Thanking our volunteers in Dorset

We were delighted to be able to thank our volunteers around the time of Volunteers Week for the energy and enthusiasm they give to helping people affected by cancer in Dorset.  Staff from Dorset Macmillan Advocacy delivery partners Help and Care and Dorset Advocacy along with Macmillan Partnership Quality Lead Paula Bond and Macmillan Volunteer Services Manager Sam Hudspith joined the volunteers for a very informal cream tea.

The volunteers were then presented with some donated goodies as well as certificates of appreciation from OPAAL.  The garden at The Grove Hotel in Bournemouth, which is open to cancer patients and others with serious illness, was a perfect setting for the afternoon on what must have been the hottest day of the year.

Some of the group in a shady corner

Kathleen Gillett, Coordinator – Dorset Macmillan Advocacy

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As Volunteers Week draws to a close…

Our Cancer, Older People and Advocacy programme would never have achieved what it has without our amazing volunteers. They’ve supported us as peer volunteer advocates as well as local and national cancer champions.

Those who have been directly affected by cancer themselves have determined to give something back, to support others going thorough the same trauma and to help ensure older people don’t face their cancer journey alone.

Some of their stories are told in Time: our gift to you, our most recent publication. Today, as Volunteers’ Week draws to a close for another year, we’d like to share Claire’s story with you:

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and despite lots of treatment – chemotherapy, mastectomy, radiotherapy, reconstructive surgery and targeted drug therapies – I learnt in 2015 that my cancer had spread and I am now living with secondary breast cancer.

Last year, I decided to volunteer as a peer advocate in Oxfordshire because I could see at first hand, as I was going through my treatment, that there were many people who were struggling to find their way through the healthcare system in our area and to access the support they needed. It seemed obvious to me that a person who has been treated for cancer is potentially in a very strong position to support another person going through the same or similar treatment and experience.

One of the older people affected by cancer that I’ve supported is Sally (not her real name). She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and was referred to Oxfordshire Advocacy by her specialist breast nurse. Sally lives alone, struggles to get out and had become very isolated and depressed. When I first met her, she talked often about the diagnosis being the “final straw” and I recognised many of the feelings that I had felt when I was first diagnosed: anger, fear, sadness, even despair.

In the first few weeks when I visited Sally at her home, we often would just talk and share experiences and I know that she really appreciated that someone had taken the time to sit and listen and talk. I knew that when you are first diagnosed with cancer you do get quite a long appointment slot with your consultant and your specialist nurse, but you are in a state of shock and you can’t really take things in, and you are certainly not able to talk through how you are feeling. You need lots of time to process what is happening to you and it is weeks later when you are ready to really think about what is happening to you.

Since then, I have been able to help Sally in a number of ways. For example, I contacted Breast Cancer Care, I knew how good they were from my own experience, and ordered a number of information leaflets for her – some on treatments she had been advised to have, specific information on lymphedema and some on other issues such as her benefits entitlement. Sally suffers from cataracts as well and so I made sure I ordered the information in large print so that she could read the text.

Sally had a specific issue with one of her drugs that was making her feel unwell – I recognised the issue because I had suffered something similar – so I printed some information from the Macmillan Cancer Support website. Sally doesn’t have a computer or access to the internet. I took it to her and read it through for her. I also helped her prepare some questions about this for her next GP appointment and as a result she was able to discuss the issue with her doctor and get the drug changed to minimise the side effects.

Most recently I was able to help Sally with her application for a one-off Macmillan support grant – she wanted to use the money to help with her heating oil. She had being finding it difficult to fill in the form and so she dictated to me what she wanted to say in her application and I was able to write it down for her and I could use my experience to help with the spellings of all the drugs she was taking! She said that receiving the money was very important to her as it eased her worries about putting the heating on in the winter.

I hope that I have managed to convey that working with Sally has also been very rewarding for me. Cancer treatment is often quite technical and complicated and over time you are forced to become quite an expert in the healthcare system and how to get support. I am really glad to be able to put my experience to good use.

Our final thought this Volunteers’ Week is the adage: “Volunteers are not paid, not because they are worthless but because they are priceless.” So thank you to volunteers everywhere.

Celebrating our brilliant volunteers

Back in June we celebrated the great work of our volunteers. Today Samantha Jones from Age Connects Cardiff & the Vale tells us about their celebration event:

As part of National Volunteers’ Week on a very hot Friday in June, volunteers and staff from Age Connects Cardiff and the Vale Cancer Older People and Advocacy project met at Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff.

Volunteers and their partners were invited to come together to join this celebration of volunteers and volunteering. Volunteer Coordinator Samantha Jones, Advocacy Service Manager Sue Campbell and Chairman of Board of Trustees Colin Harvey were also present.

Colin gave a speech about our volunteers’ roles and their contribution to the Cancer Older People and Advocacy project before presenting volunteers Karla Flambert and Jeffrey Horton with their Appreciation Awards.

L-R Samantha Jones Volunteer Coordinator, Karla Flambert Volunteer, Jeff Horton Volunteer, Colin Harvey Chairman of trustees

Volunteer Karla came to volunteering when Cancer Older People and Advocacy was at its beginning stage. She has supported many clients during that time and is now at full capacity seeing seven clients! “So many of the older people I speak to, express the feeling that they still have a young mind, but it is trapped in an old body. I hope I always keep that in mind when chatting etc and treat people with the respect they deserve. Retirement is great, but I am not interested in sitting round all day having coffee or lunching. I think that even as we age, we still need to be needed and appreciated. Personally I can’t think of a better way to achieve that.”

Volunteer Jeff has been busy across Cardiff and the Vale promoting the Cancer Older People and Advocacy project to community groups and helping raise awareness of the support our cancer peer advocacy can give at health events and at hospital information centres. He also provides direct advocacy support to clients.

Following the speeches and photographs we all celebrated with some cake and fizzy (lemon and lime not champers!)

Samantha Jones, Volunteer Coordinator, Age Connects Cardiff & the Vale

‘She was there when I needed her’

Today we hear from Kathleen Gillett of Dorset Macmillan Advocacy:

We ask the people that we support for feedback on the service they have received. As part of this we ask them to chose three words to describe their advocate.  One person was lost for words and said only ‘She was there when I needed her‘ which sums it up really.  A word cloud of the other comments gives a flavour of what our volunteer and paid advocates bring to their partnerships.  It’s a good visual reminder of the value of peer volunteer advocates.  And Volunteers’ Week this week is a good time to remember the time and effort that they put into helping others affected by cancer and to say a big ‘Thank you!’

Kathleen Gillett, Dorset Macmillan Advocacy

A Big Thank You to ICANN Volunteer Cancer Advocates

To celebrate Volunteers Week 2015, ICANN arranged a Volunteers Celebration Event in conjunction with Dobbie’s Garden Centre

We all enjoyed watching an informative demonstration about potting herbs, their uses, and how to look after them. Even gaining some new recipe ideas in the process!

This was followed by a scrumptious luxury cream tea, giving plenty of time to chat, and catch up with other volunteers and staff.

During the afternoon we also introduced the idea of One Page Profiles for Volunteers, and will be continuing to work on this at our next Volunteer Team meeting/Group Supervision.

All volunteers received a certificate thanking them for their contribution to volunteering with ICANN during the last year.

Dobbie’s also kindly donated a planted herb collection in a terracotta pot which was raffled and won by one of our volunteers.

Janet Cullingford, ICANN