When I arrived home I was greeted by my American cousin Mercedes and her mother Laurie, who had recently flown in from New York. It was nice to see Laurie again, not only because they had been so kind as to let me stay for two weeks in New York in 2008, so we had a lot of catching up to do, but also because it was her birthday so we had something to celebrate. They had already eaten so I made myself Spaghetti Bolognese and headed into the living room to join the conversation.
Spent £144.74
Tuesday I spent most of the day creating and stuffing envelopes for a mailout for the Diabetes UK London and South East Volunteers Conference on Saturday October 9th. The conference is all about thanking existing volunteers, whilst hoping to inspiring new ones. For Charity's like Diabetes UK, volunteering is essential for the success of the organisation as a whole. In addition to the obvious volunteers (like the board of trustees) we have a plethora of volunteers. To name a few we have:- Office volunteers, who work usually two days a week in our offices across the UK. Currently, we have office volunteers in the majority of our teams from research, press, careline, corporate, finance, most regional offices, volunteer development team, marketing and many more.
- Interns: who work 3-5 days a week and will be starting in September. The internships are open for application now so I would apply for one if you can. There are spaces within Care Advocacy (people who work with the N.H.S to fight for better care and guidelines for people with diabetes). Conferences and Care events (Conferences is self explanatory, but the care events team run our Diabetes UK holidays for Children and Adults). I was part of the pilot internship scheme and this is the team I worked with. I got to not only help out at a children's activities weekend, where I got to try all the activities myself, but also a weekend in a hotel in Manchester for 18-25 year olds. The people that went on this weekend made a Facebook group and since last November have invited me to both their two reunions (one in London and one in Birmingham). Then just before I got my job I was asked to help the conference team with the Annual Professional Conference in the Liverpool 02 Areana. Top researchers, academics, doctors, nurses, companies and Diabetes UK staff attended the three days and I was allowed to meet many of them. I also got to attend some of the lectures and the Gala dinner, which had a tribute Beatles band too.
- Next we have event volunteers: These are casual volunteers that help to represent us or man stands at many of the awareness events and healthy living days we are invited to attend. They also help out at the Roadshows, like the one in Ealing.
- Speaker volunteers: who are people trained by us to give talks about Diabetes and Diabetes UK. I am holding two training on September the 4th and 25th this year. We give them the materials they need and they go out on their own accord to give talks. In this way there are no strict guidelines on when they need to volunteer.
- Distribution volunteers: who deliver many of our information and leaflets.
- Media volunteers: Promote us in the media.
- Service User Reps: Who attend N.H.S meetings to make sure the right care and policy is provided for people with Diabetes.
- Voluntary group members: Within London their are 35 voluntary groups, usually made up of 15-30 people. They act to provide emotional support and care to people in their local areas with diabetes. They have bi-monthly meetings and usually are very involved within the local community taking part in fund-raising and awareness events for Diabetes UK.
- Community champions (as discussed in a previous post) and many more.......
As you can the sheer capacity and strength of our volunteers heavily affects our whole organisation. In the UK alone, volunteers have an economic worth of over £40 billion per year. It is no surprise that many charities rely on the support and hard work of such wonderful individuals. Saying that, because there are so many I was stuck at work doing the mailing until 8pm, bloody volunteers : ).
Spent £144.74
Wednesday: Cousins part 2
Today I was celebrating two things. Firstly, a colleague from work was about to start maternity leave and then I had my family dinner in Leicester Square (before my American cousins flew back the following morning). My workmates had lunch in Strada, but I had already eaten my sandwich so I didn't need anything but the complimentary water. However, after almost finishing a month I decided to go halves on a bottle of wine with one of my colleagues (£5 each). After not drinking for quite a while I got to my family dinner already a little tipsy. There were about 14 of us having the family meal in Cafe Rouge near Leicester Square station. We had vouchers so I managed to get my meal for free, Result!
Spent £149.74
Thursday: Halfway there
On Thursday I was halfway there and pretty glad about it. I had to add my months rent to my total. Considering the Joseph Rowntree foundation said that to live to an acceptable standard of living it was £25 a day without rent and £40 with rent, and I was living on a quarter of that, it only seemed fair to deduct 31 x the difference (31 x £3.75 = 116.25). Added to the £1.60 for Onions and celery for my Risotto I was now on £267.59.
Friday:
On Friday I went to Covent Garden to meet some of my university friends, in particular my friends Stu and Jade, who had just got back from travelling around South America. Time seemed to go quite quickly and as it had been a relatively exhausting week therefore I was glad to get home to cook my second helping of a very large risotto.
Spent £267.59
Saturday: Cycling preparations for a lack of a bus pass
On the 19th of August my bus pass runs out and therefore if I am to cycle to and from work everyday, I am going to have to practice. Especially, considering my fold-up bike has no gears and my level of exercise and general fitness since I twisted my ankle was pretty non-existent. I watched the first half of the football and as my team weren't playing until Monday (Newcastle) I left at halftime to meet my friend Laith closer to Camden. Despite not having any gears I seemed to be quicker than the bus reaching Vauxhall in about 20 mins after leaving my house (about the same time as when I got the tube). I then continued along past Victoria, through Hyde Park and then took a right along Oxford Street where I met Laith. Unfortunately, like the last time I went cycling, it began to rain. We waited until it had passed and cycled on to Regents Park and then past my work. In Regents park there was the Black Pride festival. I wanted to go but I needed to get home in time to get myself my weeks rations of bread, milk, fruit, pasta, porridge and vegetables (a total of £5.06)
Spent 272.65
Sunday: More Cousins but different Cousins
This week is ostensibly dominated by cousins. I'm not sure I have seen so many of my cousins in one week since....... well......... ever! Today it was my mother's side of the family and her youngest brother Tom. They were holding a barbecue (despite the weather) and they invited us over. We arrived about 4pm and had an early dinner. I had eaten another sandwich for lunch and had my remaining slices of bread to eat with the lamb and Salad they provided. For pudding we had banoffee meringue, with strawberries, peaches and cream. Good weekend!
Spent 272.65
