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Mikey's week as a volunteer.
Monday began as every Monday should with a dose of the Creative Play group at St George's. Its a small group but its the group I started volunteering for first. Its the group that made me want to continue and when we first started this group in the first session we had 3 people. We struggled to build and maintain Creative Play but as soon as we got a consistent amount of young people changes started to occur. Instead of interrupting during best and worst they sit and listen and enjoy people's stories. Instead of running round the circle they get their chairs and sit down and wait for instructions, they still scrape the chairs along the floor (I hate that sound) but im working on that. Its just good to see your having an affect on people for the better.
I started Tuesday with a training session with the lovely Gemma Whelan. Was just a session to go over the basics of volunteering, why we play games ? What does this game do for the group ? But then half way through she asked us to all think about why we volunteer. Its kind of a hard question to answer I've always done it cause I enjoy it but that's not the best answer to give. So i was left to ponder that and we finished the day with doing a timeline of things we have done at Yew Tree. Something that always scares me, "Why?" I hear you cry. Let me tell ya. Because once you start to put it all together you start to see how much we all do and its a huge amount. Don't get me wrong, I love it. You do look at it though and think how did we get time to do all that. Its mental.
Wednesday
Another training session this time its just me and Loughers representing Yew Tree at a session about ADHD and other conditions that can attribute to learning difficulties. I signed up for this to try and help make me better. It's a bit scary though when your sat in a room and a woman says a sign of ADHD is someone squirming and moving alot and your there changing position every two seconds trying to get comfy (I blame the wooden seating) but as the lady talked i suddenly start to realise that there is so much i didn't know i suppose that's why I was there. But people struggle everyday and get blamed for being disruptive and school when they cant help it. Just makes me happy that Yew Tree is here for people, at least here you won't get sent out of the room for being disruptive, Sarah just gives you a look and you'll stop whatever you're doing. My last session of the week was Jade. Jade are pretty unknown to the rest of you. Once again its a small group (I'm going to start taking this personally) but its a new group and its full of great kids including someone who is originally from California so you know straight away this group is fantastic. They and Creative Play are going to be performing at Wakefield One in July so maybe come on down and give a little support for the new folk. Some of them how big a group Yew Tree is, they always ask about you. "What are the other groups like? Are they really good ?"
So my week of volunteering comes to an end and i think back to Gemma's question. Why do I volunteer? I'm still pretty unsure about how to word why I do. But after reading this blog hopefully maybe you'll understand why I do. Set myself up for a good cheesy ending there. 
P.S Sapphire company I missed you and of course you missed me and James. But you dry those tears away cause me and Mr Budenburg are back this Monday. 
Much love Mikey 

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