This week is Volunteers Week. This annual celebration recognises and thanks volunteers for their valuable contributions to communities. Baywater Healthcare is committed to promoting health, reducing health inequalities, and delivering the best possible service for our patients and service users. We recognise volunteering as an essential aspect of our social responsibility as a provider of services on behalf of the NHS. We have a number of policies in place to encourage and support our employees in engaging in volunteering opportunities in local communities. We are proud of all of our employees who volunteer and love hearing about their experiences and the difference they have made. To mark Volunteers Week, one of our Regional Team Managers, Tom, has shared his rewarding volunteering experience.
Between 2000 and 2005, Tom volunteered with Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby. Tom was the chair mechanic and studied sports therapy, so he was able to assist with sports massage and injury recovery. After 2005, Tom stepped back due to moving home and family reasons. Always watching on and supporting from afar, Tom stayed in touch with some of the team, but after watching Great Britain win Gold at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, he knew he wanted to get back involved.
After seeing an advert for volunteers for the Quad Nations in Cardiff, Tom put his name down to volunteer. Due to his previous experience in the sport, Tom was selected to the field of play team, which is the team that ensures all aspects of the sport go to schedule and that the court is fit for purpose. Tom was asked to co-commentate, being moved from the field of play due to a technical hitch where the game clock was no longer connected to the live stream. Tom was operating the live stream clock and scoring in sync with the match clock, which took a lot of concentration for the 11 games he covered!
Tom volunteered the following year for the European Championships, stepping up his role to support the Competition Manager by managing the team of volunteers on the field of play. Five days of elite competition between eight teams saw France beat GB in the final. The event was filmed on Channel 4, where Tom could be seen live on air mopping the court due to a leaking roof!
Most recently, Tom volunteered for the Quad Nations 2024 in Cardiff. It was a tournament in which the USA, Japan, France, and Great Britain played each other, and Japan won the gold medal. Tom’s role during this tournament was to manage the training venue for two days to set up and ensure that teams were given their allocated slots and kept to their time. Tom also continued managing the team of sports volunteers to ensure that games were on time and that nothing stopped play. Tom also got to work alongside the Channel 4 team, live streaming the competition to ensure timings were accurate, the teams entered the court on time, ensuring the referees were queued on via his earpiece, and everything went to schedule for the sports presentation and medal ceremony.
