This month, our Go Volunteer Glos Project Support Officer, Lucy Henderson, talks about how the singing workshops she offers as a volunteer for Parkinson’s UK are making a difference for people with Parkinson's and their families.
Lucy also reflects on what she has learned along the way, and encourages anyone interested in employer supported volunteering to 'give it a go'.
It all started with a passion for singing...
I’m Lucy, the Project Support Officer for Go Volunteer Glos, the digital home for volunteering in Gloucestershire. We are an online platform which advertises volunteering opportunities for free, and we have almost 3,000 volunteers registered with us. If you use Go Volunteer Glos, you’ve probably had an email or two from me!
One of my lifelong passions is singing. I’ve been singing for more than 20 years, sometimes professionally, sometimes just for fun. There are so many benefits to singing, ranging from improving your breath control and core strength, to enhancing your wellbeing and confidence. I always wanted to help others develop a love of singing, which is what brought me to volunteering as a singing teacher with Parkinson’s UK.
Parkinson’s UK supports people with Parkinson’s and their carers across the country. They fund research into the disease, provide information about Parkinson’s, and support quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. I’d been volunteering with Parkinson’s UK for several years by this point and had read a few studies about how singing helps people with Parkinson’s, so I asked the volunteer manager for Gloucestershire if there was a way I could use my skills and knowledge of singing to help.
Boosting confidence and lifting spirits
For the last couple of years, Parkinson’s UK has been holding an annual event in Gloucestershire called ‘A Focus on Parkinson’s’. It’s a day-long conference for people with Parkinson’s and their carers to hear about advances in research and have a go at different activities which are frequently studied for their positive effects on Parkinson’s. The volunteer manager and I agreed that I would start offering singing workshops as one of the activities, and I was so excited!
We had a long talk about the workshops. Parkinson’s effects many functions of the body which are used in singing, like breathing and speaking. I had to keep these things in mind – I didn’t want to make the workshop too difficult, but I also wanted to challenge the attendees to see what they are capable of. I planned my workshop, including a physical and vocal warm up, a song I thought the groups would enjoy, and planned some harder exercises if I had a particularly advanced group.
The day of the event I was nervous, what if I’d made the workshop too hard? What if they hated my song choice? What if no one signed up? Turns out I didn’t have to be worried about the last one, as my workshop was oversubscribed. I ran it twice, and though it went well, while I was teaching, I noticed the attendees looked very serious. I thought they’d hated it, but after speaking to some of them I found out it was because they were concentrating, and they all really enjoyed themselves! Many of them found themselves singing the song for the rest of the day, too. It was really amazing to see how a short singing workshop was able to boost their confidence and lift their spirits.
Growing my skills
I’ve been doing singing workshops at the conference for a few years now. I love seeing people with Parkinson’s and their carers singing together and enjoying themselves. I particularly love to see people come back and do my workshop again a year later and see what they remember. Last year, for the first time, I had to pull out my harder exercises for one group! I had them sing in harmony, which was really beautiful. They aren’t the only ones whose skills have grown; I have learnt so much from these workshops. My knowledge of the body and the voice has improved, and my teaching skills have got better too. I’m a lot more confident, and better able to deal with unexpected questions or complications!
I think volunteering is a really great way to improve your skills. I do it for the love of it, but I know if I wanted to move into teaching singing, I’ve already got a load of knowledge and experience to help me. I’m so glad I took the chance and asked if I could use my singing skills in my volunteering – if I hadn’t asked, I would never have had the opportunity to do it. In my role at Go Volunteer Glos, I hope to encourage more volunteers to use their unique skills to support organisations, and to encourage organisations to take the chance with volunteers offering something they haven’t tried before.
Unlocking the potential of Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV)
I wouldn’t have been able to get involved with the conferences if it wasn’t for ESV. Our ESV policy here at Gloucestershire VCS Alliance enables our team members to have paid days off work to volunteer. All the volunteers at the conference are ESV volunteers – the event wouldn’t be able to be run without employers who have ESV policies. Any organisation can develop and implement an ESV policy. Plus, we've recently uploaded a new ESV guide and resources to the Go Volunteer Glos website - so it's a great time for organisations across the county to find out more and get started on their ESV journey.
Volunteering is such a great thing to do, it improves your wellbeing, your skills, plus you make new friends, and you have a lot of fun. For employers, offering a few days a year to your employees to go out into their communities and support VCSE organisations can really boost morale. Employees can use their ESV days for events like I do, or you could use ESV days as team building days – why not ask a local organisation if they need a couple of hands for a project? I truly believe the world would be a much better place if we all got out into our communities and helped more. So, if your employer doesn’t have an ESV policy, this is your sign to ask them for one!
In my role with Go Volunteer Glos I get to speak to a lot of volunteers and organisations, and I see how much volunteering supports both. It’s great for me to be able to relate to them too, through my volunteering with Parkinson’s UK. I look forward to ‘A Focus on Parkinson’s’ every year, and love finding new songs and new challenges for the attendees. If you’ve got a skill – be it knitting, gardening, cooking, coding, horse riding, flower arranging, singing, dancing, tai chi, gymnastics – reach out to organisations with causes you care about, and see if you can use your skills to help. If you work for an organisation, I encourage you to be open to new ideas – your service users may really enjoy learning some new and unique skills, and it may help them in ways we don’t yet know of.
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