was an opportunity to have discussions. Each table had a lead person who prompted questions that we designed to find out why our volunteers chose to work with WNB, whether they felt their training met their needs and expectations and what WNB could do to improve the support and advice that we give to them. There was some very interesting discussions and feedback which on the whole was very positive to read.

We ended the session with a delicious lunch provided by The Filling Station. The conversations continued and it was lovely to hear the chatter and buzz from everyone. The general opinion on the event was that everyone had enjoyed it and appreciated the time to be able to give some feedback.

We finished off our review by sending out an anonymous survey. We had a good response and the findings showed:

• Over 60% of participants prefer to learn in small groups and talking to other volunteers was the next most popular choice. A few prefer to learn on their own or by reading. E-learning was an option no one selected
• Our face to face volunteer meetings are at a time or on a day 75% of participants can’t make.
• 43% of respondents regularly come to face to face volunteer meetings and 26% occasionally come along, while 21% have never done so.
• 43% of participants have never joined a Zoom volunteer meeting, while 21% regularly do and 26% do occasionally.
• 67% of respondents say the Zoom meetings are on a day or time you can’t make, and 25% say you can’t use Zoom
• 100% of participants say our volunteer mailouts are useful! Volunteers enjoy being kept up to date, and the mailouts help them to feel part of the volunteer team. Adding some real life stories might be a worthwhile addition.
• Most of the volunteers who replied, nearly 44%, have volunteered with us for 1-5 years. 26% have volunteered 5-10 years and nearly 9% over 10 years.

The comments told us that it’s hard for many of our volunteers to find the time to come to a face to face meeting, however that for people who are able to attend its helpful to meet other volunteers and talk.

Zoom is something many of them don’t feel comfortable with or would need help to learn about and this puts them off.

Volunteers said that they enjoy giving back to the community and making a difference, that they enjoy meeting clients and they feel a sense of purpose about what they do. Volunteers were also very complimentary about the organisation.

If you would like to see the full results of the survey please drop us an email at info@wnbefriending.org.uk

Due to the Forum being such a success WNB are hoping this will become an annual event. This will enable us to keep evolving not just our services but the training and support we give to the volunteers who carry out the service.

Our offices will be closed over the Easter Weekend from Friday 29th March 2024. We will reopen at 9am Tuesday 2nd April 2024. Should you need any support or help during this time there are alternative organisations that can help.

West Norfolk Befriending are excited to be holding their first Volunteer Forum this month.

Our aim for this event is to review how we support and deliver training to our volunteers, to make sure that we are continuing to evolve the charity and our services to keep meeting the needs of our volunteers and in turn our older, isolated communities.

This event will be an opportunity for our team of volunteers to come together to give their views and opinions on how our services work. They are the heart of our charity and the ones that make so much difference to the lives of our clients and therefore it is essential that we hear directly from them whether our support and training programmes are meeting their expectations.

We have invited guest speakers from key local organisations.  The Samaritans and  Rebekah from LILY who we work in conjunction with. Annette Lavendar from Elements At The Manor will be coming to discuss the importance of maintaining volunteer wellbeing.

After these sessions there will be a chance to discuss  how our volunteers feel about volunteering for West Norfolk Befriending and whether we meet their requirements. As a charity we are very aware that requirements and expectations change over time. It is important that our volunteers continue to feel satisfied and confident while carrying out our services and give them the opportunity to say where we may need improvement but also what works well. The volunteers can also share experiences with each other – which can be an important learning opportunity and a space to share knowledge.

Then to finish we will have lunch, refreshments and a chance to have a catch up with our team in person. We welcome feedback from the event and any information received will be used to review our procedures if necessary.

We are looking forward to having as many of our team together under one roof and hopefully this will become a regular yearly event on our calendar.

West Norfolk Befriending will be closed over the Christmas period. We will shut 12.30pm on Friday 22nd December 2023 and reopen 9am on Tuesday 2nd January.

We would like to wish all our clients, volunteers, colleagues and supporters a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you need any support over the Christmas period here is a list of organisations that could help.

St Nicholas’ Church in Dersingham held their annual Christmas Tree festival and coffee morning at the beginning of December. West Norfolk Befriending sponsored a tree which was kindly decorated by Jo Itter who made many of the decorations herself. The idea of the Festival is to promote the services of many local organisations and members of the public can view the trees and pick up leaflets and information about the services available.

There are many of these Christmas Tree Festivals around the county including one that was held at St John’s Church in Terrington St John. Another of our past volunteers, Margaret, kindly decorated a tree on our behalf and this was on display at the church for the public to view.

This is a lovely way to promote West Norfolk Befriending whilst adding to the festive cheer at the same time. Our thanks to the volunteers who kindly agreed to oversee the decorating.

We did our annual visit to the lovely ladies of King’s Lynn Sugar Club. Once again they had lovingly made and decorated over 60 individual Christmas Cakes which they then donated to us to deliver to our clients. This beautiful gesture means a lot to our clients – this can sometimes be the only gift they receive at this time of year and goes a little way of passing on a bit of seasonal cheer.

We then held our Volunteer Christmas lunch which is a lovely chance to sit and catch up with some our amazing team of volunteers and share some food. We always have such a great time and it can get quite noisy with all the chatter and laughing. Our volunteers then take away the Christmas cakes to give to their client.

St Nicholas Church in Dersingham is holding their annual Christmas Tree Festival. A number of local organisations have been invited to sponsor and decorate a Christmas Tree. We were asked to take part again and our tree was decorated last Thursday and can now be viewed until the end of December. The Church held a coffee morning on Friday which was well attended and visitors were able to see the trees in all their glory. Our decorations were kindly made by Jo Itter – can you guess what they are made of?

West Norfolk Befriending held our first coffee morning at Downham Market Town Hall last Friday, 17th November. It was lovely to see so many new faces who came to have a cup of tea, a slice of homemade cake and a good chat. Our raffle was very popular thanks to some very generous donations from local businesses such as Barkers Bros, Morrisons and Tescos. We had great support from our volunteers who served up refreshments, spoke to the visitors and explained how our services work and the rewards they get from volunteering for WNB. We raised a total of £125.70 which will help to keep the charity’s services available to those most isolated in the local communities.

Trinity Rotary Club has donated £500 to West Norfolk Befriending.

John Hodson, Trinity President, said “The Club wants to help local charities with their fundraising. We know that they have more difficulty getting donations when many people are having to be careful with the cost of living. West Norfolk Befriending provides a vital service for older residents who are lonely or isolated so we are very happy to give a donation.  We hope that others will lend more support as well.”

Chief Executive of West Norfolk Befriending, Pippa May thanked Trinity Rotary for the donation. “This will help us fund the training of volunteer Befrienders and the running of this local organisation. Our aim is to reduce isolation, enhance the safety and quality of life, maintain independence and thereby improve physical and mental well-being of older people. We are always seeking volunteers, who will themselves gain much satisfaction from their involvement so please contact us via the Website or give us a call if you would like to help.”

Local photographer, Jon Clifton as released a special edition calendar, featuring 12 beautiful photographs of sunsets taken at local coastal beauty spots. The calendars are A3 in size and spiral bound. They can be ordered from Jon’s website and cost £15 including postage. Jon is donating £1.50 from each calendar to a local charity and you can choose West Norfolk Befriending when ordering. These would make a lovely Christmas present or you could treat yourself. Click on the link below to order.

Jon Clifton Photography | West Norfolk Sunsets Calendar 2024 (zenfolio.com)