“If
your dreams don’t scare you, they’re too small.”
Richard
Branson
So, a couple of times these past few weeks I’ve referenced an announcement coming sometime from July 8th – this is it! On July 8th, I officially began my new voluntary job as Marketing Trustee for the medical charity: CSF Leak Association and in all honesty, part of my excitement for starting was the fact that it meant I could eventually tell you all what has been being discussed and planned for since the beginning of June! Whilst that’s technically only one month, it actually felt like a lifetime when you’re someone who’s really used to being so honest and open online! So, here’s everything you need to know about my new role – including the application process, my induction, more information and insight into the charity and its important cause, and so much more…
Why It All Began
After
having created the media Campaign, Shake My Hand last year and recruited nine
volunteers to work for me, when I had to close the Campaign down, I immediately
wondered what I would do next with my career. For as long as I’ve been well
enough, I’ve had a voluntary job, and I have done that because my mum’s work
ethic was so full of passion and determination that laziness has always felt so
alien to me. I’ve also found that I – and my mental health in particular – experience
a number of benefits from having a commitment like that:
Having
had such a position of authority in the Campaign though, meant that in thinking
about what to do next, I was faced with the notion of whether I’d feel like I
was taking a step backwards in my career to go into a role where there were
several more senior people than me. But I quickly recognised that this thought
would really limit my options, so I did some research and discovered that the
role of a Trustee seemed to fit my idea of still being fairly ‘high up’ in the
pecking order. And I’m incredibly aware that what I’m saying is massively in
danger of me appearing to be bossy or not at all a team player, but to me,
having a position of authority is a career goal and something which I (and my
mental health) again, benefit from. I think this is likely the case for two
huge reasons:
1.
The
trauma I experienced when I was younger was caused or inflicted upon me by
someone in a position of power, and so I recognise the potential impact and
influence a person with authority can have others. I feel like, if I can have a
positive impact on others, it will almost work to counteract all the negative
effects that one person had on me. As if I’m taking those horrible experiences
and making them into something that makes it all worthwhile. Something that can
help me to think ‘if that hadn’t happened to me, all this good wouldn’t have
occurred.’ Over the years, so many professionals – mostly mental health ones – have
told me that a defining characteristic of ‘recovery’ is that you become
grateful for all the hardships you’ve been through because you finally
recognise that they made you into who you are today and that you wouldn’t be
where you are without them. The essential elements to this though, are that you
need to be both happy with who you are, and proud of where you are in life in
order to reach this mindset and this point of recovery.
2.
Throughout
my years of having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), I’ve had numerous
experiences of feeling out of control of my own body, thoughts, and emotions. These
experiences have been especially difficult when they have been related to
thoughts and feelings around self-harm or suicide. I’ve often felt that if I
was truly myself, I didn’t want to die, and I absolutely loved life and had a
passion and determination to live it to the fullest. But then I would have all
these moments or instances where I wasn’t myself and as a result of my actions
during those times, I’d end up being in hospital, or needing plastic surgery,
or being sedated! This battle with control has stuck with me and turned into a
bit of an obsession around the topic! An obsession which has made me recognise
that having a job where I do have a huge amount of control, is really helpful, validating,
exciting, and comforting. All things which basically contribute to a very
beneficiary impact on my mental health.
Where It All Began
A
number of years ago, I discovered the volunteer recruitment website: Reach
Volunteering
and so it was actually what I used to recruit my volunteers for the media
Campaign last year. So, when I decided I wanted some sort of Trustee role, I
typed that into the search function on the website (where you can type keywords
for the role you’re looking for e.g. the industry it’s in, the sort of title
you’d like to have, or the theme of the charity you’d like to work for, as well
as it having options to select whether you’d like the search to turn up remote
opportunities or if you only want to see short term vacancies/projects and
things like that) and I actually found a number of relevant roles I was
interested in.
Initially
I ‘saved’ those with titles I liked and then I began whittling them down by
actually properly reading through the actual job descriptions, the
responsibilities that came with the role, and all the information on the
charity each of them were with. I got them down to three which I decided to
apply for and then, for the first one (the one I wanted most) I sent them a
message asking a question about one of the requirements they’d listed in the
vacancy advert. Then, I thought that whilst waiting for their reply, I’d apply
for the next one on my list.
So, I spent hours writing down each of the responsibilities and the criteria they wanted the applicant to meet. Then I put together a Supporting Statement because when you apply on Reach, it sends the charity a message which you can edit or attach documents to, and then that grants them access to your CV on the website. In the Statement I picked out each of my notes and gave examples of how I had experience doing those responsibilities or how I met the criteria in terms of the skills and qualifications necessary/required.
In
addition, to those tips, I’d also recommend or suggest that you take a look at
the following five links:
1.
How to Write a Supporting
Statement with Examples - Job Interviewology
2.
Writing a supporting statement
when applying to a job | Indeed.com UK
3.
How to Write Supporting
Statements + Examples | YoungCapital UK
4.
How To Write A Supporting
Statement For A Job Application With Template | PurpleCV
5.
Supporting Statement: How Can
You Stand Out?
I
submitted that Statement to the charity and promptly received a reply saying I
needed to complete a form on their website instead. Having recruited volunteers
on it myself, I knew there were guidelines around this, but I double-checked my
facts and then messaged the charity back to point out that there’s an option on
creating a vacancy advert where you can make it clear that an applicant needs
to apply on an organisation’s website rather than through Reach. I explained
that I’d spent so long putting together that Statement and the form they wanted
me to do instead was full of questions requiring lengthy answers. I then also
contacted Reach to tell them the organisation had done that and received a very
prompt and good reply agreeing with me that they had gone against Reach’s
guidance.
Why This Role & Why the CSF Leak
Association?
Now, my
Nana and my Mum have always said that everything happens for a reason and the
reason for that instance became clear on June 6th, when I discovered
the vacancy for ‘Communications and Social Media Trustee’ with the charity: CSF
Leak Association (you can see their Reach recruitment profile here).
Here
are my favourite bits from the vacancy advert/description:
ü
The
charity listed their current goals and challenges they’re facing in terms of
their communications and marketing work; these were: expanding their reach and
impact across social media, maintaining a consistent and professional brand
identity, ensuring communications is responsible with consideration to them
being a medical charity, and coordinating volunteers who support the social
media work. I felt that I agreed with their priorities in terms of the goals, and
then that I’d also be capable of helping them to face their challenges.
ü
My
favourite bits in the list of ‘role responsibilities’ were developing and
implementing a comprehensive Social Media Strategy, overseeing and coordinating
Facebook, Instagram,
X, LinkedIn, and YouTube,
and leading and mentoring a small team of volunteers. When I created the media
campaign last year, I had to create Strategies for the first time, and it was
one of my favourite tasks! Then, using social media: obviously I really enjoy
creating content on socials, and then that last bit about mentoring was
appealing because I really enjoyed taking on volunteers for my campaign and
being able to take responsibility in assigning them tasks etc.
ü
From
the section around what they’re looking for from applicants, I liked that
they’d listed wanting someone who was familiar with Canva (because it’s my
absolute favourite tool for creating content), someone who has experience of
managing and mentoring volunteers (as I said, I have done that and really
enjoyed it), and then there was a point about having proven experience of developing
and executing social media strategies. I liked that last bit because on my
blog’s Media Kit (which you can find on the Contact page of my blog) I actually have the statistical
benefits organisations have experienced in collaborating with me/I’m NOT
Disordered e.g. a 65% increase in website traffic and a 79% increase in
donations, so I felt I could fulfil that requirement in applying for this role.
I think
that liking a job description and feeling that you meet the criteria for it is
half the battle in applying for a new job, and the rest of it is about liking
and supporting the actual organisation who the role is with. So, my industry-relevant
reason for wanting to join the CSF Leak Association (CSFLA) team is that they
do have quite a good social media following already established… And this is
something which I seem to flip-flop between caring about with it massively
depending upon my career goal at the time – so, sometimes, I’ve applied to work
with charity’s who have either only just been created or who have an incredibly
tiny following online because I like the thought that I might be able to make a
larger difference than with a charity who have hundreds of thousands of
followers, because my work there would be more about continuity than
improvement. But I felt like CSFLA are a bit of a middle-ground here where
their big following is established, but there’s still room for improvement and
growth and therefore the opportunity to feel that I can be responsible for or
contribute to successes, achievements, and milestones.
The
other huge motivation for liking CSFLA is their cause. Now, I obviously have
absolutely no personal experience of a CSF Leak, nor do I know anyone who has
ever had one; but this is a quality I quite like in that it means I won’t be
triggered or emotionally overwhelmed in creating content about it. It also
means I’m going to learn a heck of a lot and I absolutely love learning – I’m
good at it and quick at it too! And I think that is illustrated in the number
of online courses I’ve completed independently, off my own bat, without anyone
telling me to do them, and with no one really supporting me throughout my
study. Having gone through mental illness, I’m massively appreciative of
empathy and it’s a quality or skill which I’d like to think I have, and so to
be faced with a medical condition I have no real experience of, feels like
it’ll be both a test and a lesson for/on my empathy abilities.
Another
reason I like that I don’t have that direct experience, is because the majority
of my life is about mental health… So many people have asked me over the years
why I don’t become a Peer Support Worker and one of my answers is because I
think I’d overstep boundaries and become really invested in someone’s journey,
and the other reason is because I don’t want my work-life or career to be all
about mental health when my personal life seems to be too! This mindset has
definitely contributed to my passion around the communications and marketing
industry and my eagerness to work within it. Having that mental health
experience though, I recognise that everyone has mental health, in the same way
we all have physical health, and so I figured that there’d still be some
relevance of mental health to the CSFLA’s medical condition focus. And this
feels like a really lovely middle-ground: to not be focused on mental health,
but for my knowledge and understanding of it to sometimes be useful to the
role.
The Informal Chat
Before
applying, I messaged them with a question around one of the requirements listed
in the vacancy advert/description, and when their reply was what I’d hoped and
they asked if I was up for a meeting to chat about the role, I immediately
listed all my availability in terms of dates and times over the following two
weeks! They chose 3pm on Friday 13th June and I was sent a Microsoft
Teams invitation.
On the
Wednesday before it (11th) I went to Sheffield for an overnight stay
before the Life Experience Council meeting with Waythrough the following day.
At the meeting – which was really a bit of an event – we did this thing called
a Human Library where three people had each created three ‘chapters’ around
experiences in their lives and everyone else got to choose which person/chapter
they wanted to hear. So, the people were dotted around the big function room we
were in, and I chose to do two chapters with Waythrough’s Executive Director of
Clinical Quality and Risk; Anna. One of these chapters was her education and
career journey – which I knew nothing about – and it turned out; she’d been a
Trustee before! And so, afterwards, I immediately asked if I could pick her
brain and get as much advice as possible on being a Trustee!
Anna
ended up sending me a big email the following day where she mentioned that
Trustees typically aren’t ‘doers’ and don’t get involved in ‘operations’ and
she said that was something she struggled with because she enjoyed getting
‘stuck in.’ I found this really interesting because that had been my original
understanding of a Trustee – that it was more about Policies and delegating
than doing anything yourself – but from reading the job description, it seemed
that, with the CSFLA Trustee role, I would actually still get to do some
hands-on things e.g. the social media and creating Strategies. And I loved that
because I very much appreciated what Anna meant in that I also like to have an
active contribution to things and really wouldn’t have enjoyed the idea of just
approving documents at meetings. It turned out good that there’d been that
clarity on how hands-on this role would be in the job description because Anna
mentioned ensuring that there’s a mutual understanding around expectations from
both viewpoints of myself and of the charity.
She
gave another four pieces of advice too:
1.
Be
curious
2.
Give
yourself time to read documents prior to meetings
3.
Take
all the opportunities for learning and development that are offered
4.
Just
be you!
Unfortunately,
the email came shortly after my informal chat had started, but with it going so
well, I was successful in being offered a formal interview from it and so her
advice was obviously in time for that!
The Interview
I had
my formal interview for the position on Thursday 19th June with one
of the Trustee’s who had been in the informal chat and the Chair of the
charity. They were both so lovely (as was the other Trustee who had been in the
chat) and that filled me with more passion and eagerness to join the charity
because I felt they were going to be a really lovely team to work with/for.
Funnily,
they each had a set of questions to ask me but a lot of the time, they said
that my answer to one question ended up also answering the following one or two
as well! That gave me a bit of a good feeling because I felt it illustrated
that we were all on the ‘same page’ in that I was maybe already aware of what
they would want to know and the experience and skills they’d want to establish
me as having or being qualified and experienced in.
In
addition to questions asking me to provide examples of me having specific
skills and experiences of using them successfully and in ways that would be
relevant and beneficial to CSFLA too, I was also asked why I wanted to work for
the charity and why I wanted to be a Trustee. Obviously those are questions
which I’d already considered in making my decision regarding whether to even
applied for the role, and so I felt very fortunate that all of the questions
were ones which I had either already considered my answers to and/or I could
think of an effective and efficient answer straight away, without pausing,
stuttering, or having my mind go blank!
At the end of the interview, I asked when I would find out if I had been successful and was told within the next few days, but I actually received the email offering me the role later that day! I was so relieved that they did this because I think that one of the worst bits about applying for a job is that quiet period after your interview when you’re in a sort of limbo and unsure what to do with yourself because you don’t know whether you’ve been successful or not. Then there’s also the factor that a lot of organisations don’t even let you know if you haven’t got the job or they do tell you, but they don’t offer you any feedback so that you know what you need to change or improve upon for future interviews/job applications. Failing to provide that often leaves you feeling as though the entire thing has been a complete waste of your time because you’ve gained absolutely nothing from it.
Top 10 Further Reading & Resources (with
particular focus on voluntary roles)
How To Make a Great Impression
in a Job Interview: 20 Tips | Indeed.com
Interview tips | National
Careers Service
Job Interview Tips | reed.co.uk
25 Tried-and-Tested Interview
Tips to Land the Job
11 Best Interview Tips to Make a
Great First Impression
Top 20 Volunteering Interview
Questions & Answers - InterviewPrep
35 Interview Questions for
Volunteers (With Examples) | Indeed.com
65 Most Common Interview
Questions and Answers | The Muse
vaslan.org.uk/resourcekit/sites/default/files/2017-10/5.5.2
Volunteer Interview Process - Guide.pdf
How I Learnt To Celebrate My Career
Wins
After
gladly and hurriedly accepting the offer of the role, I felt a huge sense of
achievement and over the years, I’ve eventually learnt the importance of
celebrating those moments and really indulging in the knowledge that you’ve
reached a milestone or have accomplished something. And this was actually something
which was mostly learnt via doing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) for over
two years in 2012 to 2014.
One DBT
skill which I have found really helpful in safely coping with difficult moments
and which is relevant to this, is the skill of ‘self-soothing’ (which can be
found in the Distress Tolerance module). Initially, a key struggle that I had
in implementing this into my life was that my self-confidence was extremely low
back then and it made me incredibly dismissive of any achievements as well as having
derogatory thoughts about myself as a person. In all honesty, I didn’t like
myself back then, I thought that I was a bad person who was completely
deserving of all the unpleasant things that were happening in my life.
Over
time, this has changed, and I’ve grown to become grateful for those horrible
things because they’ve made me into the person I am today and I actually quite
like that person and I’m extremely proud of her. I recognise how much I’ve
progressed in terms of my mental health recovery, mostly with the fact that I
now utilise more healthy, safe, and productive coping strategies if/when I find
myself struggling with difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences. A key
challenge to adopting these strategies in my coping skills, was the notion that
if ‘simple things’ like self-soothing and distracting (also from the Distress
Tolerance module) activities were effective in helping me to manage and
overcome my difficulties, how could I possible defend my use of self-harm or
the suicide attempts I’ve made? How can I justify resorting to those behaviours
when things like doing my make-up, having a shower, reading, or doing a puzzle
can be beneficial to my mental health? Like, why hadn’t I thought to try those
things for myself?
The
sense I found/made from this thought process which has helped me to overcome it
was in recognising that if I had honestly thought alternative coping skills –
like those I listed – would be sufficient enough to help me to cope, I would
have tried/used them in a heartbeat! I didn’t ‘choose’ to self-harm or attempt
suicide; I felt backed into a corner with them. I felt that I was desperate,
and it was that level of intense and overwhelming desperation which led to me
coping in whichever way I could think of! And I actually honestly feel that the
fact I didn’t think of trying these safer skills, is a really good example of
the fact that I wasn’t really myself.
The Induction Tasks & Five Tips on Prioritising
At Work
I think
that the hardest and most stressful part of getting a new job is having to
login to a ton of new things, learning a lot of new processes, and complete a
number of basic induction tasks. This role was not exempt from these
challenges!
After
accepting the role, I was sent the link to a board on Monday.com which was full
of over thirty induction tasks! Initially, it was overwhelming, and I had that
sudden panic when you’re intimidated by something and realise that you have no
idea where to start with everything! So, I set about looking at everything
slowly, carefully, and individually and fortunately, it turned out that I’d actually
already done some of them – such as reading some particular pages of the
website – namely the Aims and Objectives page and the Trustees and Governance page – in the research on the
charity that I did before my interview! Then the majority of the others were
quick tasks with a few taking a bit longer to complete e.g. there was some
about watching specific videos of the charity on their YouTube channel (which I
linked earlier).
With my
initial stress in mind, here are five tips to help you to better prioritise at
work:
Determining Responsibilities
One of
the first, and most important things that was discussed in my interview was
actually the fact that they had already hired someone as a Trustee in the
communications and marketing realm, but on seeing my CV they’d wanted to see
how they could go about having the both of us. And so, after accepting the
offer of the job, the two Trustees who had been involved in my informal chat
and interview as well as the Chair met to discuss the separation of
responsibilities, duties, and tasks in accordance with both our differing skill
levels, interests, passions, knowledge, and career experience.
So, on
Monday 30th June, I met with the three of them to talk through a
document they had created which listed my ‘core responsibilities’ and ‘key
performance areas.’ I was actually a bit nervous for this one because I was
worried that they would assign me with tasks that were either outside of my
understanding, or not within my particular passions in the communications and
marketing industry. This ended up being unnecessary though because the lists
for those two subtitles/categories, were actually full of my absolute favourite
things to do – and I literally said that when they asked if I was happy with
everything I’d be doing!
So, five
of the core responsibilities are:
Then, two
of my key performance areas are:
ü
Social
Media Engagement
ü
Securing
Grant Funding
I felt
incredibly proud to be awarded and trusted with such massive responsibilities and
it left me feeling like I’d hit a real career high and reached a massive
achievement/milestone. It reminded me of my very first voluntary role when I
was just handing out leaflets. And whilst, all volunteers – no matter their
skill level, experience, or their responsibilities – should be respected and
appreciated by organisations who need to recognise that they likely wouldn’t
function as well without those volunteers, I recognised that this new role would
have a much larger impact on the charity I’ll be working for.
In
regard to my appreciation for my responsibilities, some of that comes from my
recognition that it’s a really big deal to give someone access to your social
media and allow them – or ask them – to create content for you online. And I
say this because of experiences throughout my blogging career, where I’ve realised
that it’s a massive sign of trust to be assigned responsibilities that concern
your/a charity or organisations, reputation and the public opinion and
perception of you/them.
In a
meeting yesterday to introduce me to the other Trustee in this department (who
will be titled PR Trustee), we talked about partnerships with organisations and
I recounted the fact that I used to collaborate – and enjoy doing so – with a
particular organisation from the emergency services and then there was a
terrible experience in relation to their handling of a mental health related
incident and I realised I needed to distance both myself and I’m NOT Disordered
from them. And it was actually hard – not practically, but emotionally; because
I had built a really lovely relationship with two of the staff in particular
and I felt we’d done some very successful collaborations that had actually been
really beneficial and helpful to a lot of readers who rendered the content
incredibly popular. In wrestling with those thoughts and feelings around the
sadness of ending this partnership, a hugely contributing consideration was the
recognition that I needed to prioritize the moral aspect to it over the more
superficial side of caring more about the number of readers our collaborations
attracted to my blog. I needed to illustrate that I had the right priorities
and that I cared about what was just and fair, then what made my blog popular
and what helped me gain opportunities.
Training, My First Board Meeting, &
Being On The Same Page
After
completing my Induction Tasks, one of the other Trustees who had been involved
in my recruitment by being at both the Informal Chat and the Formal Interview, emailed
me the link to a charity specialising in rare diseases called Rare Beacon. To celebrate Small Charity Week,
they were hosting free training opportunities; two were related to aspects of
the communications and marketing industry (namely one on using LinkedIn and one
on creating ‘effective video content using your phone’, fundraising, then there
was also one on Leadership, one on Recruitment, and one on Wellbeing! I chose
the LinkedIn session (which had the full title of: ‘Amplify Your Charity’s Impact
on LinkedIn’ because it’s a very good platform for connecting with medical
professionals and so it’s one which CSFLA use a lot, but it’s also one which I
very rarely use.
The
actual training session – or masterclass, as it was branded – was facilitated
by Sarah Clay whose LinkedIn profile (which you can see here) describes her as a ‘World
Expert in Employee Advocacy!’ In a bid to say thank you and illustrate the benefits
the session had for me, I put together a one-page report about it…I started by
listing the basic lessons I had learnt, here’s five of my favourites:
1.
Search
Engines often show results for content on LinkedIn over a company’s actual website
and in turn, you can use LinkedIn as a Search Engine too.
2.
LinkedIn
should be seen and used for networking rather than deeming it to be a social
media platform.
3.
Including
photographs don’t have to be professionally taken, in fact it’s better if they
aren’t because it shows a genuine authenticity to the organisation.
4.
Charities
should publish testimonials because a lot of products on Amazon are purchased
as a result of the reviews on them, and so supportive statement from people
with experiences around your charity, can go a long way in promoting it.
5.
The
Coronavirus Pandemic has taught everyone a lot about the benefits of human
connection and so people like to see content about the staff and volunteers
behind a charity.
Next in
my report, I talked through the four largest thoughts and ideas I had come away
with as a result of the training, the facts I was taught in it, and the
knowledge and understanding I gained/developed. Here they are with brief
descriptions/details on each:
1.
Thoughts
on Brand Voice:
I learnt that there needs to be a balance in our charity’s brand voice in being
professional and technical whilst also seeming friendly and approachable.
2.
Auto/Template
Messages: In
developing that voice, I had the idea that some automated messages should be
created for enquiries that don’t require a personal response e.g. medical query.
Having a template response will provide continuity in terms of the brand voice
and the charity’s relationship with followers and supporters.
3.
Document
Creation: Prior
to this training, I had already recognised the need to create Strategies for
the charity in Marketing and Social Media, but the training talked about encouraging
the charity’s volunteers who have personal LinkedIn accounts, to share the
charity’s content and this led me to the thought of creating a document of
guidelines for those volunteers on staying safe and professional with their
social media.
4.
Video
Content: Sarah –
the training Facilitator – promoted the use of video content on LinkedIn, and I
had the idea to create clips featuring the Trustees answering questions about
the charity’s aim and objectives (which you can read about on the website, here). Then, in the
training there was discussion of Behind The Scenes (BTS) content and being
personable, so an idea for the charity could be a ‘Day In The Life Of…’ one of
the Trustees or volunteers.
More
recently, the Trustee who sent me the link for the training programmes on Rare
Beacon, also sent me the link to a seminar by Beacon named: Crafting Content to
Capture Your Audience’ (you can pay your ticket deposit on Eventbrite here)
and with it specialising and being specific to rare diseases, I responded with
a ‘yes’ immediately! It turned out though, that you had to pay a deposit of £15
which would be refunded if you attended the two sessions (it’s two hours – 11am
– 1pm each day for two days on September 15th and the 16th)
so I told the Trustee that I would need to book it when I had the money. She
ended up telling me that I shouldn’t be out of pocket for helping the charity
though and being the Treasurer, she actually went ahead and booked and paid for
my ticket for me!
This,
sort of small gesture actually went a long way in terms of how much it meant to
me. My Mum has always talked about how, in one of her jobs, she had wanted to
do various courses but had received no support from her Manager to enrol. So, I
recognised that not all employers offer this level of encouragement to better
your skills and knowledge – despite the obvious aspect that it would actually
likely enable you to be more effective and efficient in your role! And this is why
I was so grateful to that Trustee and the charity in general because I
recognised that it was also a huge sign of trust in me and showed a level of
trust and confidence in my ability to complete such a training course and to
apply what I might learn to my responsibilities and role with the charity. It
made me feel worthy, respected, and appreciated – qualities which, I feel, are
essential in making you feel more dedicated to your role or job and passionate about
the charity’s cause.
Then, when
my corporate email address was created, I found out that I still didn’t
officially have my title until the Board Meeting on July 8th where I
would be elected to the position by the Chair and a seconded! When that
happened, I actually felt a bit emotional – for all the reasons I’ve discussed
around it feeling like an achievement (both in terms of a career milestone and in
being a recovery-defining moment within my mental health journey in particular).
Another element to the Board Meeting came because it was still meant to just be a usual meeting – like, it wasn’t purely for myself and the other new Trustees to be elected in – so I got to hear the reports (namely from IT, Volunteer department, Medical, Finance, and General) that are presented at Board Meetings. And I ended up having quite a few ideas on things – ideas which everyone agreed with and supported the thought of. I really loved this and it hasn’t just been at that one meeting but literally all of my ideas have been deemed ‘good’ and have begun being acted upon or at least have been assigned to the relevant people. This is such a relief because I believe it’s a huge illustration or sign that I’m on the same page as others/the charity in general and having a similar mindset or thought process can go a long way in feeling welcome and confident in a new job.
Final Thoughts
I’m
incredibly excited to do more work with the charity and I feel like in addition
to being valuable, the other staff and volunteers seem to be a lovely team to
work with and I have confidence that we’ll do great things together!
Don’t
Forget to Follow All The Social Media To See The Content I Create
Facebook: @csfleakassociation
Twitter (X): @csfleakuk
Instagram: @csfleakassociation
LinkedIn: @csfleakassociation
YouTube: @csfleakassociation