"The biggest failure in life is the failure to try”
How do you spend an hour of your spare time? Shopping, surfing the web and buried in Facebook? Walking the dog, meeting up with friends, doing the ironing or chilling in front of the TV? So many ways so spend an hour. So, how about donating an hour of your time?
I heard about the charity ‘Inspiring the Future’ on the BBC Breakfast news; I can’t remember exactly when but it peaked an interest in me about showing the next generation that there are options out there which are slightly different to the norm. The news piece was about promoting the initiative to a wider audience and about trying to recruit more women to sign up and take part.
We all live busy lives, trying to fill every minute with one thing or another. I too live a busy life, by choice, but not so busy that I can’t give up an hour of my time and go and chat with teenagers about what is out there for them. All the initiative asks for is one hour a year.
I registered on the website – www.inspiringthefuture.org – not expecting to be overwhelmed by requests to talk and no, I didn’t hear anything straight away. However, I was eventually invited to a school to talk as part of their careers day. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the day so I had to decline. That’s the beauty of this initiative, you are not obliged to say yes and as a volunteer, it must fit in with your schedule.
This summer I was contacted by All Saints School in Weymouth. They wanted someone to speak to their Year 11s, on their first day of their final year at school (pressure!) and to kick start the day with something a little different. Unfortunately I was away on a trip when Miss Hegarty’s request initially came through but we kept in contact. Then, towards the end of August, she contacted me again to say that her speaker had dropped and would I be able to step in – ‘Yes!’ I said.