Decision Day at the Volunteer Centre
It’s decision day in the Syston and District Volunteer Centre as the weekly task of matching social car requests for the following week with available drivers begins. This process is never easy and often very stressful. Current demand on the service regularly exceeds driver availability. Some tough decisions lie ahead.
Many hours later, as more than 100 journeys have already been successfully arranged and the last few pieces remain to be fitted into the schedule, there are three applicants for the remaining single available driver on the Friday.
David lives in Queniborough and needs to be driven to the LRI. He has been offered an 11.00am late cancellation appointment for an MRI scan to investigate the possibility of a brain tumour.
Maisie lives in Thurmaston, is registered blind and needs transport to her weekly hairdressing appointment in Syston for 1.00pm.
Hilda is a first-time applicant for the service. She lives in Birstall, uses a wheelchair and has an appointment at Melton Hospital scheduled for 12noon to assess a potential basal cell carcinoma on her leg.
What would your decision be? Who would you choose to disappoint?
In the event, Maisie’s request was accepted.
Peter has family living close by, to whom in an emergency, he can turn to for help, and he lives close to a bus route into town. Hilda is informed, with sincere regret, that, because of a shortage of drivers, the Centre currently has had to set up a waiting list for new applicants for the service.
For Maisie, who lives alone and has no family in the area, this is her once-a-week opportunity to leave her lonely house to meet and interact with others
Eagerly anticipated, this excursion represents the highlight of her week. Sadly, she is only one of hundreds of lonely and isolated people cut off from family, friends, local services and social activities
Many rarely receive visitors from one week to the next!
Low-cost, reliable transport provides an answer to their problems, enabling them to stay in touch and to continue to participate in family and community life.
Through the Syston and District Volunteer Centre, Centre, grant-aided, community transport is available to help address the problem. However, we urgently need more volunteer drivers to enable us to deliver this subsidised service to more of those in need.
We need volunteers to use their own cars, in return for generous mileage allowances, or to drive one of our specially adapted vehicles, to enable us to provide a more personal service for those needing to keep hospital and doctors’ appointments, visit family and friends or, simply, to do the weekly shop. Simple activities that the rest of us take for granted.
We need volunteers for training to drive our small fleet of minibuses, which provide a range of social excursions for groups.
All of our volunteers dictate their own patterns of availability and remain in complete control over the number of hours involved. Every single one speaks of how rewarding they find it.
If YOU have a spare hour or two in your week and would like to help to improve the quality of life for your lonely community fellows, we would love to hear from you.
For more information, please call into the Centre or telephone on
0116 2607 888. Alternatively, you can email: info@syston-vc.org